Ian Niall Boeken

Ian Niall, sportsman and naturalist, shares with his reader the joy of the countryman, captured in these varied recollections which draw on a lifetime observing nature, studying wildlife, shooting and fishing. His fascinating essays cover corncrakes and partridges, snipe and woodcock, foxes, hares and pigeons, duck and geese, trout and pike. His unerring eye for all the nuances of nature finds its perfect partner in C.F. Tunnicliffe s matchless illustrations. Together, author and artist have created a celebrated classic, an elegy to a passing world, that will delight a new generation of country lovers and book collectors. Bernard O Donoghue, the distinguished poet and countryman, writes in his foreword to this book: This is a grown-up s nature book, with all the pleasure remembered from childhood books that introduced us to nature writing. Niall s appreciative eye is wonder-fully served by C.F. Tunnicliffe s illustrations which are the sealing distinction of a perfectly executed book.

During an outbreak of meningitis in Glasgow in the 1920s Ian Niall was sent to live with his grandparents, then tenants of North Clutag Farm, Galloway, in south-west Scotland. It was another world compared to the industrial suburbs of Clydeside where he was born. The neighbours and farmhands he befriended seemed more at home in a Robert Burns poem than in the twentieth century, and throughout his childhood he had the freedom of the woods, the open fields and the moors. It is this personal Eden which he returns to in Fresh Woods and Pastures New, reminding us how rare this sort of childhood has become, and how wonderful it must have been to roam so freely, absorbing the rhythms of the countryside as naturally as drawing breath.

A compilation of Ian McNeillie's best nature writings drawn from his published works and articles edited by his daughter Sheila Pehrson. Illustrated by Barbara Greg.