Yearly from the age of 20 my mom, Jean Combes, who has died aged 96, recorded the time of yr that 4 tree species – oak, ash, horse chestnut and lime – got here into leaf. What began in 1947 as a private mission, pushed by a easy love of nature, turned out to exhibit with textbook readability that the long-term development in Britain has been for spring to begin a lot sooner than it used to. Her 76-year dataset has been utilized by scientists in local weather change modelling, and earned her nationwide recognition in 2008 with appointment as an OBE for companies to phenology, the examine of periodic occasions in organic life cycles.
Jean’s information first got here to the eye of scientists in 1995, when she learn concerning the work of the Coventry College local weather professional Tim Sparks, and contacted him about what she had been doing. Tim later described her information as “most likely distinctive in phenological recording and, so far as we all know, the longest recording by a single particular person anyplace on the planet”.
Born in south London to Ernest Laney, an insurance coverage salesman, and Dorothy (nee Martin), a seamstress, Jean acquired her curiosity within the pure world when she was evacuated to the countryside along with her sister, Pauline, in the beginning of the second world battle. First they lived in Hertfordshire after which in Sussex.
After being educated at Chichester women grammar college she went on to work as a housing supervisor at varied native authorities within the London space. Whereas at Merton council she met Reg Combes, a payroll clerk, they usually married in 1951.
After elevating three daughters as a full-time mom, Jean accomplished a three-year discipline biology qualification at London College in 1977. This was the springboard for 25 years of instructing pure historical past grownup training courses, first for the WEA in Surrey, then at Surrey College in Guildford and for the Area Research Council.
Jean additionally undertook survey work, together with 20 years of the frequent chook census on Ashtead frequent in Surrey, and was commissioned by the Native Agenda 21 Committee for Surrey to hold out a examine of a proposed oil pipeline route by way of Surrey and Sussex, which received the go-ahead solely on the premise that lots of of uncommon wild daffodils recognized by her have been first transplanted to security.
She was concerned with numerous wildlife our bodies, together with on the committees of the Surrey Wildlife Belief and of the Metropolis of London physique that manages Ashtead Widespread. After the award of her OBE there was appreciable media curiosity in her exploits, and she or he appeared on The One Present in 2009 and Springwatch in 2010.
Her fantastic pencil drawings of tree buds, catkins and leaves have been exhibited yearly for 10 years on the Botanical Society of Britain and Eire. She additionally had a love for Scottish landscapes, literature, poetry and artwork, and remained concerned with politics and the state of the world.
Reg died in 2006. She is survived by her daughters, Sue and me, and 4 grandchildren, Alex, Lewis, Joe and Jenna. One other daughter, Jenny, died in 2018.
