George: A Magpie Memoir
It is widely accepted that magpies are the enemy of other nesting birds, thieving their eggs and causing a general if colourful nuisance. When a fledgling magpie dropped, orphaned, into poet, artist and author Frieda Hughes’ beloved one-acre Welsh Border garden, she brought it inside and turned such notions on their head.
This is the diary of George and Hughes’ relationship with him. She has a superb way with this is not. She does not spare us the tooth and claw, so reminiscent of her father Ted, whom, this book makes clear, she adored even with his absences and failure in their rural Devon home to get her a pony, a dog or to school on time.
