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Sir John Lister-Kaye is one of Britain's best-known naturalists and conservationists. He is the author of ten books on wildlife and the environment and has lectured all over the world. He has served prominently in the RSPB, the Nature Conservancy Council, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish Wildlife Trust. In 2002 he was awarded an OBE for services to nature conservation. In 2016 he was awarded the Royal Scottish Geographical Society's Geddes Medal for services to the environment. He lives with his wife and family among the mountains of the Scottish Highlands, where he runs the world famous Aigas Field Centre. His book Gods of the Morning won the inaugural Richard Jefferies Prize.
The White Island (1972)
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Acknowledgements
She had died suddenly and shockingly in her fifties, catching us all off guard – my father, my sister, me, her own twin sister, everyone who knew and loved her. None of us were prepared for it, although for God’s sake we’d had enough warning. Years of it. She’d been an invalid since my birth, battling with a degenerative heart condition, a struggle against hopeless odds with never the remotest chance of winning, yet never giving up. We knew it but we hadn’t seen it. We hadn’t seen it coming because we ruddy well didn’t want to and because she’d fooled us – brilliantly fooled us – for years and years. Even when all the chips were down she still managed to trick us into thinking she was OK, that somehow she’d pull through, that she’d always be there for us. She’d led us through a lifelong masterclass of endlessly loving, benign deception – a life of perpetual, courageous, stoical, dogged, resolute, unflinching – yes, bloody astounding – concealment because never once through all her trials did she ever complain about her ghastly, crippling condition, never once gave up hope or gave in to the slightest flicker of self-pity. We all knew she was seriously ill, but we blindly and stupidly refused to believe it. It’s called denial.
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