A Plank Bridge by a Pool

From the front-inside dustjacket: “This is a portrait, in words and pictures, of a garden in rural England that has become a wildlife sanctuary. It is also the story of how one man realised a boyhood dream. … Norman Thelwell was brought up in Birkemhead, in England’s industrial north-west. One of his greatest childhood pleasures was to be taken for an outing in a rowing boat on a nearby lake. Ever since then he has been in love with boats and water. Some thirty years later he began to realise his dream – to have a stretch of open water beside his own house, where he might paint, fish, row and above all watch – watch the changing light and seasons and the wildlife of rural Hampshire … Thelwell’s book will appeal equally to lovers of wildlife and amateur landscape gardeners – to fishermen and those who like ‘messing about in boats’. His record, in word and line, of the beauties, curiosities and occasional cruelties of nature, prove him to be one of those rare observers who make us feel we have gazed over their shoulders for a moment and seen what they saw. …”