Obituaries

In 1968, he bought Walnut Tree Farm, a semi-ruined Elizabethan moated 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 from a brain tumour. This had first been diagnosed
only four months previously. The house and its surroundings were the subject of two BBC
Radio 4 documentaries, The House and The Garden, that he produced. A further
documentary, Cigarette on the Waveney, covered the subject of a canoe trip down the
nearby River Waveney. He also made several television documentary films covering
subjects as diverse as rock music, Essex, Hank Wangford, allotments and the world of horse
racing.
Deakin was a founder director of the arts and environmental charity Common Ground in
1982.
In 1999, Deakin's acclaimed book Waterlog was published in the United Kingdom by Chatto
and Windus. Inspired in part by the short story The Swimmer by John Cheever, it describes
his experiences of "wild swimming" in Britain's rivers and lakes and advocates open access
to the countryside and waterways. Wildwood appeared posthumously in 2007 and describes
a series of journeys across the globe Deakin made to meet people whose lives are intimately
connected to trees and wood. In November 2008, Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, a collection
of writing taken from his personal notebooks and largely focusing on the wildlife and ecology
of the area around his farmhouse, was published to high critical appraisal.
Deakin appears in The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane. The TV documentary The Wild
Places Of Essex, also by Macfarlane, includes scenes shot at Walnut Tree Farm. Waterlog
inspired a one-hour documentary, Wild Swimming, on BBC Four in August 2010 presented
by Alice Roberts. It is stated in it that he was the source for the voice of the swimmer in Alice
Oswald's 48-page poem; Dart, about the Devon River Dart.
Deakin married Jenny Hind in 1973 with whom he had a son, Rufus, before the marriage
was dissolved in 1982. Deakin died in Mellis, Suffolk. He is survived by his partner Alison
Hastie and his son.
Review of Wildwood: a Journey Through Trees - written by Will Self and published in
the New Statesman 12th July 2007
Roger Deakin's Waterlog was the literary gem of 1999. The conceit was simple: the author
set out from his moated farmhouse in Suffolk to swim across Britain in a succession of
streams, rivers, ponds, fens, tarns, lochs, pools - natural and man-made - and, of course, the
sea itself. Emulating the protagonist of John Cheever's classic short story, "The Swimmer",
Deakin created a special kind of literary classic, at once a travelogue, a discourse on natural
history and an investigation into the culture and mores of our island people.