The editors would like to thank the following people for sharing their memories, or reflections about Baker, his family, Baker’s Essex and his writing: Margaret Axon, Jack Baird, Susan Brooks, Terry and Maureen Butler, James Canton, Bryan Clark, Bernard and Maureen Coe, Ian Dawson, Edward Dennis, Graeme Gibson, Chris and Helen Goldsmith, Andrew Hall, George Heseltine, Richard Johnson, Richard Mabey, Robert Macfarlane, Richard Mearns, Andrew Motion, Arne Ohlsson, Bruce Pearson, Jim Perrin, Katrina Porteous, Harold Rush, Don Samuel, Dot Tait, Moss Taylor, John Thurmer, Roger Upward, Michael Walter, Michael Weston, Ken Wilder, Peter Wilkington, and Simon Wood, and to anyone we may have missed.
Many thanks also to our agents, Gill Coleridge and Cara Jones, and at HarperCollins, to Kirstie Addis, Jonathan Baker, and our publisher, Myles Archibald.
David Cobham is owed special thanks for generously placing the original handwritten diaries at our disposal and thereby giving the initial impetus to this edition of Baker’s writings.