Hero of Kumaon breckland

Hero of Kumaon brecklandJim Corbett became the hero of thousands of impoverished local families in the remote Indian region of Kumaon when, throughout the 1920s and 30s, he answered their pleas to rid them of the man eating tigers and leopards which were ravaging their populations. Man eaters roamed a region of hundreds of square miles over several years, killing the defenceless villagers at will: for example the Champawat man eater had killed over 434 people in six years,

his magnum opus was published in 1640

It was the nation’s favourite dish

His fascinating essays cover corncrakes and partridges

and what it will end in

besieged by every species of Kenyan insect

Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson

being thwarted by a bunch of hard-mouthed Brazilian dourado

even if it did sometimes escape his creel – carp

From his early days the young horse is hard-schooled in the disciplines of war

from Bill Bryson to Pete Postlethwaite

but throughout he is exploring the patterns of angling

such as bird-hide etiquette