Richard Adams

Sorry to intrude into Mandy's week but I thought you would all like to hear about our visit with Richard Adams. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, in a beautiful old house and has the kind of library that renders you jaw dropped and speechless! On one of the tables are a collection of rabbit ornaments. When I asked about them he said, "People seem to want to give me rabbits." I said maybe after Gentle Footprints and his new story they will want to give him leopards. He smiled and said, "But I don't know any leopards by their names."

I have written to Mr. Adams for many years, met him a few times- a story that all started with animals so this project is all the more special.

So we sat down with Mr.Adams, after a lovely meal, me armed with my notebook, and he said the BBC want to interview on his birthday. Then he said, "The trouble with interviews is they always ask the same questions." Oops- I looked at Gill, wondering how I could ask anything original. Well I asked him all the usual questions about his writing and heard the story I have heard and enjoyed many times:that he wrote Watership Down with the continued bullying from his children. He told me his favourite work is actually the novel that followed this: Shardik which I confessed to not reading but promised I would. Then I told him my favourite is Plague Dogs which is the first book he ever signed to me, back 1984 with the pertinent words, "To Debbie whose comrade in animal rights I am proud to be."

More of what he said will be in the introduction to Gentle Footprints including the stories that inspired his love of animals, many of which adorned his library.

When I handed him the Gentle Footprints cover he said he loved it and when I handed him the list of all the authors names and about the stories he sat across from us read with great interest and smiled a lot! Then he asked about them and seemed genuinely interested in what we had to say.

We spoke about his story. He said he gave it a lot of thought and wanted it to be highly original- I can confirm this to be the case. What he said was he wanted to get right into the head of the leopard, not using the objectivity of human-like thoughts but just pure instinct.

I think when you see it you will agree he has achieved that.

To finish, take a look at this: