Gardening guru who was ahead of his time

As you turn through today’s paper you will perhaps have noticed some stories about the natural environment. There is a magnificent reader’s picture of a tiny firecrest at Gosport and a two-page spread about conservation and rewilding not only in Hampshire but also in Portsmouth.

It was not that long ago that devoting nearly half a page to a photograph of a tiny bird would have been laughed out of our editorial conferences. The word ‘rewilding’ would have garnered confused looks, and ‘conservation’ was all about buildings, wasn’t it?

There is nothing unusual about today’s copy of The News. We run stories and features about these subjects almost every day. We do so because we recognised years ago the growing importance our readers placed on the natural world and the quality of the environment in which they lived and worked.

Brian Kidd was ahead of the game.

It is with much sadness that today we also report the death of our gardening columnist and long-time head of Portsmouth’s award-winning parks and gardens.

Brian was the gardening correspondent for The News for about four decades. His horticultural knowledge, learnt in the Greenhouse of Hard Knocks as an apprentice, was legendary. In gardening circles, Brian was a legend.

He was also one of life’s good guys. A decent human being who never had a bad word to say about anybody and never had a bad word uttered against him.

He cared passionately about the environment long before it was fashionable. He never preached but sprinkled his views into his weekly columns. There were pleas to protect birds, stop using some chemicals, make your own compost, and how to enjoy the wonders of gardening even if you lived in a tower block.

Thanks Brian. We’ll miss you.