In a shameless piece of name dropping, yesterday while having lunch with Monty Don he turned to me and said "can you name any literature which is just about deer". To which I answered "only one off the top of my head, 'The Buck of Lordenshaw' " To put this into context he was in the studio with me to record a programme on deer management for Shared Planet. With a different programme to record in the afternoon we all emerged into the canteen to restore our energy levels and it was at this point the comment above was ushered as we discussed the programme recorded earlier.
And its true, apart from this book about a roe deer in Northumberland I don't know of any other book about deer, which has deer as the central character. Plenty on deer stalking or management and many references to deer in country writing, but not a whole book. I'm sure there are many titles and I'd be interested to know. But this whole episode made me dig out my battered copy by Henry Tegner and today I began reading it, maybe 30 years since last putting it down. Its strange how a chain of events leads to an outcome. Thus with slippers on, a whisky by my side, I'm back in Lordenshaw with the running deer.
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