Bücher veröffentlicht von Merlin Unwin Books

This book explores in practical detail many of the ways, old and new, in which man can shoot missiles by means of his own force, without the aid of explosives.David slew Goliath with a stone from a sling, but it was a large stone and Man has long been shooting small stones and carefully rounded bullets of clay, glass - and latterly steel and lead - from a variety of weapons without recourse to gunpowder. The bow and arrow has been Man's choice for the last 10,000 years, when modern firearms have been unavailable or unsuitable.There is currently an explosion of interest in making primitive archery equipment. The author has been building bows and shooting flint-tipped arrows since adolescence. But the addiction has led to stronger stuff: to experiments with making and shooting pump-up airguns, stonebows and home-made lead musketballs.Middleton's narrative is lively, humorous and full of exciting information and experimentation.In this quirky and clever book, he invites you to share the thrills of his garden shed experiments with him.

When Laurence Catlow, a classics master at a Cumbrian boarding school, sees a beautiful pheasant in flight, he wants to reach for his gun.In this diary of his sporting year, he asks himself, between days on the local rivers and shoots, why this is so.His answers are surprising, controversial and convincing. They provide an articulate response to the anti-fieldsports arguments, and he presents them in an entertaining, frank and amusing manner.Throughout 1995, Laurence's diary records his hopes of buying some precipitous shooting ground in the Pennines, his fishing days on the Eden, Wharfe and other rivers, the arrival of a second gundog and days spent together on shoots. All this activity is interspersed with Laurence's quest for his true motives in killing what he most loves. He looks at foxhunting, vegetarianism, man as a hunter, man as created in God's image and man as a creature doomed, himself, to die.Nearly 25 years later, this diaryremains highly topical, thought-provoking and original. yet its tone is also very human and it comes from the pen of a true nature-lover.

After three years working as a young vet in rural Aberdeenshire, Hugh Cran decided that it was time for a change. He got it. He took a post in Kenya and, forty years later, he's still there, still working, still loving every exasperating, challenging, unexpected moment.This is a page-turning account of working as a vet at the sharp end.Cattle owned by the Maasai herdsmen or the white settlers might take up most of Hugh's time, but these cattle are assailed by lightning strike, snake bites, disease passed on by zebra and wildebeest. He's up against sun cancer, witch doctors - who knows what to expect next?Travelling miles on rough roads, Hugh never knows if he will be performing surgery on dirty sacks, besieged by every species of Kenyan insect, by the light of a failing car-headlamp!But the colourful people who frequent Hugh's Nukuru practice, the sheer vitality of the Kenyan scene and the rewarding nature of the grinding task in hand, keep him answering that persistent phone, day and night, and heading off into the unknown.

Tom Fort, former angling correspondent for the Financial Times, is one of the most incisive and funny fishing writers in Britain today.This sparkling collection of his writings finds Tom at Ceausescu's bear-hunting lodge in Romania, at a fishing auction in the Home Counties, being thwarted by a bunch of hard-mouthed Brazilian dourado, on a press freebie in Scotland and in a terrible state on the Kennet - not to mention conducting a fantasy celebrity interview with Isaak Walton himself.Whether fishing in some exotic far-flung location, or simply leaning over the parapet of an English bridge gazing at the stream below, Tom Fort always manages in his stylish and witty way to pinpoint something important with which all anglers can identify.

Man has been fishing for trout and salmon with the fly since the time of the Ancient Greeks. Devising ever more ingenious methods of doing so, his rods, reels, lines and flies have evolved in fascinating ways.With a delightful blend of wit and erudition, Conrad Voss Bark tells the story of flyfishing, from the Macedonian 'plumes' of old to the hairwing streamers of today.He spotlights the sport's formative protagonists - Juliana Berners, Robert Venables, Isaak Walton, Charles Cotton, Alfred Ronalds, George Kelson, J.C. Mottram, Dr Bell, and many others, using his journalist's skills to appraise the prevailing dogmas, the breakthroughs in tackle and to re-live the great debates and controversies, including the famous Skues-Halford dispute.Throughout, flyfishing is seen against the broader canvas of changing times in Britain, Ireland and North America.Today there are new forces which are shaping flyfishing history: water pollution, drift netting, over-kill, timeshare, catch-and-release and the explosion of new materials from which tackle and flies are made.Not since Waller Hills' classic History of Flyfishing for Trout of 1921, has a broad survey of this fascinating sport been tackled with such individual style and verve.

