While he was invited to talk about his most recent project on a remote Tibetan community in northern India, Patrick felt a more balanced idea of his goals and practices would be made by reviewing some of his earlier stories first. Thus he began with Wetlands, possibly his best known work. Leading ultimately to a book published by Michael Joseph, this study of the Somerset Levels, begun in 1982 was, he says, a labour of love.
Sutherland's basic idea was to show something of a landscape largely overlooked owing to it being "not obviously photogenic". He put his proposals for the story forward to every organisation he could think of, hoping to win funds, before ultimately gaining the princely sum of £150 as an award for "young welsh artists" from the Welsh Arts Council. Despite being neither young, Welsh, nor in his eyes an artist, he was happy to accept the award. Though well short of what he needed, Sutherland insists that it was a "kick up the arse", being as it was a form of rubber-stamp approval for an idea that was his own.
