Gilbert Dempster Fisher (1906–1985): the BBC's “Hut Man”, Scottish naturalist, children's author and radio broadcaster

Abstract

As the BBC's “Hut Man”, Gilbert Dempster Fisher was a pioneer of radio broadcasting for children in Scotland in the 1940s and 1950s. Also a successful author of children's books on natural history, he based both his writings and his broadcasts on his observations of the wildlife that surrounded his isolated hut near Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire. Devoted to pedagogy, he established “The Hut-Man's Club” for children in the late 1930s and was foremost in the encouragement of natural history in Scottish schools. He also wrote poetry for young children and, from 1947 to 1950, he produced The children's magazine. During the last decade of his “Hut life” he was engaged by Scottish local education authorities to speak in schools and residential camps about nature study, captivating children with his “Hut Man” tales. He also engaged with teachers to help them deliver natural history lessons, writing a comprehensive guide book on the subject. The teacher-training authorities, however, failed to capitalize on his vision of nature study within the school curriculum. Disillusioned by their intransigence and faced with local environmental degradation of the Hut Country and inappropriate housing development locally, he moved east. In 1956 he was appointed Director-Secretary of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland administering Edinburgh Zoo. This paper concentrates on his “Hut Man” career as an author and radio presenter; the communication of natural history being its central theme, at a time when radio was becoming a popular medium of mass communication.