Another form of recycling

It was at University that I learned of recycling.

Not of water which was quickly dismissed when it was explained how the waters of the Rhine passed through six human bodies on their way to the sea.

Treated by water supply engineers for each big city before being passed on with new domestic wastes to the next.

It was the recycling of ideas which fascinated me.

I learned of it first from the written words of the great Isaac Newton.

He claimed, if he seemed to see more clearly than other humans; it is because he stood on the shoulders of great people of the past.

How did those great people of the past communicate?

By their writings.

With my interest in nature, I read Darwins's Origin of Species realising how humans evolved.

Down the years I devoured many great books of western civilisations, written by both men and women of many different nations.

Jane Austen of England, Simon de Beauvoir of France, Confucius of ancient China of 2000 years ago; who taught humans are part of nature.

My knowledge of many of these came from encyclopedias.

The first Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia; latter the English Science of Life by the Darwins and Huxleys of England; finally the American World Book Encyclopedia.

With lack of modesty, I can claim a part in this great stream of ideas - 74 books, 50 television documentaries; articles galore with finally in conjunction with Bob Raymond; to write the great five volumes series of our Wildlife Heritage.

Sir David Attenborough was kind enough to tell me those books were his encyclopaedia when he prepared his own television documentaries dealing with Australian Wildlife.

I have obeyed American Thoreau's great desire.

When I come to die realise I have lived, I also have passed on some thoughts of Australia's great natural history wonders.

Dr Vincent Serventy, Pearl Beach