The Real Dogman

I’m back from Suffolk. Four days of relentless work and the draft is finished.  OK, it wasn’t entirely relentless.  I did a talk for the Woodbridge Oxfam bookshop (whence goes most of my royalties) which allowed me to sing the praises of the wonderful writer and poacher D Brian Plummer.  I discovered Plummer by mistake about four years ago, in the rare book section, judged the book by its cover (a beautiful drawing of a lurcher) but quailed when I saw the £22 price tag.Husband came to the rescue (as usual), and the book appeared, beautifully wrapped, as a birthday present a month later.

The trouble with old-fashioned books of country lore is that they're so often unreadable.  So I wasn't expecting much.  Silly me.  Plummer turned out to be one of the great raconteurs of the English countryside -- erudite, opinionated, wildly iconoclastic, and astonishingly knowledgeable about everything to do with poaching.  Six months after reading Merle, I bit the bullet, returned to the bookshop, and made an offer for the rest of the collection.  Which, lovely people, they accepted.

D Brian Plummer died in 2003 and it breaks my heart that I never had a chance to meet him.  But I have read most of what he's written -- including such unpromisingly titled works as Diary of a Hunter, Tales of a Rat Hunting Man, and Rogues and Running Dogs.  They're not cheap, but worth every penny.

I like to think he might have enjoyed his portrayal as Dogman in The Bride's Farewell.