Eric Hardy was the first "proper" birdwatcher I knew. Not just a birdwatcher either. He knew all about flowers, butterflies, moths, trees ... he was brilliant. And .... he was a true eccentric. Getting on towards the Eccentric's eccentric. For a start, he always wore absolutely ancient outfits ... they looked like they'd been through both wars, never mind one.He always looked like he's just crawled out of a tank. He was a Merseyside creature through and through.... and he published his major sighting in the Liverpool Echo !! That's the way to do it. His writing was both peculiar and rambling. I once wrote an affectionate parody of his writing style, which, of course, I can't find, but I'll make another version of it to give you the idea. He would write huge wandering sentences flitting from one thing to another almost randomly. He wrote more or less what his mind was doing. You also got the impression that he was outside almost all the time. I often wondered if he ever actually went indoors at all. He was also what my mother would call "cantankerous." I came across him because I was in the Merseyside Naturalist's Association when I was somewhere around 14 -16-ish. It was with them and their coach trips that I got out of the grot-spot that is and was Widnes ... we went to the Lakes, and into North Wales mostly. And he was the leader.... and he lead from the front, striding on ahead with his big stick and hefty binoculars, probably ex-commando jobs. Much, much later he had his own slot on Radio Merseyside .... what an amazing program that was ! He spoke exactly as he wrote ... but more so. And he would rampage on about all sorts of things, slagging organisations and individuals off left right and centre. I was looking him up on't net, and found he had written several books I'd never heard of ... as you can see, they got smaller and smaller over time ... I would never have thought that he would have written a book for " bird-lovers." I bet the publisher gave it that title.On the sly. Under the radar. I also found this ....... he lived to a good old age.... I bet he always looked old from infancy. The book mentioned in this brief article is the one at bottom right above, In the Footsteps of Eric Hardy. Through his weekly natural history programme on Radio Merseyside and his record-breaking column in the Liverpool Daily Post, Eric Hardy (1912-2002) inspired may people to get out and about in the North-West of England. In this wonderful book, a compilation and selection of Eric's newspaper articles, David Bryant has brought the wildlife of the area to everyone. Illustrated with copious maps, line drawings and photographs, the book will tell you where to go and what to see at every time of the year. There's not much else about him...well, I haven't found much ...but eventually I came across this. I never knew he was an Aquarist !! Surely he would never have been indoors to feed them. Maybe he kept his outside and got the neighbours to feed the beggars. This article is a bit long, but it does show you his rather cantakerous nature ... he was not slow to voice his left-wing views, partially moulded by the post-war years I would imagine ... I'll highlight a few of the choice bits ... right from the start with that dig at people who made a lot of dodgy money out of the war ... I've also added a few snide comments of my own ... and cut out some of the boring bits .. Aquarists and Fish-keeping in the 20th Century. Part 4: Eric Hardy Fifty Years On. Memories of Progress in the Water World by Eric Hardy, President of the Merseyside A.S. The golden jubilee of The Aquarist is a milestone in publishing history. In 1924, the hobby was truly for the "Amateur" Aquarist. Those of us whose parents didn't hold shares in wartime aircraft industries had little spare cash. It was a time of cold-water and marine aquaria before the advent of electrically-heated tropicals. More tanks were stocked then to study the natural history of native species than for anything like modern fish-shows. A striking change has been many more women sharing the hobby of fish-keeping. Societies were full of lonely old maids, particularly hopeful teachers, who seldom took office. What old fogies they were (and the men!). No field-meetings were permitted on Sundays. The toll of the 1914-18 war left an appreciable gap of young men between 20 and 40, unlike the aftermath of the last war. From his home in Astonville Street, Southfields, A. E. Hodge built up The Aquarist at 1/- a quarter to attract the more far-seeing naturalists rather than these worshippers of tradition out of touch with the future. In recent years, the M.A.S. has held field-trips to Anglesey and Birmingham water-plant nurseries whereas in 1931 the old M.A.S. went collecting no further than for pond-beetles and water-crickets by the Manchester Ship Canal at Warrington, stocking their tanks with minnows, roach and perch from now polluted Padeswood Lake at Buckley in North Wales, Liverpool's nearest haunt of palmated newts. Or collecting bullheads and nine-spined sticklebacks, and sweeping netfuls of dragonfly-larvae, pond-skaters and Planorbis shells from the now filled-in brackish pool behind Leasowe Embankment, by the Wirral sea. The latter pool was famous for water-spiders, which fed on the swarms of Gammarus. People who wished to delve in ditchwateristics (!!!)(brilliant!!) before Jefferies started his aquarium society had to join a rather expensive and aloof Biological Society, meeting at the university. It has since withered away. It pioneered in marine biology to the neglect of freshwater life, a position the university reversed in recent years. By the mid-30s, however, things were very different. Though without the present jobs for the new boys, conservationists were active enough to get the 1937 export of Chinese white cloud mountain-minnows banned. In his Richmond, Surrey, garden, my friend the late L. G. Payne had probably the first amateur open air vivarium outside Whipsnade's walled and moated rockery of snakes and lizards. He was in a bank.( Surely Hardy wouldn't approve of bankers !!??) The biggest changes since 1924, apart from tropical imports, have been in our native water-life and our access to ponds and waters. These have been filled in by speculative urban building estates and drained by improved rural farming, to the loss of much aquatic plantlife (especially in Cambridgeshire). In the March 1937 edition of The Aquarist I mentioned finding natterjack toads from the Solway marshes to the West Lancashire dunes below Southport, Leasowe and Hilbre in Cheshire and to Prestatyn. The latter haunt has gone and vigorous efforts are now being made to save the remnants at the others. In March 1940, I wrote of water-beetles. By 1960 DDT sprays had reduced them from many old haunts. The Severn has been occupied by barbel and the chub exterminated from the Dee. Little ringed plovers have come to nest by many gravel-pits and inland pools, and creeping New Zealand willowherb has travelled alongside mountain streams. If all the people working on natterjack toads, from biology to conservation, in south-west Lancashire alone would sit around a table and discuss their studies and problems amicably, there would be less suspicion and jealousy behind the scenes. Such a medium brings the fish-keeper to appreciate the ecologist's approach to the subject and the, perhaps a little snobbish and aloof, university student, or Ph.D., to tolerate the fish-show. After all, the late Dr. Francis Manning, from Cheshire, began, before he got his B.A. and Ph.D., as an enthusiastic pre-war member of Belle Vue Aquarium Society, where I first met him going to its shows and eagerly awaiting each new issue of The Aquarist. Fortunately, it has never descended to the wise-cracking almost illiterates of some North American pet-keeping magazines. Writing since pre-war in The Aquarist (and now defunct Water Life) brought me many new friends, but not, I hope, any enemies! I have brought home some of the interests and pleasures of my visits to the ponds and rivers, which I exchanged for the laboratory many years ago, and shared them with the readers of my notes. My typewriter has not always been such a tripewriter as proclaimed by critics of my stubborn stand for the right of every amateur, to study natural history in the countryside. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jings !! .. that was a bit long. Even after all my "editing." But it certainly gives you a flavour of what he was like. so ...let's have some music......... I'm sure Eric would have approved of Half Man Half Biscuit ... giving the Establishment a good kicking ... here they are with the real truth about our malfunctioning northern transport system and the dawning realisation that the Northern Powerhouse was in fact a Tory con to get half-witted simpletons to vote for them ... they never intended to do it right from the start ... here they are again with "Time flies by when you're the driver of a train."
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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