This is a tender lyrical tale inspired by the authors childhood in an idyllic English village with environmental & conservational themes. In this involving tale master storyteller Michael Morpurgo tells of a boyhood in an idyllic Suffolk village fifty years ago. The village is a stones throw from the sea with a gull on every chimney stack & is peopled by quirky characters such as the three Stebbing sisters the white moustachioed Colonel Burton & Bennie the village thug. But the heroine of this story is the serene Mrs. Pettigrew who lives in a railway carriage down in the marshes with her dogs donkey bees & hens
- & who befriends the young Michael & lets him ride over the marshes on her donkey. But industrial reality intrudes when plans are made to build a nuclear power station on the site of the marshes endangering Mrs. Pettigrews home & the gulls owls kestrels & thousands of insects & plants which also belong there. There ensues a village battle for & against the environmental hazard of the power station & the young Michael finds himself caught up in the sad fate of Mrs. Pettigrew & the landscape of his boyhood. This is a jacketed hardback gift edition of Michael Morpugos tale of his childhood landscape evocatively illustrated by Peter Bailey.