“Foraging helps people to reconnect with nature”

At the tender age of 10, Fern Freud pulled on a pair of wellies to go foraging for mushrooms in the South Downs with her father and siblings. She will never forget that day. ‘It was an incredible experience and a total eye-opener,’ Fern recalls. ‘We squealed with amazement as we found huge squishy yellow mushrooms the size of dinner plates, little pink ones growing from the sides of trees, mushrooms that looked like sponges, smelly ones, shiny ones and even a red and white spotted one.’

Tipping the prized finds