Books

This second compendium of anecdotes garnered from the hugely successful "Tales of the Countryside" series brings together some of the best and liveliest reminscences of the day before yesterday.

 

Here you'll find characters such as Ned Turvey, who survived the trenches of the Western Front to return and do battle with poachers who had enroached on the estete where he was underkeeper; Aubrey Charman, born and brought up on the Sussex farm his family had worked since 1823; while from the Second World War come glimpses of the girls int he Women's Timber Corps.  Here too are woodsmen and their crafts, horses and the men who cared for them - and the women too, who went into service in the 'big house' nearby.

 

Evocative and often humorous, these 21 tales bring back a world where life moved at a slower pace and offered simpler plesures, governed above all by the rhythm of the changing seasons.  They are sure to be savoured by anyone with a passion for nostalgia, or those who can still remember a fast-disappearing way of life.