If The Corncrake Calls

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Douglas DunnIntroduction1 The World of the Rabbit, the Stoat, the Pheasant ... and the Ways of Fish and FishermenHere are descriptions of natural life: in woodlands and fields, and in the landscapes of mountains and water. From the hare in its form to the pigeons `carried across the undulating country by the buffeting wind' and the trout rising in the black water of a mountain lake, Ian Niall is never more in his element.2 Characters: fact and fictionSome of these men were his childhood heroes, some were kindred spirits and all we can recognise. We may have seen them loitering, just as Snib or Black Bill did, with an eye to the almost invisible main chance. On the edge of society, they are, in their way, universal characters to be found in any country village or along a road in any remote rural backwater. They are celebrated here with a knowing understanding and a gentle humour.3 Tall Trees and Bright MorningsThese memoir pieces describe the writer's growth from child to adult. They show us a solitary child, his growing attachment to the natural world, and the seasonal routine and daily rituals of a farming life more in keeping with the 19th century than the 20th.4 From the Far Moss, the Fiels and MigneintWhether it is observation of the rising hay `dotted with yellow-flowered weeds and seeding thistles', the `contour of the ground with its ridges of a past season's ploughing', the `loose stones about your heels' or a description of the awe-inspiring emptiness of a remote landscape, the importance of place in Ian Niall's writing cannot be ignored.5 First Words: Chapter One from Wigtown Ploughman: Part of his LifeThe first chapter of Ian Niall's first novel. It was published under his own name, John McNeillie, when he was 22 years old. Amongst other things it shows us how he drew upon his time at North Clutag to tell his story.Bibliography & Acknowledgements

About the Author :
Ian Niall is the pen name of John McNeillie who wrote over 40 published works and many articles, mostly dealing with nature and the outdoors.

Review :
Ian Niall was one of the most important rural writers of the 20th century, in the postwar era and before the emergence of what is called 'The New Nature Writing'. Among his 40 books, and more than a million words of journalism from which one or two key collections were drawn, are several classics including most notably The Poacher's Handbook (1950), Fresh Woods (1951), and Pastures New (1952);In If the Corncrake Calls, a delightful anthology of her father's work, Sheila Pehrson has made a finely-judged selection that captures Niall's lyric voice to perfection. Niall had a genius for plain writing, just as he had for seeing into the world about him, from shore-land to moorland, by field and stream, and on into the far hills of his childhood. Sheila Pehrson's sensitivity to his writing is second to none, as clear-eyed and unsentimental as that writing itself;This is a wonder of a book of work by a writer who knew what wonder is and how to inspire it in his readers;Andrew McNeillie for the 2016 Thame Book Festival programme