Roger Deakin

Roger Stuart Deakin (11 February 1943 – 19 August 2006) was an English writer, documentary-maker and environmentalist. He was a co-founder and trustee of Common Ground, the arts, culture and environment organisation. Waterlog, the only book he published in his lifetime, topped the UK best seller charts and founded the wild swimming movement. 2Life Deakin was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, and was an only child. His father was a railway clerk, from Walsall in the Midlands, who died when Deakin was 17. Educated at The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, an independent school, based at the time in Hampstead in north west London, followed by Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, Deakin read English, under the auspices of writer Kingsley Amis.Deakin first worked in advertising as a copywriter and creative director for Colman Prentis and Varley, while living in Bayswater, London. He was responsible for the National Coal Board slogan "Come home to a real fire". Following this, he taught French and English at Diss Grammar School for three years.In 1968, he bought Walnut Tree Farm, a semi-ruined Elizabethan moated, wood beamed farmhouse on the edge of Mellis Common in Suffolk, near Diss, which he rebuilt and developed over many years and where he lived until his death. He dredged the moat, where he swam daily, planted woodland and bought more of the surrounding fields, where he grew hay and wild flowers. The land included several shepherds huts and Deakin went on to build a cabin for his son Rufu