Shoreham author offers Rewilding The Urban Garden

Shoreham author Gerry Maguire Thompson is in print with Rewilding The Urban Garden: An Illustrated Diary of Nature’s Year (Wild Books, £9.99 available from Amazon).

Gerry, aged 75, said: “This is the story of my small wildlife garden in the town of Shoreham by Sea, told over nature's calendar year with a touch of humour and accompanied by drawn illustrations of the garden’s wild denizens.

“Every day in the garden brings new insights, surprises and drama as we get to know the wild creatures ever more intimately, learn how nature works in all its wondrous intricacy and discover our deep connectedness with it all. The journey has brought a great deal of fulfilment, joy and comfort in these challenging times. It’s amazing how many different life forms can be attracted into even a small urban outdoor space.

“The book was conceived during Covid Lockdown number one when I began to write a journal about the goings-on in the rewilding garden. I experienced long Covid, and these wild events were a great help in getting through that. After a year of writing the diary I thought about making it into a book. A publishing colleague suggested illustrating it so I embarked on that, which took another year. Then followed a third year of editing and getting through the publishing process.

“Wildlife has been important to me all my life ever since I was born in rural Ireland. I believe in doing all I can to support these varied species whom we as humans are putting under such dire pressure worldwide. Urban wild gardening is extremely beneficial to the environment and, if adopted widely, could make a tremendous difference to our localities and indeed to the planet. I believe this book will have appeal to those many people who feel the same way as I do about this, as well as to others who are interested in taking their gardening a little bit in this direction.

"Many are telling me they’re going to buy the book as a gift for loved ones – or for themselves! It’s available as a paperback or hardback. I’m working on a how-to follow-up book provisionally titled How to Rewild Your Urban Garden – and bring benefit to yourself, your locality and the planet. I’ve written a lot of other books. You can see them listed at https://www.gerrymaguirethompson.com/author/.