Last year, we received a bequest in a Will from the late Mr Jeremy Short, which has been absolutely transformative in impact. It’s allowed us to plan ahead with confidence and funded activities ranging from young interns’ stipends at our Nepal partner, Mithila Wildlife Trust, to urban reforestation projects in Kathmandu. We will soon be siting a memorial plaque for Jeremy at one of the Kathmandu forests, with a QR code that will point to this blog post.
I invited Jeremy’s partner, Elizabeth Bower, and sister, Claire Ward, to write a short tribute to Jeremy and this morning I was delighted to receive this very touching piece:
A quiet, thoughtful and intelligent man, Jeremy spent most of his working life at British Airways as a software engineer. This gave him the opportunity to travel widely, enjoy the glories and wonders of the world, and care about their preservation. Jeremy read widely and was well informed about the challenges of rapid urbanisation, climate change, and social, political and economic upheaval faced by many countries, including Nepal.
Support for re-forestation reflected Jeremy’s love of trees and their place in his life. His large garden, in a street where concrete and cars had largely replaced grass and roses, was a one-man nature reserve crammed with mature trees which he once said were his friends. Each spring, he would wait to see what flowers would bloom; sometimes foxgloves, sometimes honesty, always forget-me-nots, wild garlic and bluebells. There were many birds in the garden, and discovering a robin nesting in his tumble-down garage, Jeremy chose to keep his bike in the sitting room for several months (with considerable inconvenience), rather than risk scaring the robin into abandoning her eggs. He enjoyed being outdoors, and a walk would always include a wood, watching the seasons wax and wane through the canopy and woodland floor.
Finding that his life was going to be cut short by terminal illness, Jeremy was determined to make a difference to the world around him in the time that he had left, and he found great comfort and purpose in researching and making donations to a number of charities supporting ecological projects. He was a very thoughtful and principled man, and his choice of Pipal Tree to receive a significant legacy was a carefully made decision, reflecting his alignment with the purposes and activities of the organisation. The fact that his legacy is contributing towards re-forestation in Nepal in a way which benefits the local community as well as enriching the environment, shows that this was a choice well made.
I will update this blog post with an image of the plaque once it’s been installed. Thank you, Jeremy.
