Iris Goldsmith, Ben’s eldest daughter, died in July 2019 in a freak accident at their Somerset farm. She was 15 years old. Being a high-profile family, the tragedy became national news, but in this very moving memoir, the leading rewilder and green investor bares his soul to let us into the darkest moments of his most private grief. Painfully honest, it is an astonishing account of living through every parent’s worst nightmare.
Though the author enjoys great privilege – few of us are in a position to create a full-size stone circle from Cornish granite to honour someone’s memory – his themes of loss, love and recovery are universal, the story beautifully told.
He finds comfort in wild swims, observing the passing seasons and the gradual realisation that a lifelong reverence for the natural world, something shared with Iris, is his deepest calling and purpose, akin to a religion.
Rewilding of the family farm is stepped up a gear, until it explodes with new life. Its unruly hedgerows, rewiggled stream, beaver pond and flowery meadows scattered with self-seeded saplings inspire neighbouring landowners to start doing the same, so that the Goldsmith estate becomes an “inkblot of wildness” spreading through the valley.
Vowing to keep on “hustling and haranguing” for nature, the broken-hearted conservationist eventually finds a kind of peace and the spirit of Iris lives on.
Reviewed by Ben Hoare
