My friend Stephen Trudgill, who has died aged 74, was an emeritus fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge, whose work often focused on the interaction of nature with people.
Unfortunately Steve died just before the release of his book, Why Conserve Nature?, which examines the varied meanings of nature, climate change, ecological science and nature in literature and art. It should be published shortly.
Described by one friend as a “hippy contrarian”, he pursued certain key themes throughout his career. These he characterised as the “personal meanings of nature, especially the therapeutic aspects in wilderness, nature reserves and gardens, as well as the psychological importance of nature to our wellbeing”.
He had a generous and kind nature that was appreciated by generations of students and dons, as well as his neighbours (of which I was one) in the Cambridgeshire village of Hinxton. His slightly stooped frame was a familiar sight in the gardens of Robinson College – he was chair of its gardens committee – and he was often seen checking the footpaths around Hinxton, where he served on the parish council for 23 years.
Steve was born in Norwich, where his father, John, was a publisher and artist, and his mother, Hettie (nee Gooch), worked in the Jarrold & Sons department store. After Thorpe grammar school he went to Bristol University, where he had wanted to study botany as well as geography and geology but – because the timetable precluded it – reluctantly took sociology as his third subject.
After graduation in 1968, he gained his PhD on the geomorphology of Aldabra Atoll in the Indian Ocean, where he spent several months in 1972. His lecturing began at the University of Strathclyde, before he moved to the University of Sheffield, where he taught soils, biogeography and geomorphology for 20 years. Steve then joined Robinson College in 1996, becoming its first resident geography director of studies and making geography one of the college’s best established subjects.
It was at Robinson that his reluctantly undertaken sociology studies proved their worth as he expanded his interest from physical geography to the psychological and social aspects of environmental perception and environmental management. These elements all came together in his course on the social engagement of nature.
Outside his university work, Steve was especially proud of the time he spent as a member of the executive committee of the Field Studies Council, helping young people access the countryside.
He had a restless curiosity that was reflected not only in his professional life but in many other interests, including as a gardener, birdwatcher, opera lover and amateur artist.
He is survived by his brother, Peter.
