Back in early September, when we were allowed to break out from Purgatory for a few weeks, we had a marvellous, sunny weekend in Salisbury. But it was in Winchester that I was able to visit an enticing little bookshop in the lee of its cathedral (not a patch on Salisbury's!) and snap up five books, including the Gide paperbacks I blogged about awhile back. Also included was an American hardback about a fox - Redcoat by Clarence Hawkes.
Milton Bradley Company first edition - 1929
I have just finished it and, as with other previous novels about foxes (see below), it catapults me off the fence - I am against Fox Hunting. All stories about individual wild animals run the danger of being anthropomorphic; apparently, it is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. This is particularly the case when the writer gives the animal[s] power of speech. I felt Clarence Hawkes trod the fine line successfully. Moreover, in a Note to the Reader at the beginning of the book, he sensibly writes: Nearly all animal biographies are composite - that is, the life of the particular animal represented, is made up from facts drawn from many sources. The author gets stories from his friends among hunters, trappers and woodsmen, in this way he is enabled to give the reader a complete picture of the life of the animal under all conditions. Redcoat is some fox, who gains the name The Phantom because of his amazing, but feasible, escapades. Whether the enemy is the hunter with his 'thunder stick'; or a vicious trap; or the hounds from hell; or the bobcat; Redcoat defeats them all, even managing a daring escape with his new lady friend from the wire fences of the Sheerfield Fox Farm. It is clear which side the author is on: both the local farmer's teenage son, Bud Holcome, and his girl friend from a neighbouring farm, Kitty Mason, on separate occasions save Redcoat from certain death.
The story reminded me very much of another, this time not set in New England but in Scotland. It was one of the first paperbacks I bought with my own pocket money - during the Winter Term at Prep School when I was twelve years old. Not that long ago, I tracked down a first edition in hardback
Fontana Books first edition - 1957 Lutterworth Press first edition - 1950
The author, David Stephen, a native of Lanarkshire, spent as much time as possible in the fields watching the habits of birds and animals, by day and night, in all weathers... Apparently, around 2,000 hours of watching foxes helped to create the story of String Lug. Again, it is made clear that he is a 'composite animal'. Like Redcoat, String Lug loses his parents and siblings to local farmers, like Redcoat his life consists of narrow escapes and meaty triumphs and, like Redcoat, he lives to fight for a future beyond the novel's covers.
Another favourite foxy story of mine was/is Red Ruff: The Life Story of a Fox by the famous naturalist Mortimer Batten (1888-1958). Batten lived in the North West Territory, Canada and, for many years, in Argyll; he became a well-known lecturer and broadcaster for the B.B.C. and published numerous collections about wild animals and birds. He was also a well-known racing motorist!
Puffin Book first edition - December 1947
Chambers published Red Ruff in April 1937. It tells the story of a fox, born among Scottish hills. Batten said that he had, himself, watched all the incidents he described in the life history of Red Ruff. The play of the cubs, his behaviour in moments of danger, the gradual learning by hard experience how to use all his capacities for sheer survival, his speed of movement, his keen scent, his clever brain. Like Redcoat, Red Ruff uses a river, swimming to escape in the final moments of the story. He, too, meets up with a vixen and they go off into the wild: 'Come away, Red Ruff! Come away to the cairn and the hill, where you and I were meant to hunt together...Man was born a hunter. So were we, and this day we have triumphed - their wits and skill to ours, and we have won! Are we not fit to lead them many a lively chase, and yet live on to breed our kind? Come away, Red Ruff!' And Red Ruff followed her.
Inspired by such novels, I also bought this year two non-fiction books:
Reaktion Books paperback - 2016 Elliott and Thompson - 2016
The first book is in a series of over 80, encompassing a wide variety of wild animals and birds (I also have Badger and Wild Boar). The chapters include The Fox in Nature, Vulpine Myths, Folk Tales and Allegory, and Fox-hunting. It is a book for dipping and skipping into, with some superb colour illustrations. Lucy Jones's book suggests that no other animal attracts such controversy, has provoked more column inches or been so ambiguously woven into our culture over centuries. It's a fascinating and thought-provoking account, mixing fact, fiction, folklore and Lucy's own family history. As she writes in her very first sentence: Of all the mammals in Britain, it is the fox that has cast its spell on me.
I can't end this Blog, without paying tribute to another nature writer; one of whom many of us (in my age group, at least) will have read and loved - Beatrix Potter. One of my favourite Potter stories was about a fox, and the bonus was the same story included a badger. Unfortunately, Potter wrote, I am going to make a story about two disagreeable people, called Tommy Brock and Mr. Tod. Nobody could call Mr. Tod "nice". Well, that's possibly why I rather liked and admired them!
Frederick Warne modern edition (first published in 1912)
N.B. Of course, my other joint favourite is the Badger (see my Blog of 8th April).
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