From left: guild president Roly Smith, Bill Bryson, and artist David Bellamy with the Golden Eagle painting. Photo: Chiz Dakin

From left: guild president Roly Smith, Bill Bryson, and artist David Bellamy with the Golden Eagle painting. Photo: Chiz Dakin

An American-born champion of the English countryside received a top award for his work in support of the outdoors.

Members of the Outdoor Writers’ and Photographers’ Guild presented Bill Bryson with an oil painting by member David Bellamy.

The guild awarded Mr Bryson its Golden Eagle Award in November but he was unable to collect the painting at the group’s annual awards.

President Roly Smith made the presentation at the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge.

The Iowa-born writer, best known for his acerbic Notes from a Small Island, said: “I really couldn’t be more thrilled or honoured to receive this award. It is really beautiful.”

Mr Smith described Bill Bryson as ‘the world’s number-one anglophile’, and paid tribute to his passion for walking and the British countryside, which was recognised by his election in 2007 as president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

“Among the many campaigns in which Bill has been involved is his Stop the Drop anti-litter and fly-tipping campaign,” Roly Smith said.

He added: “Bill’s love for the British countryside is second to none, and was perhaps best expressed during the successful CPRE campaign for the designation of the South Downs as Britain’s 15th and latest national park in 2010, when he said he said he often wondered why we don’t make the whole of England a national park.”

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, and moved to Britain in 1973, working for various national newspapers. He lived in Kirkby Malham in the Yorkshire Dales for many years.

He returned to the USA for an eight-year spell in New Hampshire while his four children were at school. The writer now lives with his English wife Cynthia, in a Victorian rectory in rural Norfolk.

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