Butterflies

This is the inside front cover of a book called "Linger and Look" by L . Hugh Newman. My father bought it in a second hand bookshop forty plus years ago, made a collage in the front of the book and gave it to me as a present.
As far back as I can remember, I had a fascination for butterflies. Their fragility, the brilliance of their colours, delicacy of their flight, the fleeting nature of their existence, I suppose. Not that I thought about it. It was more of an instinctive fascination and joy. As a five or six year old boy I would wander off down to the upturned dinghies on the foreshore on a sunny morning, where i would usually find a Peacock or Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly basking on the warm wood.
L. Hugh Newman was a keen entomologist and naturalist who had a " butterfly farm" (established by his father) in Bexley Heath in Kent. As a child this was a sort of Mecca in my imagination. It seemed somehow mystical and remote. So I could scarcely believe my good luck when, on our way home from a family camping holiday, my Dad arranged for us to visit it. I still remember this rather dark and dilapidated Victorian House, full of cupboards and drawers stuffed with paraphernalia and insects and a strange garden full of shrubs and trees covered in muslin nets which caged in the caterpillars. Mr Newman showed us round with great enthusiasm.
Looking back, This was a side of my father I remember with great warmth. Although his father was a difficult and absent man, he did his best at times to support our interests, and join in with them. There is something I find very touching about his collage and I have been thinking about him today. So that's my Blip.