It’s now 55 years since I paid my first visit to the Forest, and I think that my transition to becoming a proper Forester might be almost complete. Living at various iconic (I hate the overused term ‘iconic’, used for the most trivial of things, but this time it’s really accurate) villages around the forest has been a journey from a being a foreigner to becoming an almost authentic Forester.

In my school days the Forest of Dean was a remote area coloured in black on maps which I studied in geography at school. The blackness was to signify that the Forest was a coal mining area, so there was some connection for me, as I was at school in the coalmining county of Durham. Gloucester, Worcester and other south western cities like Hereford, Bristol and Bath were exotic remote places outside my sheltered north eastern experience.

As a university student in London my ‘world’ expanded somewhat, and playing rugby for the university we toured Cornwall and had a fixture against Lydney, which was sadly cancelled, so my western experience was confined to Cornwall for many years.

In the early 1970s I would stay with college friends on the eastern side of the Severn, around Olveston and Almondsbury, and on one visit to that area we drove across the then new Severn Bridge to visit the Forest. I remember being impressed by the high hedgerows of Woolaston and Brockweir, and by the wonderful views of the contrasting wide Severn estuary and the narrow wooded Wye valley.

I was particularly impressed by the charm of St Briavels, which I thought of at the time and still do as the perfect ancient English village. We drank real ale and saw morris dancing at the George pub in the village square, and wandered around the village centre, viewing the mediaeval castle with its moat, the church and the tumps with glorious views of the River Wye valley far below.

I had been so captivated by this charming village that I attended an auction for a village cottage at the St Briavels village hall some time afterwards and recklessly made the highest offer, which resulted in a frantic visit to my bank manager the following day to persuade him to honor my bid, so I then moved from London to the forest. I enjoyed some years playing football and cricket for St Briavels and rugby for Bream. After a ten year exile abroad I returned to the Forest of Dean which is now forever my English base.