Jonathon Bernard Fulbright was born in the year 1893 in a village in rural southern England. At infant school he was known to friends and teachers alike as Jo. That is, until a new boy, Jonathon Thomas Wilkins, another Jo, moved into the area. To avoid confusion in the classroom the former was soon referred to as 'Jo B' and the latter as 'Jo T.' Jo B stuck and for the rest of his life he would be known as Joby. we first hear of Joby as an unattached 21-year-old joining up with a group of his mates soon after the outbreak of the First World War in August, 1914, all anxious to become involved in this great new adventure 'before all the fun is over.' The prediction that 'It'll all be over by Christmas', just five months away, was a long way short on accuracy-and it turned out to be not very much fun either. Two years later, in yet another massive, and pointless, Allied offensive he was badly wounded and became part of the horrifying statistics that numbered the hundreds of thousands of young men killed, injured or missing in that terrible four-year conflict. In the horrific confusion of total war he was, for reasons unknown, taken to a French-run forward dressing station and then on to a French military hospital. It was here, while slowly recovering from his injuries, he met the woman who was to become the one and only true love of his life, a young French nurse named Delphine. And although they were to know each other only for a few short weeks before parting forever, his love, down the next four and a half decades, remained constant. Fast forward to the early 1960s and we find Joby, still unattached and now approaching seventy with no surviving relatives, in a cottage at Longdown Farm, near the village of Binfield, employed as a general farm worker by the Trenchard family. During his lonely life apart from his one great love, Joby has become a very well-known and popular character in the district, mainly on account of his permanent, and usually successful, feud with Fred Appleton, gamekeeper on the neighbouring estate. After all, in the 1960s nobody loved a gamekeeper. Joby has developed into a very worldly-wise (call it crafty if you will) character, highly skilled and knowledgeable in all rural activities. His many humorous scrapes with Fred Appleton form the basis of our story but the lives and loves of the other villagers, particularly the Trenchards, add colour, depth, variety and more humour to this tale of English country life in the mid-twentieth century. Joby becomes closely involved in the personal lives of the family who have 'adopted' him and is instrumental in the outcome of many of the situations they encounter. An early tragedy in which the parent Trenchards meet an untimely and farcical demise leaves the plot open to develop around their two grown-up sons-and their love lives. Then one day Joby gets a mysterious visit from two total strangers when echoes of the past, his past, are revived, the results of which bring our story to a bitter/sweet conclusion.
About the Author: The author was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK, and is still living in that county. At the age of four in 1940 he was, with his parents and elder brother 'bombed out' during WWII, at 11 he won a scholarship to grammar school, subsequently worked on a farm, as a welder in a factory and at an atomic weapons research establishment before becoming a journalist. He stayed in this career for the next 40 years, rising to become Editor of his local newspaper before three open heart operations forced him to retire, since when he has written several books and features for national and specialist magazines. His many published works include 'COUNTRY CAPERS' available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. His interests are golf (which he plays badly), fishing of all kinds, natural history and all things countryside, on which he is a considerable authority. He is married, has two grown up children, a son and a daughter, and three grand daughters. He is working on a number of other writing projects while recovering from a recent stroke with some physical assistance from his wife and friends.