On Monday 21^st March, Mrs. Lee Durrell visited the school and talked to Years 3-8 about the life and work of her husband, Gerald, and about the ongoing work of the Durrell Conservation Trust to save species from extinction. Gerald Durrell is, of course, best known for his book ‘My Family and Other Animals’ and numerous television adaptations have been made of his life and work. The children were treated to a huge number of slides which brought to life the stories of extraordinary efforts to conserve endangered species from places as far-flung as Mauritius and Madagascar. They were all clearly amazed at the sheer numbers of different species whose chances of survival have been profoundly affected by Gerald’s work and the work of the Trust and learned an enormous amount about how one person’s passion and vision can inspire a truly international effort to protect aspects of our planet. Plus they got to ‘oooh’ and ‘aaaah’ at some pictures of very cute, and sometimes rather bizarre, animals! This included the ‘LBJs’: Gerald’s acronym for ‘Little Brown Jobs’, unusual and obscure small mammals.

Many interesting questions were asked at the end of the talk and some lucky Year 4s had the time to stay behind and get an autograph each

Our enormous thanks to Lee for coming in and sharing her knowledge, wisdom and passion..