A TIME OF CHERRIES: SAILING WITH THE BRETON TUNNYMEN. By Ronald Millar.

1977 1st edition. 8vo (142 x 221mm). Ppx,214. B/w photograph plates. Blue cloth, spine titled in silver-gilt.

The author spent time working with the tunny fishermen of Santez Edwette, a village on the southern coast of for ever. It is told with style and humour and compassion; and it is filled with magnificent characters: Petit Jean, the handsome hunchback; sad Emile, who takes to the bottle, and his noisy, contrary wife, Josee; Erry, the virtuous ex-alcoholic who doles out the wine; ulcerated Martial, who from the start takes against the 'Brosaoz' ('Englishman' in the fast-disappearing Breton tongue). Their dour lives are shaped by the great black and silver fish which provide both the fishermen's daily bread and his dreams of wealth and success. A Time of Cherries is many things - a book about a fascinating and dying breed of men, the story of Ronald Millar's realization of his impossible dream, a travel book exploring a little-known landscape - but above all it is a memorable account of man's