Red Rag to a Bull: Rural Life in an Urban Age - Hardcover

Jamie Blackett

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846892880 ISBN 13: 9781846892882

Publisher: Quiller Publishing Ltd, 2018

Synopsis

...beautifully written, there is no better one-volume guide to rural matters. Every politician should read it, as should anyone who cares about the countryside. It is a pleasure from first page to last. - Bruce Anderson, The Spectator

Author Jamie Blackett arrives home from the Army to take over a small family estate on the Solway Firth in Dumfries and Galloway and finds a rapidly changing countryside.

In a humorous and occasionally moving tale he describes how he grapples with the intricacies of farming, conservation and estate management and tells the story of founding a pack of foxhounds and a herd of pedigree beef cattle. Part childhood memoir, part biopic of rural life, readers are transported to a remote and beautiful part of Scotland and acquainted with its wildlife, its people and its peccadilloes. One minute he is unblocking his septic tank the next minute he is watching Glenn Close film a sex scene in his bedroom.

Set over the first two decades of the 21st century through the Scottish independence referendum, Brexit and the hunting ban, the result is a tour d horizon of the challenges threatening a vulnerable way of life and an emerging rural philosophy about the directions Scotland, farming and the countryside might take in the brave new world of Brexit.

Endorsements

Funny, well-considered and engagingly written, Blackett's book is one that encapsulates a moment in time. - Alexandra Henton, The Field

What a brilliant, enlightening and amusing book, about the real countryside. It should be read by politicians, bureaucrats, ramblers, wildlife-lovers, townies, blow-ins and bumpkins like me. What a read! - Robin Page

A passionate and informative record of one mans attempt to restore a small Scottish farming and sporting estate, at a time when the political class, the media and the educational establishment are dominated by people who have lost all sense of the countryside as the heart of the British way of life. - Sir Roger Scruton

About this title

About the Author

Jamie Blackett was born in 1964 and educated at Ludgrove, Eton, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and later Warwick Business School (MBA). After working in South Africa he joined the Coldstream Guards, serving in Northern Ireland, the First Gulf War, Hong Kong, the Falkland Islands, Zimbabwe and Germany.

He returned to his roots in Galloway where he is now a farmer, forester, bed and breakfast and holiday cottage host, gardener and odd job man and occasional freelance journalist writing on farming and the countryside.

He is a Deputy Lieutenant for Dumfriesshire and a member of the Queen's Bodyguard for Scotland Royal Company of Archers. He is married with two children.

Jamie's first book, The Enigma of Kidson, (9781846892653) was published by Quiller Publishing in 2017.

Edition details

• Publisher: Quiller Publishing Ltd
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1846892880
• ISBN 13: 9781846892882
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256