The wearer of the rabbit skin cap was George Baldry, born in the middle of the nineteenth century near Beccles on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk. He was a true country lad at a time when youngsters were flocking from the countryside to the town and the old simple ways were disappearing forever.

A practical young man, he made eel traps, hurdles and rakes; he took rabbits and gamebirds with net and ferret. As a brickmaker he worked until his hands bled, as an apprentice snob (shoemaker) he brawled and poached.

His world was peopled with characters: Old Chips the hurdle maker, Bill with the donkey and cart, and the circus elephant with a mind for revenge.

‘The book’ which, as John Humphreys writes, ‘keeps up a rattling pace in its Norfolk dialect’ was first published in 1939. This fine facsimile edition is full of youthful high spirits, anecdote and good fun.