Fay Godwin, former President of the Ramblers' Association, has died
[31 May 2005]
Fay Godwin, former President of the Ramblers’ Association and
one of Britain’s most talented landscape photographers, has died.
Fay was born in Berlin and after a brief dalliance in publishing
began her photography career in 1969. Her father was a British
diplomat and her mother an American painter. Britain's wild open
spaces were the inspiration for most of her work and it led her
to become president of the Ramblers’ Association in the late
eighties. Her most famous work, Our Forbidden Land, a study on
the destruction of the countryside by road building and
development, galvanised many involved in the right to roam
campaign. Her essay 'Who Owns the Land?' accused English
Heritage and the National Trust of "copyrighting our heritage"
but showed her deep commitment to those who loved the land
and were dependent on it. It was during her presidency that the
RA's long-running right-to-roam campaign was turned up to the
full-strength pressure which ultimately resulted in the access
provisions enshrined in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act
2000 and the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.
She is survived by her sons, Jeremy and Nick.