Tributes to Gordon Reid

Gordon Reid:  1927-2025

This winter has seen the passing of the Society’s formerly long-standing chairman, at the impressive age of 97.  He was a man of remarkable energy and skill, including as a communicator and as a negotiator.  His input over several decades was crucial to the development of the BNHS.

He was a very early member of the BNHS, set up in 1968, and soon gravitated onto its committee.  Both he and his wife Joan evolved what became the regular Bulletin, Joan editing it for many years and Gordon expediting its regular printing and production, acquiring a proper printing press that was maintained at 80 Sparrows Herne.

By its nature, the BNHS was alert to threats to wildlife-rich sites in the area, although in an area where development proposals were a constant feature it was necessary to stick to what was  practicable.  Gordon was quick to sense the possibilities arising from the planning inspector’s rejection of the South West Area Plan, which meant that a significant extent of the Langdon Ridge was protected from development.  Negotiation with the Basildon Development Corporation resulted in the securing of 40+ acres to form the Marks Hill Wood nature reserve in 1976, along with £10,000 from the Corporation to help in setting up. This included the cost of excavating what became known as Peck’s Pond in that drought year – a great long-term success, inadvertently celebrated over the years by Gordon when he fell into it during the course of conservation work.

From its inception the wood has been managed skilfully by volunteers working under the auspices of the BNHS, and the result has been highly commended by the Nature Conservancy Council and its  successors over the years.  Gordon’s role in generating the regular volunteer input was important, not least in the early days in organising bonfires to get rid of the vast amounts of brashings – supervised by him, with distinctive and increasingly smut-burnt holes in his bobble hat.  Eventually the bonfires were replaced by the highly effective device of constructing dead-hedges, making possible the closing-off of recently coppiced clearings.

A formal event to celebrate the opening of the reserve took place in 1981, Gordon succeeding in getting the artist Gordon Beningfield to do the honours – unfortunately on a very wet day in May, obliging a retreat to the Triangle Centre on Langdon Hills.

Thereafter, the 1980s saw the gradual winding down of the activities of the Basildon Development Corporation, amid various landscaping schemes in which Gordon was involved, including the creation of lakes on Flax Field and Rough Piece.

The longer-term fate of that whole area was sealed when in 1989 the best part of 500 acres were   secured for the creation of the Langdon Nature Reserve.  Gordon’s role was crucial, both in getting the Essex Wildlife Trust involved to own and run it, and in negotiating the necessary funding with which to buy the land and then pass the ownership to the EWT, utilising the fortuitously available  Herbert Langdon Dowset bequest.

Gordon was hugely involved in getting the reserve going during the 1990s, while acting as one of the trustees of the EWT as well as continuing his leading role in the BNHS as Chairman.

One result was the creation of a new interpretation and management centre on the edge of the      reserve at Dunton, with due negotiation to bring in David Bellamy to open it formally.

In 2018 the BNHS celebrated its 50 years’ existence – an achievement that owed a huge amount to Gordon – and Joan – from the early indoor meetings in the original Towngate Centre to those held subsequently in the Laindon Centre, to the regular fieldtrips and Bulletin publications.

Gordon spoke well at various of the meetings, communicating his love of flowers and gardening as well as wildlife – and his love of the folk around him.  His friendship and support, in so many ways, was massively appreciated by those around him.

Basildon New Town was blessed with a number of very creative people who worked hard to establish a rich and diverse cultural scene.  Both Gordon and Joan figured prominently among these, and it was appropriate that Gordon was named as one of the Basildon Heroes when the town’s seventy years’ existence was celebrated.

R. L. Cole