I’m Erik Clayton, I live in Catford in southeast London and I’ve been hunting mushrooms for 30 years now. I’m strictly amateur and untrained. All that I know has been learned from books and experience. (Of course, this is dangerous unless you’re very careful.) It’s tough being a mushroom hunter in the city, but there are sometimes lucky and unexpected discoveries. (Oyster Mushrooms growing on planters in the outside terrace of the Barbican…, a beautiful Panther Cap in Ladywell Park…, and many others.) In meager years I get to October and have to rush out to the woods for fear of missing the party. In good years I manage a foray every couple of weeks in the summer and autumn months. I mainly go to northwest Kent, but also West Sussex. I’m generally looking for mushrooms to eat but I love to find poisonous and deadly ones as well. Fungi are fascinating and even the find of a common non-edible species can be edifying. (E.g. an extraordinary throng of Freckled Dapperlings – edibility unknown.)

The first wild mushrooms I ate were Field Blewits gathered from a meadow by Canley Brook right next to Warwick University. The meadow’s long gone now – built over with accommodation buildings. It was a revelation to stumble upon these huge lilac perfumed beauties. I was interested in edible plants and had a copy of the Hamlyn Guide to Edible and Medicinal Plants which included a few colour drawings of mushrooms. I remember baking them into a large and tasty pie. Another strong mushroom memory is from 10 years later. I had just got my Roger Phillips Mushrooms book and the wonderful images and trove of information gave me huge enthusiasm. In the autumn of 1990 I journeyed out seven times. In a pine wood in Hampshire I found (and ate, of course) my first Parasols. I was astounded at the magnificence of these foot-high mushrooms the size of dinner plates.

I wish I’d kept better records. I started writing it all down in 1990, carried on into 1991, and then gave up. (The writing down, not the mushroom hunting.) But now it’s much easier – just take photos. I only started last year and I’m addicted. Photos don’t tell the whole story (or even half the story) but they fire your enthusiasm and stimulate the memory.

I’ve eaten about 30 different wild mushroom species gathered by myself, and that’s with a very safe and careful approach.