A HERBALIST is appealing for the Forest of Dean's rich heritage of herbal cures to be recorded before it is lost forever.

"The Forest is one part of Britain where you can still find herbal remedies being widely used, while elsewhere and in Europe the traditions are not being followed," says Christopher Robbins, a qualified medical herbalist.

Mr Robbins, who practises in the Forest and in Ross-on-Wye, is holding a special herbal medicine day jointly with the Dean Heritage Centre at Soudley later this month and wants to make a book of Forest cures.

"Anyone who contributes old remedies will have their name with the entry," he said.

"This will create a new local resource and reference that will be as valuable to any home as Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management."

He is also keen to trace any old collections of local herbal remedies – these used to be common, but he has never seen one for the Forest area where the recipes have been passed down largely by word of mouth.

His collaborator in the Heritage Centre event, to be held on June 25, is volunteer archivist Elsie Olivey, who herself is no stranger to Forest cures.

"When I was a child we used Ellenblau tea every winter for colds and 'flu," she said.

"I can remember collecting the flowers for the herbalist who used to have a shop in Coleford."

As well as displaying old recipes and the herbs used to make them, Mr Robbins will be demonstrating techniques like ointment-making which people can use at home.

KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING?

AMONG the many Forest cures herbalist Christopher Robbins has heard of is one he would dearly like to hear about – it is called 'nothing'.

"When people working down the mines had cuts or scrapes they would rub a bit of 'nothing' on it, and miraculously no infections would develop," he said.

"I believe it was called this because once rubbed on the skin, nothing would be visible any more. But here's the mystery – some say it was a fungus which used to grow on the pit props, but I've also heard it might have been the web of a particular spider. So far, though, I have been unable to find out for sure and I would really like to hear from somebody who knows for sure."