WHEN I was eight-years-old (more than 50 years ago!) my primary school teacher introduced me to the Wild Flower Society.

This wonderful organisation which is a charity, began in 1886. The society provides members with a wild flower diary. It has now changed its name to the Field Botanists Book which I think is a pity because it sounds far too academic.

The society organises field meetings between March 1 and October 31. These are, however, some flowers which can be found in bloom almost all the year round especially in mild winters.

The thing I like about the Wild Flower Society is that they are not just interested in rare plants.

Even the most common plants are very pretty and modern cameras have made good conservationists out of all of us. We do not need to collect wild flowers which soon fade but we can retain our coloured photographs for ever.

This same teacher gave me copies of a magazine called Countryside and more than 30 years later I became editor of that same magazine.

On her 95th birthday I sent her a copy of the magazine to celebrate the fact that she had been a subscriber for 80 years! Young naturalists do seem to last a long time!