People, places and landscapes have always fascinated me. Imagine my delight as a young boy, when I discovered a subject called geography. Throughout school I had good geography teachers who made the subject come alive. It was a natural progression for me to study geography at university.
As an undergraduate I was probably regarded as a bit of a geek. When the department’s research students needed a second pair of hands I would hold the surveying pole to record beach-profile changes at Spurn Point, dig soil pits on the North York Moors to collect samples for laboratory analysis, and even do some of the basic lab work looking at the effects of controlled bracken burning on soil quality and degradation. I was free labour — but it introduced me to the world of geographical research and that would not have happened if I had just attended lectures and tutorials.
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