My friend and former colleague Alan Teulon, who has died aged 91, was a champion for access to the countryside. As head of countryside services in Northamptonshire for 25 years, he believed that “contact with the countryside and nature is essential to the quality of life for all, regardless of age, culture or ability”. He worked to break down any physical and perceptual barriers that might prevent access for all; and also developed the idea of “pocket parks” that can bring green spaces into urban communities.
Alan was born in Enfield, north London, to Agnes (nee Rowbury), a laundry worker, and Selwyn Teulon, a wood machinist. He grew up in London but loved visiting the countryside. After attending Latymer school, he did national service in the Royal Engineers in Kenya, and stayed on to become a draughtsman.
A passionate jazz pianist, in 1956 he joined the Dave Burman Jazz Group, which had been invited to play behind the iron curtain in Poland – one of the first British bands to do so – where they performed to large, enthusiastic audiences. On his return he chose to study rather than continue playing professionally and in 1958 became a surveying assistant for the Air Ministry. In 1959 he married Patsy Pickard, whom he met at a dance, and, having enjoyed his previous travels, took up the post of land surveyor for the government of Jamaica, where he remained until 1968.
After time as a planning assistant for Monmouthshire, in 1974 he joined Northamptonshire county council as countryside officer. The idea of community-managed “pocket parks” – small areas of under-used land transformed and managed by and for the local community – formed when Alan realised the importance of people having the benefits of the countryside close to home. The concept was developed nationally by the Millennium Greens initiative, and in 2000 Alan was appointed MBE.
His marriage to Patsy ended in divorce. In 1980, Alan married Christine Biggin, with whom he shared an interest in music. Together they researched Alan’s family history, travelled and lectured to local history societies on two of his ancestors, the architects (and brothers) Samuel Sanders Teulon and William Milford Teulon. Alan published Victorian Thorney (1999, about SS Teulon’s designs for a village in Cambridgeshire) and The Life and Work of Samuel Sanders Teulon, Victorian Architect (2009).
Alan was a man of inspired projects; a keeper of lists and archival records. He valued synchronicity and laughing; and hated banjos and bad organisation.
In 2022, he was awarded Jamaica’s Badge of Honour (Meritorious) in recognition of his leadership of the 1967 expedition that confirmed the site of Nanny Town, a former stronghold of escapees from slavery, and his advisory role in the Scientific Exploration Society excavation in 1973-74.
He is survived by Christine, his children, Mark, Richard and Sian, from his first marriage, and his sister, Brenda.
