This impressive autobiography takes us from the author’s childhood, through his work with the Forestry Commission and his National Service in Germany to his career as a forester in Nyasaland – now Malawi. His brief history of the family’s life sharing a small lodge on a farm in Hampshire is a beautifully written tale of a bygone countryside.
James Lang Brown - Forestry and British Timber News April 2013
A charming set of unedited diaries of a country boy in 1950's rural Britain. Somerset and Perthshire characters on the hillsides planting trees, bicycling long distances to meet girls at dances and hard forestry work on long summer days. A book about character forming National Service in Germany, climbing hills and isolated district administration in Africa. This is a book about dreams and disappointment, pretty girls and socialism. It is not unlike the fantastic memoirs of Ben Coutts.
Charlie Llewellen Palmer – Amazon 2013
Through the diaries and the paths he has chosen in life, there is a strong sense of appreciation of the environment and the beauty of nature in all its forms. Having such detailed records of one’s early life was clearly a great asset in writing this work. Many of these diary entries are intimate and candid, sometimes very funny. Contemporary photographs also bring many of the passages to life.
I can certainly commend this book to all who have an interest in forestry and conservation from a historical perspective and in our recent colonial history, as it played out in Africa.
Michael Smith – Keer to Kent Summer 2013
Lessons from a world gone by …………..
Perhaps the most revealing sections of the book are when Roger questions his own preconceptions about the ecology of Nyasaland and realises that even areas he thought were pristine were in fact the product of modifications by mankind that go back millennia. It is fascinating to learn how the Colonial Forestry Service, even then, was attempting conservation of the small surviving areas of native woodland. Managing forest fires by starting small, controlled, ones was one of the chief tools. I was left wondering what the forest resource of Malawi is like today.
Fi Martynoga – Reforesting Scotland Spring/Summer 2013
Your book is full of wonderful memories. Do you realize that you are responsible for the Callan family being a family of skiers? When I was 59 my daughter took me down the east face of Coire na Ciste. That was when I called it a day. Now just memories.
Dave Callan 2013 - fellow student at Faskally Forester Training School
