Palaeontologist and fungi researcher Richard Fortey talks to us about his latest book, 'Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind', and what to expect from his upcoming appearance at Southwold Literary Festival in November.
Richard Fortey spent his working life in palaeontology at the Natural History Museum, specialising in trilobites and becoming a world expert. He was elected President of the Geological Society of London in 2007 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Literature. He is the writer of eight previous science and nature books, including two Sunday Times bestsellers. He has presented many TV programmes across the BBC and other channels.
Richard has spent much of his lifetime searching for rare and extraordinary fungi, in a quest to understand the importance of ‘the forgotten kingdom' in the web of nature. In Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind: In Pursuit of Remarkable Mushrooms he takes us on his journey to meet luminous brackets, stinkhorns and stranglers, and many other bizarre and wonderful mushrooms and toadstools, ranging from the ugliest and strangest species to the beautiful silky rosegill. This is a celebration of fungi in all their different roles - both in the natural world and in our own lives.
Richard's latest book Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind was published by William Collins on 12 September and is available from the Suffolk Libraries catalogue. You can see Richard in person at the Southwold Literary Festival where he is appearing on 8 November.
I read extensively from an old edition of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia. A very ‘worthy’ series of volumes, with now outdated attitudes to Empire within them. Nonetheless they fostered curiosity and had reconstructions of life through geological time that stayed with me. Fiction: well, Sherlock Holmes and Rider Haggard and, later, Dickens and random selections from my father’s Everyman volumes. I read a lot, but without much discrimination. I acquired a generous vocabulary, which stood me in good stead.
Absolutely. At Porth–y-Rhaw near St Davids in west Wales, beside a choppy sea. I described the moment in my book Trilobite! (2000). My first trilobite was more than 500 million years old, and I was thrilled.
I once put it as “amuse yourself – for money”. I could not believe that I was actually being paid to study trilobites! The first ten years were the perfect job for me, with a lot of freedom to determine my research paths, and government money to do so. Behind the scenes became my life. There were irritating Civil Service rules to observe, but that was a small price to pay. Thatcherism then compelled us to win research grants in competition with university departments – some of the fun went out of it. Eventually, those who didn’t have ‘money making’ projects were not replaced when they retired. Like so many institutions, research staff numbers fell as fundraisers increased.
I told this story among many in my book Dry Store Room No 1 in 2008.
I was fascinated by fungal mystery and variety when I was still very young. They seemed weird and wonderful – and you could eat (some of) them. The more I learned the more there was still to find out – they were a whole, remarkable kingdom. I loved the New Naturalist book by John Ramsbottom, but at that time there were very few ID sources, so that posed a special challenge. I kept my fungus habit as a hobby even as I became a professional palaeontologist. But it was many years before I got into their microscopy, and that opened up another new world.
I do think that wandering freely is the greatest way to learn to love nature and discover how to observe closely. Children are more over-protected these days – and their imaginations are fed by electronic diversions that probably alienate them from the natural world, whose gratifications come more slowly.
After writing seven books mostly about geology and the history of life, my writing took a greater focus on to natural history, particularly after buying our own piece of woodland that I described in The Wood for the Trees. I identified all the fungi over more than ten years. I thought it was about time to bring the fungi into my writing. Because there are so many thousands of species – an impossible task - I thought I should focus on special discoveries made over my lifetime that serve to illuminate the larger fungi as a whole. My approach has always been to reach science through telling stories, and I had always striven to make reading one of my books as enjoyable as reading a novel. I hope this one is no exception.
There are special fungi in Suffolk because it is one of the driest parts of the country. Rarities crop up there almost every year. Most spectacular recently was the rediscovery of the Pepper Pot puffball after more than a century. It’s rarer than the Ghost Orchid. The sandlings are full of earth balls and colourful brittlegill mushrooms of every hue. The old commons often sport Parasol Mushrooms that are easily visible from a passing car because of their size – and they are probably one of the safer edible species. There are even a whole raft of species that like to live in sand dunes near the coast.
At the moment I feel I have now put down my whole brain on paper! Whether I have the energy to pick up my pen (a.k.a. computer) again remains to be seen.
I will give a talk about fungi profusely illustrated with slides to show just a few of the highlights from Brief Encounters. I hope the audience will be encouraged to dig deeper, and view the hidden fungal world with suitable awe. And of course use my book for the journey.
Oh yes. In my early life to scratch my writing itch I wrote humorous books under two pen names: Roderick Masters and W C Bindweed. It was a while before I was commissioned to write my scientific books.
