Chambers first edition - 1937
Henry Mortimer Batten (1888-1958), a native of Otley, Yorkshire, after an education at Oakham School in Rutland, (due his excellence at rugby, he later played for Bradford and Northampton clubs), trained as an engineer. More exciting times lay ahead, as he travelled to the North West Territories of Canada, thriving as a prospector, forest ranger and surveyor, whilst still in his twenties. In the Great War, he served as a motor cyclist, saw service with the French army and, in 1915, was given the Croix de Guerre. He later served in the Royal Air Force and, in the Second World War, served again as a dispatch rider.
From 1912 onwards, he was a contributor to several boys' magazines, such as Chums, The Scout, Captain and the Boy's Own Paper, also providing articles for The Illustrated London News, The Field, and Blackwood's and Chambers' magazines. By the 1920s, he was involved in the early B.B.C's broadcasts, becoming well-known and respected for his articles and stories about birds and wild animals. By the time of Red Ruff, he had already published Starlight (about a North American wolf), Tameless and Swift (relating stories about a variety of wild animals) and Habits and Characters of British Wild Animals. For many years, he lived in Argyll; but, ever the wanderlust, he moved to British Columbia in 1954, dying in Vancouver in January 1958.
Red Ruff is not in the same class as Charles Roberts' Red Fox, but it is a well-crafted tale from an author clearly versed in the ways of foxes. Once again, there is a Foreword which explains the author's credo. There can be no doubt that the habits of wild animals are largely governed by their environment. By making his foxy hero leave his birthplace surrounding of the sea-cliffs and move through not only the inland hills but the lowland hunting country even further way, the author showed how Red Ruff can cope in each environment. Like most dog foxes he was a traveller. Again, Red Ruff is an amalgam of several real-life foxes but I have written nothing here which I do not believe, and indeed do not know to be a fact. Batten suggests that the fox is probably the most discussed animal in the British Isles... individuals vary. There are lazy foxes, and there are eager foxes. But the the author also states that he was becoming rather tired of the Nature Story which is supposed to be all true. There are times when I long for one which is not supposed to be true. He ends his Introduction by writing, this is just a simple, straightforward story of what I would take as the average life of an average fox of Red Ruff's environment, based on incidents which I have observed or known.
Puffin Story Book PS32 - 1947
We follow Red Ruff from a little fluffy-headed, blue-coated fox cub, born on a sea cliff with nine siblings. Early heartache occurs when the only vixen of the litter, Jess, and Red Ruff's favourite, dies still a cub of an unnamed disease. One learns the names of three others - Bright Eyes, Toby and Trowsers (the most badly-dressed and least compact cub I ever saw. He was also the silliest, most good-natured little glutton...). Red Ruff's mother is killed by a terrier, but only after she has removed her cubs to safety and fought the dog to their mutual deaths. So, Red Ruff has to go hunting but, for the initial period with his brother Trowsers. The escapades, disappointments and successes are inevitably rather similar to those in the other books I have already read. Rabbits and mice galore are hunted down; on two occasions a cat and a stoat prove more than a match for them. Red Ruff watches a poultry farm and its owner's (and dogs') clockwork timings, before he goes in to nab a hen. He discovers an old drain, arched over with stone slabs in a clay foundation, which leads to a hollow trunk in an old ash tree in the middle of a field. This becomes his hideaway. He meets up with Trowsers again, but is responsible for the latter's death at the hands of the local Hunt. He catches more rabbits, a hedgehog and wild duck, and shares fish with a couple of otters.
He at last meets up with a mate (rather boringly named Vic) and together they raid another poultry farm. The author recounts, amusingly, the attempts by at least five other foxes to wean Vic away from Red Ruff - they all proceeded to parade round the bush, their brushes grotesquely rigid in the air, each warbling in low tones of love and defiance and self-praises - each being a poet. No chance! The two travel into the hills; Vic's first litter of two feeble little cubs do not survive; she is then trapped, bagged up and sent to the Master of Fox Hounds fifty miles away for sport. Red Ruff, alone once more, decides to explore the wide valley below his usual stamping ground in the hills. He purloins a new-born lamb off a lumbering badger; he escapes after being cornered/surrounded by a group of fallow deer in parkland; he emerges, eventually, triumphant against an old sheepdog, Wag; he injures his shoulder, falling twenty feet down a vertical cliff; and returns to his old homing ground, but not after being nearly caught by the Hunt who had killed Trowsers. He was saved by another fox, not encumbered by a disabled shoulder, leading the hounds away from Red Ruff. It was none other than Vic, who had clearly been successful in keeping out of the clutches of previous Hunts!
Yes, they had met and triumphed. Hounds and men and mighty distances, over these they had scored, and were still alive...'Come away, Red Ruff! Come away to the cairn and the hill, where you and I were meant to hunt together...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.
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