Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
Blooming gorgeous!
She kept them secret for years, but now a spinster schoolteacher’s glorious wild flower illustrations have been turned into a delightful book
Most of the gardening books publ ished in 2016 were big, coffee- table tomes, filled with beautiful photographs of perfectly manicured gardens. Yet one of the best and most inspiring books was a slim volume written and illustrated by a spinster schoolteacher who died seven years ago.
Wild Flowers Of Britain Month By Month is the result of 45 years of work by Margaret Erskine Wilson, a French teacher who was a passionate amateur botanist and artist in her spare time. She began painting watercolours of wild flowers in 1943 after a friend told her it would help her learn their names if Margaret drew them for her in the months they were in flower. Margaret went on painting flowers, both in Britain and abroad, until her mid-70s, when ill health forced her to give up. Her work has now been collected into an exquisite little book, perfectly sized for a walker’s rucksack.
Judith Robinson, honorary secretary of the Kendal Natural History Society in Cumbria, of which Margaret was a past president, has been the driving force behind getting the book published. ‘She learned to paint from her maternal grandfather, who was a wellknown painter and naturalist,’ says Judith, who first met her in 1969. Born in 1915, Margaret won a scholarship to Cambridge to read modern languages and then studied textile design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. At the outbreak of the Second World War she went into teaching, first in Somerset and then in Kendal.
Judith describes Margaret as ‘a rather reserved person, who could appear somewhat austere,’ although she sounds like an inspiring teacher – if her older pupils were interested in botany, she would invite them to join her on her walks, and reward them with tea and cake afterwards. Despite this, she kept her talent for painting fairly quiet. ‘The first I knew about it was when she invited a group of us to her bungalow to see her paintings and sketches,’ says Judith. ‘They were spread around her living room and we were completely amazed by how beautiful they were.’
Margaret did her painting out in the open, capturing on large sheets of paper the flowers she saw growing around her. She would add to the sheets as the weeks went on, building up a detailed record of what was in f lower that month. Eventually she would paint 1,000 British and Irish wild flowers on 150 sheets of paper, plus many more sketches done on trips abroad to countries including
Wild Flowers Of Britain Month By Month by Margaret Erskine Wilson (Merlin Unwin Books, £8.99). To order a copy for £6.74, visit mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640, p&p is free on orders over £15. Offer is valid until 21 January. Afghanistan, Turkey, the US, France, Italy and Switzerland.
Her book has drawn comparison with the definitive Concise British Flora In Colour by William Keble Martin, first published in 1965. Although Margaret’s book isn’t as comprehensive – she reckoned she’d painted no more than 75 per cent of the flora of Britain – her work is remarkable for the joy with which she captures the plants. Reading Wild Flowers Of Britain makes you want to rush out and explore the countryside yourself, something Margaret would no doubt have heartily approved of.