Johnny Kingdom is the English countryside made flesh. He has lived his whole life on Exmoor, from his childhood catching moles to sell their skins, to his early wild days of adventure as a poacher, to today, when the demands of wildlife photography make extraordinary patience rather more useful than the ability to run fast... He embodies a way of life that may soon be gone for ever. His life story, accompanied by BBC2's landmark documentary series, is highly entertaining and completely enchanting.
In Johnny Kingdom - A Wild Life on Exmoor, we see how integral the both the landscape and the creatures of Exmoor have been to Johnny's often hair-raising life story. The beauty of Exmoor, captured in lavish colour photographs in this book, forms a stunning backdrop to his story.
Johnny lives in the same area near Exmoor as his father and his father before him. Married to his childhood sweetheart, he took on his father's official job as the local gravedigger (and his unofficial living as a poacher) before a horrific accident made him change his lifestyle and seek solace in the less physically demanding work of wild-life photography.
Johnny's book is full of hilarious and captivating stories of his escapades, from how he spent the night in a jail cell with a red deer, to how he persuaded the local badger population to run along a mini assault course, turning wheels and tilting up and down on see-saws.
Johnny is a wonderfully charismatic raconteur. His television series and this amazing book are already conferring on him the title of national treasure.
