Wind in the Ash Tree by Jeanine McMullen, with illustrations by Michael Woods (1988)

  

This is Jeanine McMullen's second book on her Small Country Living.  It is about the people she meets, but mostly it is about animals. We know from her first book that Jeanine loves them and feels a need to surround herself with them. That book ended with her receiving a legacy from her father, her mother returning to Australia, and her proposal for a BBC programme called  A Small Country Living being accepted. 

In this book she backtracks a bit as once again she worries about paying the bills and hopes the BBC will take up her idea for a programme. She does not seem to be made for living alone and, after the death of her beloved whippet Merlin, and other animals falling sick, she is relieved to hear her mother, 'Mrs. P' is once again on her way to Wales.

Jeanine's small country living includes dogs, sheep, pigs, horses, ducks, chickens and goats. She is always determined not to buy any more only to succumb to temptation. First she finds a chihuahua called Winston for Mrs.P, then she is anxious to find a replacement for Merlin and a new puppy joins the pack: his great nephew called Merlyn. On one of the final pages we find Jeanine unable to resist a lurcher puppy: Lilly.

 

Most of the animals we got to know in the first book are still at the farm. A few halfbred Icelandic sheep are added when she meets a breeder for her radio show.

Doli, Jeanine's horse starts suffering from an assortment of ailments, which seem to be an indication of boredom, so she is sold to a friend who runs the Smallholder's Training Centre were there is plenty of work for her. A few years later, much to her delight, she is able to buy her back.

 

Halfway throught the book the BBC finally commissions her to make a programme.  Much to her relief it does well: 'For a success it was, in spite of being tucked away on a mid-afternoon slot and quite unpublicized. The morning after it was broadcast, there come a pile of letters which people must have written the moment we were off the air. (..) All of them were ecstatic.' Jeanine travels the length and breadth of the UK to find places, people and animals for her programme.

While this is certainly a book for people who like to read about animals, I enjoyed it because of the interesting people Jeanine meets. I had fun trying to find out more about them.

There is vet Bertie Ellis who had a long career and served on the RCVS Council.

Sue and Darrell Kingerlee ran a bookshop in Llandovery. Darrell wrote Llandovery Album: Pictures of a Welsh Market Town.

Muriel and Jack Sassoon who ran an antiques shop and a second hand bookshop in London.

Ian Wilson who wrote The Turin Shroud.

Gerald and Imogen Summers. Gerald wrote The Lure of the Falcon,  illustrated by 'the Artist ', Jeanine's erstwhile partner, whose name seems to be Duncan McLaren.

Madge Hooper, who wrote several books on herbs.

Antique dealer Barbara Leach.

Andrew and Carry Naylor , Sarah Pitt and Monica Sims, who all worked for the BBC

Diana Joly who bred icelandic sheep.

Artist Leesa Sandys-Lumsdaine.

Sedly Sweeny (who was really called Sedley Bell-Irving Sweeny) and who wrote The Challenge of Small Holding.

 Now I am on the lookout for book number three: A Small Country Living Goes On.