By Conservation Officer Kevin O'Hara

A mate of mine called the other day to say that, at long last, after years of patiently fishing on many riverbanks and beaches catching absolutely nothing but hypothermia, he had just seen his first wild otter!

The inevitable fisherman's tales followed: "It was this lang," he said (with arms spread wider than the room) "and that was just the hook I used to catch it". To be fair he is a good angler and not as prone to exaggeration as many are, and having been an angler for over 30 years I have known quite a few.

Blyth Valley MP Ronnie Campbell's weekly column in the Blyth & Cramlington Extra

I may be wrong but at times I wonder what our Government's foreign policy means and why we always seem to get embroiled in so-called 'actions' abroad such as we are currently involved with Libya.

Now I am not going to try and stick up for Gaddafi as he has suppressed political freedom over the years until he has created a mountain of opposition to his rule.

By Conservation Officer Kevin O'Hara

The silly season is well and truly up and running and already I've had to return a baby tawny owl and a leveret from whence they came.

When I was a boy growing up rarely a year would go by when I didn't have some unfortunate wild creature dependant on me, after someone had thought it needed "rescuing".

By Conservation Officer Kevin O'Hara

What is it with our society that makes so many of us unbearably obsessive about tidiness? Don't get me wrong, there are times and places where it is the done thing, such as the uniform rings on a Wembley turf, or topiary in Blenheim Palace.

But in the main, do we really need to be so obsessive about things that really don't matter, such as cutting the grass verges so often or so short, or flailing hedgerows?

Well, I was supposed to go to Holland to compete on my birthday, but two days before I was due to go, KLM told UK Athletics that my electric wheelchair was too big to get into the baggage hold on the plane.

I was given the choice of taking the chance that they would put my wheelchair on and that I'd be able to get back to Newcastle, or to cancel.

Needless to say I decided to stay at home and celebrate being 21 again.

Blyth Valley MP Ronnie Campbell's weekly column in the Blyth & Cramlington Extra

Just when you think things couldn't get any worse they do! If you are one of the millions of people in this country who are enjoying a longer life span thanks to better diets (arguably) and definitely better medical care you will have had a shock at the goings-on at Southern Cross.

31,000 residents of their residential homes now face being turfed out of their homes. What is it about older people and the Tories that they cannot see the underlying greed motive in everything they do?

By Conservation Officer Kevin O'Hara

Exploring was my first great love - it's where I learned some of the basics surrounding nature watching, or "finding" as I prefer to think of it. I was considering this as I watched our new additions in Druridge Bay last week.

In my youth, avocets were an evocative emblem of the RSPB that all aspiring naturalists wanted to tick off their list. What a fitting tribute to the management of our Trust's reserves in Druridge Bay.

Blyth Valley MP Ronnie Campbell's weekly column in the Blyth & Cramlington Extra

Housing: now there's a word which used to be part of what I considered to be an essential in anyone's life - good-quality housing.

Linked with good education, an excellent health service and access to decent employment opportunities, these are my four prerequisites for a decent society we could all be proud of.

By Conservation Officer Kevin O'Hara

In Flanders fields the poppies blow, is an inspirational line from a stirring poem by John McCrae, yet I often corrupt the words to "in farmers' fields the poppies grow" as, at this time of the year, the corn poppy starts to flower its ephemeral bloom.

Just as the blazing yellow of the oilseed rape dies away and the first heads appear on the corn, the first poppies push through to bring what can sometime be the most striking blaze of colour the countryside will ever see. All too often, however, this and many other wild flowers are just token gestures, where we allow them to flower as we strive still for uniformity and higher production.

Blyth Valley MP Ronnie Campbell's weekly column in the Blyth & Cramlington Extra

The big news around Parliament is of course the proposed changes to the health service and how this is splitting the coalition government.

Now it doesn't take a brain surgeon (pardon the analogy) to work out that every time you hear a Tory leader say the health service needs 'modernising' or that it is 'inefficient' or can be 'improved by cutting management' there are massive risks and cuts facing the people who deliver a brilliant service.