Anne Press: The 'Mother of all Trees' who's spent her life immersed in the world's nature

WHILE the pandemic is making many of us fully appreciate the beauty of the natural world, with people turning to the Moors and Dales for solace, Anne Press has dedicated her whole life to working with the environment.

Botanist Anne, who lives in Ingleby Greenhow, is a contributor to the inspirational booklet Overcoming the Odds, published at the end of last year by Middlesbrough Soroptimists, which explores and celebrates the contribution women scientists have made to expanding knowledge in a range of scientific fields.

The title of the booklet is an apt reflection of parts of Anne's life story.

She was born near Birmingham, in 1943, in the middle of an air raid. Her father had parachuted into North Africa and was missing at the time of her birth. He reappeared later, and after the war the family moved to a farm in north Devon.

Living in the countryside, Anne was keen to study science at university, but in the 1950s this was considered not to be suitable for girls, and she was informed by her headteacher, that this is not what girls did. Undaunted by this advice, she joined the boys' science classes.

"There were three of us girls who wanted to do science, so one of our teachers decided to give us lessons after school so we could catch up,” says Anne. “I had to miss the school bus and walk two miles home, but I passed my exams and got on the course I wanted to do at Birmingham University.”

She gained a BSc Hons in Botany and went on to do a PhD in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey, specialising in the growth and distribution of the two flowering plants in the Antarctic. She looked forward to joining the expedition where she could explore and observe her findings, but unfortunately, there were no female facilities available, so she wasn't allowed to go.

Instead, she used her research and data for an MSc, and the result was that her paper was given a symposium at the Royal Society of London – she was the only female present.

In the meantime, Anne had married Kevin, a chemical engineer, whom she had met at university.

Intent on travel, their first stop was Zambia, as Kevin was going to work as a metallurgist in the copper mines. Anne was joining the Agricultural Research Council of Central Africa, which was trying to prevent further destruction of the indigenous forests. Her team specialised in forest genetics and was searching for a species of pine tree which would grow well and straight on degraded land and could be used in the mines.

Anne and Kevin and their young family in Africa

When Anne returned to view the forest 40 years later, visiting one of her sons who was teaching in an international school nearby, she found that the work the team had done was a real success. The trees were stronger than initially thought and had fuelled a thriving furniture industry, making log cabins for visitors.

After a couple of years in Zambia, where Anne had had her first two children in a small bush hospital, Anne and Kevin’s next stop was the Sahara Desert where Kevin was needed to begin a new mine process. With two toddlers in tow, they lived next to the mine in a desert encampment.

The two-month stay lasted two years and, after a brief return to England, to have baby number three, they moved Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But it was the mid 1990s and there was unrest. They became caught up in a civil war and international military conflict. They escaped by travelling, with many difficulties, several hundred miles to safely, and were able to return when things had quietened down.

"However, the second town we lived in was eventually taken over by rebel troops, and there was two weeks of fighting and killing on the streets," she says. "We knew Africa and we knew to stay indoors, and we were saved by the French Foreign Legion who parachuted into the town and held the streets while we got to the airport.

“It was a frightening time for the family and many of our friends were killed. We have put it behind us, but it is still difficult to talk about."

Kevin continued to travel widely with his job, but Anne stayed in Ingleby Greenhow, to bring up the children, and she became involved in village life.

However, when the children were settled at university, Anne set off again to join Kevin in northern India, this time helping with an environmental tree planting project for the Indian Government and Overseas Development Agency, again the focus being around a mine and processing plant.

Here she gained the nickname of "Mother of all Trees" after the director of the project had said to her: "It's not going right, and you will fix it." And she did.

Anne in an Antarctic tent

When they eventually returned home, Kevin became ill with dementia, and Anne cared for him for 20 years, until he passed away.

"I was able to fit in some volunteering around caring for Kevin," she says." I began working on one of the oldest forest gardens in the UK in what became Nature's World in Acklam, near Middlesbrough."

Once described as “the North of England’s pioneering eco-experience”, at its peak Nature's World attracted an average of more than 29,000 visitors a year. But due to a decline in visitor numbers and rising costs, it went into administration and closed to the public in 2013. However, a group has returned to the area to maintain and care for it, hoping eventually that at least part of it will be open again for people to enjoy.

"We are blessed with many proficient botanists locally," says Anne. "But few younger ones. It's not a subject at school or university; it is usually grouped with Natural Science or Gardening. It is a science in itself, makes a fulfilling career and is essential to all our lives."

Anne continues to be very busy, undertaking flora and fauna surveys for the North York Moors National Park. She is warden for the National Trust Woods for Ingleby Greenhow, does talks on local radio, is involved in Churches Together, Wildlife Associates and Twinning, and she writes a regular piece for the magazine, The Voice of the Moors. She is part of many groups and projects, such as Great Ayton Climate Action group and Stokesley U3A and she is at present revamping a medieval garden at Hutton-le-Hole Folk Museum, as well as keeping the garden around the village hall at Ingleby in harmony with the natural landscape.

"During lockdown we have been encouraged to go out into nature to heal ourselves," she says, "and many have, which is wonderful, but we are missing the point.

“We are not separate from nature, we are part of it, it is our common home, and much of it needs healing where we have damaged it. We need to learn and understand."