MEMOIRS OF A GAMEKEEPER: (ELVEDEN 1868-1953). By T.W. Turner. With a Foreword by the Earl of Iveagh, C.B., C.M.G.

1954 1st edition. 8vo (145 x 222mm). Pp159. B/w photographs, fold-out chart of the beats at Elvedon. Green cloth, spine titled in gilt.

These are "the recollections of a great countryman, spread over nearly eighty years". Tom Turner was born on the Earl of Iveagh's Elveden Estate in Suffolk in 1868 where his father was a shepherd. Turner's autobiography chronicles his career on the estate, where he became head keeper during the First World War, and the development of the Estate as a shoot through this long period. Chapters include Elveden in the time of the 1st Earl of Iveagh, record shoots, the syndicates and the war, the war years and after,great shots and shooting technique, poachers and poaching, rabbits at Elveden, about vermin. Appendices cover the specifics of shoots and bags, analyses of vermin killed and a list of wild birds nesting on the Estate. A fascinating account of the great age of the formal shoot and the era of its subsequent decline. "A book which would have delighted Richard Jefferies, since it is true in all aspects, written with faultless taste, that is to say, factually, simply, with no grudge against others, by one who has worked hard all his life and become a master of his craft. The book will go on my shelf beside Colonel Hawker's 'Shooting' and Richard Jefferies' 'Gamekeeper at Home'". (Henry Williamson in John O'London's Weekly).