Hugh Thomson

Roger Deakin – at ease in the countryside as a poacher with deep pockets

Patrick Barkham pays tribute to the much-missed nature writer, whose core response to the call of the wild animated everything he did

Roger Deakin. [Photograph by Sheila Rock/Bridgeman Images] 
issue 10 June 2023
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  • The Swimmer: The Wild Life of Roger Deakin

    Patrick Barkham

    Hamish Hamilton, pp. 400, £20

Few authors have left such an immediate legacy as Roger Deakin. When he died of a sudden illness in 2007, aged 63, he had written just two books: Waterlog, which set off the wild swimming craze, and the even more influential Wildwood, which helped kickstart the publishing phenomenon of nature writing.

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