Natural England - Banking on Roy

Banking on Roy

Seventy-seven year old Roy Crossley has been fascinated by natural history all his life – by the age of nine he had decided that he wanted to be a professional naturalist and at fourteen he joined the ‘Junior Bird Recorders Club’.

Roy Crossley

This was followed by a stint bird ringing with Halifax Zoological Society, but back in the 1940’s there were few job opportunities in nature conservation and Roy reluctantly followed a career in banking instead.

Roy’s interest in wildlife didn’t end there though. He had become interested in invertebrates whilst in his twenties and, following early retirement in 1988, he spent 15 years as a consultant entomologist before retiring for a second time at the age of seventy. It was during this period that Roy became familiar with the Lower Derwent Valley NNR; carrying out his first invertebrate survey there in 1987 and becoming a volunteer in the early 1990’s. Roy is candid about his initial reasons for volunteering – “it gave me access to survey sites that were closed to the public; as well as enabling me to claim my expenses!”

Things have certainly changed in the twenty years that Roy has been volunteering. Lower Derwent Valley NNR is now promoted as an important site for delivering Natural England’s education outreach work. Roy has embraced this area of volunteering; whether it is planning events for the local U3A group or leading mini-beast hunts for schoolchildren – “I love talking about wildlife and the work that Natural England is doing” he says, adding “it’s great fun taking children out and showing them the wildlife”.

Let’s hope some of those children are inspired by their experience in the same way that Roy was more than sixty years ago. He is in no doubt about the value of volunteering or his motivation – “During my life I’ve had huge rewards from natural history; I owe it to people to put something back”.