Lutterworth Press first edition - 1950
The author, David Stephen (d. January 1989, aged 78) was a photographer and journalist and considered to be one of Scotland's finest naturalists. Born in Airdrie, he escaped to the countryside as often as he could and discovered in himself an affinity for the natural world. He turned to full-time journalism after the Second World War, writing for the Daily Record and then The Scotsman. His writings were often blunt and sometimes angry. He was realistic enough about mankind to be pessimistic about the future of the animal kingdom. He was the first director of Palacerigg Country Park at Cumbernauld, where he gave animals space to live and breed. He hated gin traps, factory farming and the 'sportsmen' of the hunting fraternity. One journalist friend said of Stephen's books, that they were valuable not just for his wonderful empathy with animals but also for their superb descriptions of the Scottish landscape...[he] evoked the physical splendour of the Scottish country, in all seasons and weathers, better than any writer since John Buchan.
Fontana paperback edition - 1957
I have treasured David Stephen's first full-length book for sixty-seven years, reading it at my Prep School in what was then the wilds of Berkshire (later the coming of the M4 put paid to any quietude). It was one of the first books I had purchased with my own money - if not the first. Although similar to the other foxy books that I have read in the last few weeks, String Lug does retain a certain individuality. The author knows his foxes: fox cubs are bold and enquiring. As cubs they have the will and capacity to learn; as adults they possess the gift of memory and the ability to make up their minds. Lessons taught in cubhood serve them as guides to actions in later life. The fox can put two and two together, is a supreme individualist, and is not the victim of blind habit or instinct. Rather is he a creature who weighs chances, ever ready to forsake outmoded ways to meet new conditions.
We first meet his parents - the father Greyface, a big-boned, big-framed fox, hard and lean, almost gaunt, and totally unlike the fat-ribbed, small foxes of England, who effects a daring escape for his son when the latter has been caught as a cub (his four siblings had been killed in their earth) and imprisoned in a rearing-shed; and his mother, the Summerfield vixen, of similar blood, about to give birth to her third litter. She was redder in the coat than Greyface, more finely drawn, and with more flesh on her bones. And if she was more rash, she was no less brave. His equal in stamina, she had less patience, and probably less real brain power - apart from sheer cunning. Both are killed by the local farmers.
String Lug is one of five cubs and the author creates a compelling and realistic story around their first few weeks.
The three local farms of Gallacher at Mossrigg, Cameron at Summerfield and the brothers McLeod of Hackamore, all suffer greatly from the vixen's depredations. The McLeods keep seven fox-hating collies and one Sealyham terrier. However, the main threat came from Corrie - the shaggy blue cairn; Corrie the Terrible, who had killed more fox cubs than he had teeth in his jaws - owned by Jock Simpson, the fencer. Another enemy was Pate Tamson, the rabbit-catcher, unkempt, unshaven, beer-soaked and tireless. Greyface had the measure of his snares, though.
We encounter (as does String Lug on a regular basis) Brushtail, the red squirrel, Keewick, the tawny owl, Kree the kestrel, Whittret the weasel, Smoky Joe an old crow, and the Mossrigg tom-cat - Satan. Satan was a great, hulking, moon-faced killer, with a heart of stone and a soul steeped in sin. He was the greatest poacher in the parish. He had enormous curved claws, like the talons of an Arctic owl, pointed sharper than the canine teeth of a weasel, and a forearm stroke like a wild cat. It is Satan who cuts String Lug's right ear almost to ribbons and gives the cub his name. Justice was meted out when Satan is found caught in a snare and String Lug is able to kill him by biting into his spine. String Lug meets the same dangers as in the other novels - escaping from a hay field being harvested; carefully prising rabbits from gin-traps; and having to cope with the 'Black-Out' (placing the story firmly in 1939-40), an institution which made obsolete all his previous ideas about lights and bedtime. As with at least two other fox stories there is a fire, this time on the moor, started in four separate kindlings by youths with an urge to arson, and finding ready fuel in heather dry as tinder from three weeks of drought.
The author has a twist at the end of the tale. String Lug cleverly distracts a fox-shoot so that his cubs can escape, but is hit. Lying on the pine needle clump...he knew the terrier had found him; and he knew Jock Simpson could see him. But there was no way out. To jump meant breaking his neck, and at the bottom of the sloping tree was Corrie, with two men and a gun. So he sat still, quivering, thinking, hoping, while blood drip-dripped from his injured paw. But they let him go! The men halted within view of the tree and saw String Lug pick his way down as gracefully as a cat. And he hirpled away, looking over his shoulder till he was hidden among the trees.
Two days ago, we were in the lovely city of Chester, enjoying the Christmas lights and practising retail therapy relatively wisely in the shops. Having enjoyed some liquid refreshment, we wandered past the temporary 'wooden cabin-like' Christmas stalls and came across one selling animal sculptures, mainly busts. A large wolf stared at us from the centre of the back wall. I asked whether the vendor had a fox - and there it was, in the right-hand corner. I could have it for £12, instead of the usual £18, as it had a chip on the tip of his ear. 'String Lug', I exclaimed! I had to have it - so it enjoyed the car journey back to Greenmantle and will reside on the wall by the back door in the New Year. Serendipity, or what!
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