{"title":"Michael Paulet","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"tales-from-the-rod-room-book-michael-paulet-9781871647228","title":"Tales from the Rod Room","description":"Balmeanie Lodge, a 19th-century English merchant's sporting retreat in the north of Scotland, was built for pleasure from profit. When Charles Rowley inherits it and with it its 10,000 acres of peat, rough grass, rocks, heather, and water - he realises that he must make a profit from pleasure; specifically, from the pleasure of fishing the River Struie, the Balmeanie Burn, and the hill lochs. In short, for a sporting estate like Balmeanie, the only resource left to it in the late-20th century is whatever money can be made from taking in guests who come to fish there. In this collection, Rowley tells the stories of Balmeanie and the guests who come there to fish, set against the backcloth of the wild mountains and the tumbling waters. A retired trade unionist and Labour politician encounters his first salmon, and his first ghillie, the dour and forthright Alec Ross, but despite a bad start comes to appreciate the place and its fishing. Roger Ballantyne, former soldier and practised fisherman, finds fear in a high and lonely place; a doctor from the Welsh Marches recalls the day when he snagged what is every fisherman's dread. A delightful couple, skilled and experienced in the ways of salmon and of catching them, are ostensibly recommended by friends - but prove to be not what they seem. Mr Raymond Snaith, man of the City, expects to get value for money; his dog Nigger has no such inhibitions. A widow finds companionship, perhaps even love, and through it all Alec Ross keeps his own counsel and makes his own judgements - based largely upon a guest's tipping potential...Shot through with the fascination and mystery of fly-fishing, the characters - human and animal - that enliven the scene, the eccentricities of Highland life, and the beauty of the place, \"Tales From the Rod Room\" will interest any reader with the slightest feeling for the way of river and loch. Here is a book for those fishless days, for when the water is too high or too low, the sun too bright, or the fish not moving, or for the long winter evenings when darkness comes at four o'clock and the rods are safely cased until the new season.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49598127014161,"sku":"GOR004496088","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49634237153553,"sku":"GOR004654811","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1871647223.jpg?v=1751155148"},{"product_id":"tales-from-the-gun-room-book-michael-paulet-9781871647211","title":"Tales from the Gun Room","description":"When \"Stuffy\" Brewster - Major Arthur Brewster MC died, he left a curious bequest. A shooting man all his life, he left in his will a sum of money so that, once a year, his friends might meet in congenial surroundings over good food and wine. \"Stuffy\" made only one condition: members and guests alike must be united by a passion and concern for the sport to which he had dedicated his life. So The Gunroom was born. Over the years, the stories that flowed from tongues made fluent by conviviality and the memories of happy days were set down and collected, the result being this first volume of tales told within the hallowed confines of The Gunroom. Some are funny, some nostalgic, some sad, some mysterious; all are concerned with that indefinable quality which makes up the best shooting days, whatever those days may bring in the way of sport. Here then is the diversity of people, creatures, places, events, the beauty and mystery of the countryside, to captivate readers who understand that good sport is far more that the sum of its purpose, and far greater than any yardstick of size of bag or depth of purse. Here are the old East Anglian keeper who would carry, a rabbit on a bicycle, but never a hare; the sporting parson who knew a shoot to be excellent for seven guns, but terrible for eight, and took action accordingly; the exiled Punjabi prince who became a famous shot, and called Queen Victoria a thief; the wheelchair-bound wildfowler almost killed by a falling goose; the vile-natured old peer who liked to bully his paying guns; and, by contrast, the kindly and distinguished host who came back to his shoot, months after his death. Here too are sporting days in Northern Ireland, before guns became synonymous with another, more sinister, kind of shooting there; a Welsh keeper's funeral disrupted by one of his hated enemies, a cat, and, finally, 'Stuffy' Brewsters' own contribution, delivered to the Gunroom posthumously, a chilling vision of what will happen to shooting if many of those involved do not mend their ways. Perhaps not all the tales from The Gunroom are true. Who knows? What is certain, however, is that this delightful collection will amuse, move, and inspire anyone with the slightest feeling for the countryside, and for the part played in the long history of sporting days by shooting and its practitioners.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50120061419793,"sku":"GOR003211206","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1871647215.jpg?v=1751250312"},{"product_id":"shooting-from-scratch-book-michael-paulet-9780907675648","title":"Shooting from Scratch","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52100243194129,"sku":"GOR005153509","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780907675648.jpg?v=1757088916"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-michael-paulet.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}