Our dear friend Kit passed away on 3rd March and we want to celebrate her life by collecting funds for projects that she was passionate about.

Kit's many and varied interests

Kit, and lately her cowboy hat, have been seen around the Reading area since the 1980s when she arrived from Birkbeck College to work at Leighton Park school for a short while before joining the technical staff in Food Sciences at the University of Reading, where she remained until she retired.

Shortly after her arrival, she enrolled for a course delivered by Reading Urban Wildlife Group, was grabbed quickly as a person likely to be useful, and has been involved in RUWG, Econet, BBOWT and the Reading and District Natural History Society ever since, doing practical work, acting as treasurer or auditor, exploring pond life with children, helping to raise funds and Chair of BBOWT Mid-Berks regional Committee. 

That was merely a part of her interests and voluntary work. She was treasurer of the Quekett, the national microscopical society, for many years and rarely missed one of their meetings in the Natural History Museum, and one of the leaders in the Reading Microscopical Society, organising conferences and taster sessions in the Reading area. She taught herself how to take amazing photographs down the microscope and has a wonderful collection of prepared slides of chemicals, biological subjects and geological specimens. Which brings us onto her work as treasurer of the Reading Geological Society where she went on every field trip until she felt that her difficulties in walking were an unfair burden on other participants.

​Added to those interests were philosophy, linguistics and mathematics. She took courses in maths at Oxford university until two years ago.

So how to choose a suitable project to fund in memory of Kit? 

Of course, it should probably be something suitable for detailed  microscopic examination: a fund for the protection of tardigrades,  or a pond teeming with aquatic invertebrates. Alternatively, something in environmental education as she paid into the  Field Studies Council's fund for providing introductory courses for children. She was also keen on woodland and lichens.

Her last time as an expert trainer was at the BBOWT Environmental Centre at Woolley Firs where we ran a pond dipping course for adults. Luckily for us, no-one attended, and we had a great day with all the microscopes including watching a budding hydra which was a first for all of us. Kit came to the centre at other times for lichen courses and earthworm identification and just to enjoy the surroundings. 

What we will put your donations towards

Woolley Firs is near to Maidenhead Thicket, which has a population of white-letter hairstreak butterflies, dependent on elm flowers as a food source for the caterpillars.  Peter Cuss has kindly provided photos for the gallery.  The species has been radically reduced by Dutch Elm diseases and is a priority species under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. Butterfly Conservation are running a project (the Upper Thames Elm Project) to plant new disease-resistant elms to allow the species to expand.  Kit's fund will pay for such trees to be planted on the Woolley Firs estate next winter.

Any surplus will go into the bursary fund to pay for schools with a high proportion of children eligible for free school meals to attend the centre.

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