The Fields in Winter

This book is a celebration of times past - of the lives of the lonely punt gunner on the bleak Essex coast, the warrener of the Breckland heaths, the "hobnailed hunter" of Cumbria. The author has talked with a number of characters - countrymen whose professional lives have been involved with fieldsports of all kinds - and has put together their experiences and reminiscences in this volume. Stories and anecdotes of the warrener, wildfowler, huntsman, gamekeeper and harbourer, among others capture the excitement - and, frequently, the hardship - of a way of life which existed in the countryside sixty years ago, and which is now either gone for ever or changed beyond recognition.;The present day fieldsports scene is also included, in that the author talks about some of his own sporting exploits - ptarmigan shooting in the Scottish Highlands, punt gunning around the Essex coast, wildfowling in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Throughout the book, the romance and excitement of days on hill, field and marsh are brought to life for the benefit of the "armchair" sportsman.