About Me

In 1977 I was employed in the marketing department of John Player, the cigarette manufacturer. Two years earlier the opportunity to take a Nottingham Roosevelt Travelling Scholarship to the USA had rekindled my long-held interest in nature conservation and I wanted to do something to help promote the cause. At the age of 27 I left a well-paid job in commerce to become National Development Officer of the Woodland Trust – a young charity run until then on an entirely voluntary basis in Devon.

By 1980, with the help of funding from the Countryside Commission, my background in direct mail marketing and an early interest in computing enabled me to establish “Woodland Rescue” the Trust’s campaign to raise funds to acquire woods and plant trees. When I stepped down as Chief Executive Officer, 20 years later, the Trust employed over 150 people, owned 800 woods throughout the UK and was acquiring a new wood every week! By that time the Trust’s annual income had increased from £10,000 in 1977 to approaching £15million making it one of the largest charities in the UK.

In 1996 I was awarded the OBE for services to nature conservation and after leaving the Woodland Trust continued to work as a consultant and as a Non-Executive Forestry Commissioner until 2004 when I moved to Norfolk. With my wife, Margaret, I was co-owner of Focus Gallery in Nottingham until 2004 and the Church Street Gallery in Cromer, until 2012.

John D James OBE