Nicola Chester is a British nature writer. She is a regular columnist in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' and in the

RSPB The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a Charitable_organization#United_Kingdom, charitable organisation registered in Charity Commission for England and Wales, England and Wales and in Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, ...

's magazine, and has written a memoir ''On Gallows Down''.

Early life and education

Chester is from a working-class family: her father was a firefighter and her mother an assistant in local government. She applied to an agricultural college to study game and wildlife conservation management, but was told that the course was for

gamekeeper In the United Kingdom, a gamekeeper (often abbreviated to keeper) is a person who manages an area of countryside (e.g., areas of woodland, moorland, waterway or farmland) to make sure that there is enough Game (hunting), game for hunting, or fish ...

s and all gamekeepers were men. She spent a year working on a horse ranch in Canada, and then returned to England and studied English literature at King Alfred's College, now the

University of Winchester The University of Winchester is a public research university based in the city of Winchester, Hampshire, England. The university has origins tracing back to 1840 as a teacher training college, but was established in 2005. Winchester University ...

, supporting herself with part-time jobs. She works as a

school librarian ''School Librarian'' is a quarterly publication of the School Library Association (SLA) reviewing and discussing the latest children's books. History and profile ''School Librarian'' was started in 1937. Each issue contains articles, regular fea ...

Writing career

Chester won the '' BBC Wildlife Magazine'' award for nature writing in 2003, and was then offered a column in the

's magazine ''Nature's Home''. She has been one of the writers of ''

'' "Country Diary" since 2019. Her ''Otters'' (2014,

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...

: ) was the first book in the

's ''Spotlight'' series. Her memoir ''On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging'' (2021,

Chelsea Green Chelsea Anne Cardona (née Green; born April 4, 1991) is a Canadian professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE, where she works on the WWE SmackDown (brand), SmackDown WWE brand extension, brand under the ring name Chelsea Green and is the lea ...

: ) won the 2021 Richard Jefferies Award, was shortlisted for the 2022

Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing The Wainwright Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of general outdoors, nature and UK-based travel writing. In 2020 it was split into the Wainwright Prize for UK Nature Writing and the Wainwright Prize for Writing on Glo ...

, and was included in BBC Countryfile Magazine's "best nature and countryside books of 2021". It takes its name from Gallows Down, on which

Combe Gibbet Combe Gibbet is a gibbet at the top of Gallows Down, near the village and just within the civil parish of Combe in Berkshire (formerly Hampshire), England. Location The gibbet is located at , on the Test Way close to the Berkshire-Hampshire bor ...

stands, above her home village of

Inkpen Inkpen is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, southeast of Hungerford, most of the land of which is cultivated fields with scattered woodland once part of a former forest of Savernake. Inkpen has boundaries with Wiltshire and Hamp ...

West Berkshire West Berkshire is a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Berkshire, England. It is administered from Newbury by West Berkshire Council. History The district of Newbury was formed on 1 April 1974, as a merger of the borough of Newbur ...

. A reviewer in ''

The Sociological Review ''The Sociological Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of sociology, including anthropology, criminology, philosophy, education, gender, medicine, and organization. The journal is published by SAGE Publishin ...

'' describes it as "an autobiographical account of how a white working-class woman has, at times, struggled to maintain a sense of belonging and acceptance in rural England" and says that as well as being part of the genre of "new nature writing" it is also "about gender and social class in the English countryside". In 2024 she was appointed as one of the judges of the inaugural

Climate Fiction Prize The Climate Fiction Prize is a literary award for climate fiction, launched in June 2024 at the Hay Festival in Wales. The prize "will aim to showcase novels that engage with themes concerning the climate crisis". The prize, of , is supported b ...

References

External links

* Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British nature writers 21st-century British women journalists Alumni of the University of Winchester People from Berkshire British women memoirists {{UK-writer-stub