My work is about what survives and what is lost when the world changes.

My books are inspired by a lifelong fascination with rural life, animals, remote places, and the skills and traditions that helped shape the modern world. I like to shine a light on the lives that often go unrecorded: the workers and animals whose stories rarely make it into history books.

Always drawn to the edges, where change is happening, I have found myself shepherding in Shetland, living in the world’s remotest community in the middle of the South Atlantic, training oxen and trying my hand at basket weaving, coracle-rowing and falconry.

The past isn’t over; it’s the foundation of everything that comes after.