Bob Hodgson, Nature Hero

Bob Hodgson is one of my heroes. He was a self taught botanist and devoted a lot of time bringing others into his love of nature, something that is a core aim of the Sid Valley Biodiversity Group. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s Bob was out early on summer mornings to prepare a fresh wild flower display for Sidmouth Museum to tell visitors about the local flora, and all before going off to work as a carpenter.

Picking wild flowers is now frowned upon, the disappearance of flowers such as wild daffodils shows why, but Bob was a careful and responsible collector. He would only collect common flowers, and even then in small numbers that would leave plenty to set seed.

Trawling through old SVA magazines, I came across one of his articles describing a walk around Dunscombe and Weston telling people what they might see there. This is one of my favourite walks and I am delighted to say most of what Bob describes can still be seen. We have done before and I am sure the Biodiversity Group will lead more walks around the area when summer returns.

As Bob tells us, a key to the diversity is the range of habitats, there are areas of woodland, calcareous and acid grasslands, boggy areas, and the adventurous can go all the way down to the beach.

On the way round there is plenty of shining cranesbill and yellow archangel along the hedgerows, and marsh horsetail and brooklime speedwell in the wet areas. The Nottingham catchfly still clings to the cliff edge, but it is a bit tricky getting close to it.

The semi-parasitic eyebright and yellow rattle keep the grass sward short by sucking goodness from grass roots, while the ghostly and fully parasitic broomrape extracts all the food it needs from the roots of the ivy. The short grass is still studded with the shocking pink heads of pyramidal orchids.

Apart from promoting public engagement with nature, Bob Hodgson was a serious botanist and he recorded 480 different plants in the area. In another of his entries in the SVA magazines, he says ‘it is interesting to note what we have gained and lost since Peter Orlando Hutchinson’s Flora of 1860’, actually a list compiled by the local doctor W.H. Cullen along with Lady Kennaway and the Rev. Richard Cresswell in 1849.

There used to be butterworts and sundews, insectivorous plants, growing in the bogs of Bickwell Valley and Salcombe Hill, the bogs have gone and so have the insectivorous plants. He laments the loss of rock sea lavender when the road was made down to Jacob’s ladder.

He also notes that we have gained new species through plant introductions and garden escapes such as the Alexanders that is now such a nuisance on Peak Hill, monkey flower and Indian or Himalayan balsam along the river.

Bob was a stalwart of the SVA, not only with his flower displays, but he acted for years as the association’s handyman. The last entry that mentions Bob is a call for a replacement handyman in 1985 when Gerald Gibbens wrote ironically ‘Bob Hodgson says that he would like to be relieved from many upkeep jobs. Extraordinary, when he is only 84, and all summer… having combed the area – Weston, and so on – on his bike and put up fresh specimens in the Museum.’

Ed Dolphin