Böcker av Laurence Catlow

When Laurence Catlow, a classics master at a Cumbrian boarding school, sees a beautiful pheasant in flight, he wants to reach for his gun.In this diary of his sporting year, he asks himself, between days on the local rivers and shoots, why this is so.His answers are surprising, controversial and convincing. They provide an articulate response to the anti-fieldsports arguments, and he presents them in an entertaining, frank and amusing manner.Throughout 1995, Laurence's diary records his hopes of buying some precipitous shooting ground in the Pennines, his fishing days on the Eden, Wharfe and other rivers, the arrival of a second gundog and days spent together on shoots. All this activity is interspersed with Laurence's quest for his true motives in killing what he most loves. He looks at foxhunting, vegetarianism, man as a hunter, man as created in God's image and man as a creature doomed, himself, to die.Nearly 25 years later, this diaryremains highly topical, thought-provoking and original. yet its tone is also very human and it comes from the pen of a true nature-lover.

Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Pennines, Catlow's shooting diary records his year as an amateur pheasant rearer, gamekeeper, forester, dog-handler and all-round shooting enthusiast. But he also records his thoughts as he goes around his small shoot: his views on the right to roam, on why he loves the birds he shoots, his wine cellar, his other sporting interests. He airs his opinions on subjects as diverse as sport and the nanny state, game cookery, friendship, disobedient dogs and beloved hats.Interspersed with pheasant shooting are magical evenings duck flighting and expeditions rabbit shooting. He controls vermin such as mink, crows and foxes - all familiar activities to those who run small shoots.Catlow is shooting's most articulate exponent and this is an intelligent, funny and thought-provoking book.