MAJ. GEN. DARE WILSON

CATALOGUE

RECORDING

SUMMARY

BORN: Burnopfield, County Durham, 1919

LIVED: Dulverton, Morebath

RECORDING MADE: 2001

RECORDING LENGTH: 2 hours 22 minutes

Dare Wilson was commissioned into the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers in 1939; he left a Major-General some 30 years later, with a taste for free fall parachuting. He received an MC in 1945 and was made a CBE on his retirement. He returned to Cambridge to finish his degree, which is where he met his wife Sarah; he was the oldest mature student, she the youngest.

He already had a family home near Dulverton and in 1973 he became Exmoor National Park Officer. With a staff of 18 (his chairman suggested five) he set up the new administration, which was viewed with suspicion by the locals. Ploughing the moorland was a big issue and committee meetings were often stormy. Eventually he persuaded the Department of the Environment to undertake a study of the problem, which led to the Porchester report.

He has visited national parks all over the world and thinks that beauty spots are the jewels in any landscape. They should be guarded, he says, or they will lose their value.

Dare Wilson died in August 2014.

Photograph by Mark J. Rattenbury