In December 2002, Meryl Harrison moved a large audience to tears at the BBC Animal Awards Ceremony, having been flown over from her native Zimbabwe to receive their Special Award. There she told her tale of the rescue of countless animals caught up in five years of the Zimbabwean land invasions, as farmers and families were forced from their homes to make way for Mugabe's 'war veterans'. Many had to leave their animals behind, and it was Meryl's mission on behalf of the under-funded ZNSPCA to go into these destroyed farmsteads to rescue countless domestic animals and wounded livestock.Nandi, pictured on the book-jacket of this heart-warming account of her animal rescues, is just one of the many ordinary pet dogs she managed to save.The bravery of Meryl and her small team, as they overcame huge obstacles to find and return these traumatised pets to their loving owners, has earned her world-renown. But she didn't do it for any human praise - she did it for the animals, the innocent victims of human folly.

The dry fly has long presented a design challenge to the angler. In the early 1900s, the best fishing minds, most prominently Halford, applied themselves to creating perfect replicas of the natural insect which would sit high on the water surface. Then came Colonel Harding and his watertank. This lead to the theory that trout do not see flies as we do: therefore dry flies should be tied to create the right impression, as seen from a trout's underwater perspective. At different times in history, the arguments have raged: colour and shape have gone in and out of fashion, the importance of outlines and silhouettes have waxed and waned. New ideas have embraced attempts to hide the hook, to turn the fly upside-down, to make it always land the right way up, to suggest 'ghost wings', to make it unsinkable, and so on. Men like Halford, Harding, Skues, Lunn, Marinaro, Wulff - and more recently Goddard, Clarke, Patterson, Jorgensen - these men and many others have introduced significant changes to the way we tie flies and to our understanding of how trout perceive them.They have been responsible for such flies as the Adams, the Funneldun, the Bi-Visible and the Upside-Down fly, which have had a lasting influence on the sport. In this book, Conrad Voss Bark reveals the turbulent development of the dry fly throughout the twentieth century. In his usual lively and incisive style, he brings an important aspect of angling history to life.

The story of saddlery and harness in 27 equine disciplines.

From the world's largest tripe factory to the Battle of Wigan Lane; from the Peterloo massacre to the first British canal - Lancashire can claim it all.It was one of the poorest parts of Britain due to its difficult terrain, poor soil, estuaries and bogs, but it went on to become one of the wealthiest through coal, cotton and slavery. Lancashire had: the first town to be lit by gas the first council houses the first motorway.Its people included: the last hangman the most charismatic modern barrister, George Carmen urbane broadcaster Alistair Cooke great actors including Thora Hird, Leonard Rossiter and Ian McKellern.It has suffered some of the greatest tragedies: the massacre of the Lancashire Pals in 30 minutes of the First World War; countless pit disasters; the pounding of the BlitzBut it replied by producing some of the greatest comedians: from George Formby to Ken Dodd to Peter Kay. Not to mention the many great cricketers, rugby players and footballers.A lively and informative book.

It Happened in Shropshire is a vibrant and compelling account of the county's diverse heritage; its heroes, its battles, its discoveries, its crimes. Bob Burrows's highly readable prose transports the reader through time, racing across the landscape of Shropshire's past from the woolly mammoths of 10,000 BC, the Roman occupation of Wroxeter and the Battle of Shrewsbury, to the Industrial Revolution and to the sporting achievements and murderous exploits of recent years. The book celebrates Salopians of national renown such as Charles Darwin, Clive of India, Wilfred Owen and Percy Thrower, as well as commemorating the accidents and disasters of:Shropshire's ghostly pastand presentThe legends of 'Mad Jack' Mytton and the charismatic outlaw Sir Humphrey KynastonA celebration of Salopian sporting champions: Ian Woosnam, Sandy Lyle, Richie Woodhall, Billy WrightShropshire's notorious and also its heroic vicarsThe 'Black Panther' and other Salopian murderers exposed