RODNEY LEGG 1947 - 2011
When I was first able to get to Steep Holm in the late 1970s, Rodney Legg, who has just died, was its singular and eccentric warden. Steep Holm had been bought in 1976 with money raised in the memory of Kenneth Allsop: one of the first environmental journalists of the television age. Rodney had got to know Kenneth through the Dorset County Magazine of which Rodney was both founder and editor. For some years they shared an intense and implacable environmental agenda. After Kenneth’s death, Rodney, together with Mandy Allsop Kenneth’s daughter, John Percival and the renowned author John Fowles and his wife Elizabeth visited Steep Holm in November 1973. As a result John Fowles wrote: “In everyway the island is experiencing an ecological low, yet it has immense potential and could become a place of great beauty again . . .” The island was only just beginning to emerge from the depredations of the Second World War.
For a few years the island was leased to the Memorial Trust until it was eventually purchased, under very generous terms, in March 1976. The previous few years hadn’t been wasted however, for Rodney along with Tony Parsons, Stan and Joan Rendell and innumerable volunteers had been busy clearing the debris of war and organising, for the first time, regular trips from the mainland. Slowly, Steep Holm became less of ‘bomb site’, to use John Fowles’ description, and more of a nature reserve. Around this time Rodney committed a few environmental misjudgements: the introduction of hedgehogs and muntjac deer to the island. The hedgehogs did very well at first with a monumental population explosion, but this was followed by population collapse and extinction. They had eaten themselves out of house and home. The muntjacs were introduced in the hope they might reduce the prevalence of scrub. The deer have survived and they are a surprise treat for visitors when they catch sight of them. Unfortunately, they have had little effect on the scrub.
For many years, Rodney with Chris Maslen and Jenny Smith worked on the restoration of the old inn that overlooks the island’s pebble beach. Rodney could usually be found labouring on an inn wall wearing a pair of candy-pink, Marigold, rubber gloves. Sadly, problems with the inn’s restoration proved insurmountable and the island trust switched its energies to the Victorian Barracks. While all this was going on, Rodney wrote and published four books on Steep Holm all of which are a delightful read. In 1985, he also produced the island’s first guide which remains something of a classic.
Rodney retired from wardening Steep Holm in 1998, but he kept very busy. He wrote many walking guides which included the Mendip and Blackdown Hills, and the Dorset and Somerset coastlines. Indeed, he published something like 125 books in all! He was an engaged committee member of the Open Spaces Society and the National Trust - often upsetting people with his views. He worked ceaselessly keeping Dorset’s footpaths clear and accessible - often with his own secateurs. For me, Rodney was always kind, welcoming and slightly mad. I especially remember falling off the boat and into Pescara’s Pizzeria (now Tarantella’s) in St. James Street after a hot day on the island and being surprised by Rodney’s unexpected arrival a while later - still wearing his pink Marigold gloves.
Howard Smith
Steep Holm Trips for 2011
August: 30. September: 11, 14, 17. October: 1, 15.
For information about Steep Holm visit: www.steepholm.org.uk
Or contact the Booking Secretary on 01934 522125.
