First published in 1950 and in print ever since, The Poacher’s Handbook celebrates a romantic age when poachers were countrymen and respected the land, sky and rivers from which they benefited.
Written by John McNeillie under the pen name of Ian Niall, who wrote over forty books on country life and pursuits, as well as contributing a weekly ‘Countryman’s Notes’ to Country Life. The Poacher’s Handbook is as much a portrait of the countryside from the other side of the tracks from the gamekeepers and their well-to-do employers.
Although the book was written in 1950 the subject matter draws on reminiscences from the previous decades, and as such paints a portrait of a very changing time in the countryside. Rural customs and culture were rapidly vanishing, the government had pushed and encouraged farmers to grow as much as they possibly could during and after the second world war. The country needed feeding and everything was thrown at increasing yields. Mechanisation, pesticides, insecticides ripping up hedgerows… agriculture was turning into an industrial process.
The book is not just about poaching, it is really a deep appreciation for the countryside, the wildlife and the people who live their lives in tune with its rhythms. Rural life has its own conventions and accepted ways of behaving, the poacher is a wonderful anarchic challenge to the status quo. Knowing how to get past the gamekeeper, taking a bounty from under a landowners nose whilst moving around the land under cover of the night is wonderfully thrilling.
The Poachers Handbook is an essential classic of wildlife observation and rural knowledge.
Published by Merlin Unwin Books
