BY JAMIE FOSTER Bryn Parry OBE (1956–2023) was a celebrated countryside cartoonist renowned for his humorous and insightful depictions of rural life in Britain. As a mischievous schoolboy, he often doodled in the margins of his textbooks, and his talent for drawing blossomed during his time in the army, where he began to envision turning his sketches into a profession. Parry’s work resonates deeply with … Continue reading Mad Dogs and Englishmen
BY JAMIE FOSTER A paper, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, says a dog’s personality reflects the personality of its owner. It also explains that dogs experience personality changes similar to how humans do over the course of their lives. Research conducted in 2020 surveyed the owners of 1,600 dogs, covering 50 different breeds. The canines were split closely between males and females, … Continue reading Dogs Like Us
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Land of Milk and Honey: Digressions of a Rural Dissident by Jamie Blackett is the sequel to his book Red Rag to a Bull, also published by Quiller Publishing, which our Chief Writer Jamie Foster reviewed back in May 2020. This is certainly the more nerve-wracking of the two books as it covers Blackett’s financial stresses and strains embracing the new creed … Continue reading Land of Milk and Honey
BY IAN COGHILL Back in August I failed to notice that Steve Carver had written a lengthy attack on my book Moorland Matters, using Country Squire Magazine’s ‘right to reply’. He started with a complaint that the oft repeated claim that the UK holds 75% of the world’s heather moorland is incorrect and that saying that there is less heather moorland in the world than … Continue reading Moorland Does Matter
BY NICK PEARCE Providing a seasonal tour of a traditional farming year, passionate beef farmer Joe Stanley seeks to bridge this knowledge gap and inform the reader about the journey their food takes before it gets to the plate, revealing the realities of modern agricultural life for a British lowland farmer. Drawing on a lifetime of experience, he strips observations of the countryside and agricultural … Continue reading Farm to Fork
BY DR STEVE CARVER Steve Carver replies to Dominic Wightman’s review of Ian Coghill’s book “Moorland Matters”: It matters for a whole host of reasons including carbon storage, water supply, flood mitigation, biodiversity and wildlife habitats. For Ian Coghill it matters for grouse, and though he rarely shoots them himself (he’s not a rich man and is at pains to point this out) he has … Continue reading Moorland DOES Matter
