Insights from walking around England and Wales: #15 Inspiration often arrives without notice.

In April 2019, nine months and 3,400 miles into the walk, I happened upon an unexpected and inspiring tale.

I was walking along on the grassy sea walls of southern Lincolnshire, a place to empty one’s mind and fill one’s lungs. I came upon a lighthouse, set deep in the tidal marshes. And as I learned, not just any lighthouse. It is one of the most important and romantic buildings in the history of global conservation.

The East Nene lighthouse was home in the 1930s to Peter Scott. Peter Scott was the son of one of the world’s most famous failed explorers – Robert Scott, who perished on his journey back from the South Pole. In 1933 Peter, aged 24, was washed ashore from his sailboat near the lighthouse. Captivated by the then-abandoned building, he moved there, and over the next six years became a wildlife artist and writer.

?After serving in the war, Scott founded the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust and later co-founded the World Wildlife Fund ( WWF ), serving as its first chairman. He designed WWF's iconic panda symbol. He served as the public face of WWF, which is now the world’s largest international conservation non-profit, with over 1.2 million members in the US alone. It was all influenced by his years in this lonely lighthouse, painting the wildfowl.

?A longer version of this post can be found here .

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