Norman Lewis - a true stalwart of efforts to protect wildlife across our county

As a charity in our seventh decade, we're lucky enough to have had folk who've made contributions as founding members, stalwart volunteers or staff. Individuals helped set up and guide our charity save and care for our nature reserves and shaped how we stand up for wildlife across the county.

- By ERIN MCDAID

One such individual was Norman Lewis, our first ever member of staff, whose involvement as a volunteer long predated his time as an employee. In 2023 Norman joined us to mark our 60th Anniversary but, sadly, Norman passed away last month, aged 95, after a short illness.

Norman is synonymous with Attenborough Nature Reserve where he spent time monitoring bird species including warblers and reed buntings in the 1950s. In the early 1960s Norman was a key part of the group of residents and University of Nottingham staff who led the charge to prevent the lagoons at Attenborough being infilled with ash from the proposed Radcliffe-on-Soar Power Station. This fight was pivotal to securing Attenborough's future as a nature reserve and to the formation of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust.

Norman mentored a generation of volunteers at Attenborough through his bird ringing and, as evidenced from the tributes across social media channels - he continued to mentor a generation of ecologists long into his 'retirement'.