pumpkinstrokemarrow

Taking a quick look in our local Oxfam shop to see whether they had anything to compete with 'Poirot' this evening, I came across the book inside the dust cover illustrated instead. The illustration was cut by the husband of one of my father's elder sisters, known to me as 'Uncle Mac'. A relic of the days when more people were familiarly known by their surnames than is the case now.

I was vaguely aware that he did illustrations, his woodcuts being more usually intended to be kept in portfolios or hung on walls, but this is the first time that I have come across one in a bookshop.

As it happens, while the book looks to be a post-war economy job and a little tired, it also looks to be the sort of thing that BH might read. The tale of a chap who decides to go for the country life (perhaps after having done a stint on active service during the second war and wanting something peaceful & productive) and start a farm in the Welsh hills - these being, as it happens, the subject of many of Uncle's woodcuts. I have some such on my walls.