Wednesday, 4 May 2022
Ruffled Feathers And More!
Wednesday, 19 January 2022
From Wildlife Ranger To Wildlife Writer
Malcolm J Ingham reflects on the move from wildlife ranger to writing.
After spending the vast majority of my working life in the Ranger Service and being involved in conservation and wildlife rehabilitation, retirement when it eventually arrived was a jumble of emotions. One a feeling of relief and escapism from my post of Head Ranger managing a large ranger service with its multitude of Country Parks, Nature Reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI’s.) Even though I had been a Head Ranger / Wildlife Officer for many years, a couple of years prior to retirement my brief had changed dramatically from one of being very much hands on to a much more intense managerial role with not only more staffing responsibilities but juggling budgets, applying for grants and everything else that comes with overseeing the day to day management of a ranger service.
The second emotion was one of sadness in
that my career was coming to an end, I had strived long and hard to become a
ranger and when I eventually achieved my goal my life changed beyond anything I
could have envisaged. Even from a
seasoned rangers perspective I had a dream job. Over the years I was involved
in caring for and rehabilitating many species of wildlife from badgers, foxes,
peregrine falcons, barn owls, swans and even a Scottish wildcat and a common
nighthawk with the latter being flown out to Belize by the RAF for release.
I had rescued a lanner falcon from an
Iranian ship and bobbed around in a rubber dingy trying to persuade a dolphin
to leave the Manchester Ship Canal not to mention my experiences with a beached
whale or collecting a grey seal and a European eagle owl from a police station plus
being involved in the production of wildlife themed TV programmes and working
alongside various well known celebrities of the time. I had lectured and given presentations from as
far afield as Inverness to the Isle of Wight on wildlife rehabilitation and
worked alongside the police, RSPCA and the National Wildlife Crime Unit
tackling and investigating incidents of wildlife crime with a particular
emphasis on badger digging and baiting.
But now it was over! What was I going to
do? My life had always revolved around wildlife and I couldn’t envisage a life
without it.
On a few occasions over the years people
had paused the question ‘when are you going to write a book?’ And at one point
I did actually get around to making an effort to put my many stories onto paper
but after a while I got out of the habit and filed a half completed manuscript
to a cardboard box and forgot about it.
That is until one day when my pal Mike
McCartney (formerly Mike McGear of the
1960’s 70’s Liverpool chart topping
trio the Scaffold) asked the question “how’s the book coming along?”
Obviously I had to admit that it wasn’t whereupon he gave me a kick up the
backside and offered to read the draft manuscript when finished.
Click here to get a copy |
In between tending
the garden, bird watching, walking and generally exploring I took Mike’s advice
and rooted out my dusty manuscript and re-read it, after which I binned it and
started again! Once reasonably happy with my endeavours I sent it off to Mike
who read it, made a few constructive recommendations and once again gave me the
proverbial kick up the back-side to crack on with it. To cut a long story short I eventually
received an email from Mandy inviting me
to submit a synopsis and a few sample chapters for her perusal the outcome of
which was that in April 2019 my first book ‘From Badgers to Nighthawks’ was published
by Beul-Aithris Publishing with of course a foreword from Mike! It was the
least he could do after all the chivvying and backside kicking and needless to
say he got a freebie copy.
Signed of course
by yours truly!
Despite all the chivvying and endless hours spent at the computer not to mention the never ending proof reading by my wife to see the finished product finally in print made every second worthwhile. But what next? I now had the writing bug and needed to feed my addiction. Could I write another book and if I did would it be published?
Click here to get a copy |
The human characters Mr Callum and Mr Harpur are real people albeit under different names even Moggy the cat and Nelly the sheepdog are real.
Tuesday, 4 January 2022
The Tale Of One Artist And Several Badgers
The Tales Of Old Billy Badger illustrator Mark Hetherington discusses what it was like working on the project
If anyone had
asked me eighteen months ago there is no way I I’d have told them that the main
theme for my 2021 was likely to be badgers!
It all began a
couple of years ago when BA head honcho Mandy told me about ‘’From Badgers to
Nighthawks’, a manuscript she had received from Malcolm J. Ingham recounting
his experiences as a wildlife ranger. Mal had found a lovely Victorian print he
wanted to use for the cover and Mandy asked me to do the cover design, to make
the print work as a cover image.
Little did I
know that Mal was already working on his next project, a book for children
inspired by the real animals – and people – he had been involved with. Mandy
asked me to draw the illustrations for the book in mid-2020 but as ‘The Tales
of Old Billy Badger’ wouldn’t be coming out until Christmas 2021 and I had
other projects to work on it wasn’t until several months later that I was able
to make a start. Even then had to interrupt work on ‘Billy’ several times as
other jobs with shorter deadlines came in.
One unfortunate thing about the timing was that it came during a
time when my drawing style was evolving. Artists’ and illustrators’ can
sometimes change quite a lot over the course of their careers. Sometimes the
change is slow and barely noticeable and at other times, as in this case, it
can occur quite quickly. Because of this the original drawing for the first
chapter wasn’t very satisfactory and I eventually did three versions of the
image and had to change the pose completely for the final version, for
something that suited my new way of working better.
Sketch for the rejected image for Chapter One |
My process, once
technical hitches like stylistic evolution were out of the way, was more or
less the same for all of the images. Mandy had sent me the text for the book
and I read it through, noting scenes or events that would make a good
illustration. I also had to bear in mind certain images Mal wanted to include
in the story. He sent some copies of old prints which asked me to use as the
basis for two or three of the illustrations. The pictures of the otter hunt for
Chapter Four and the otters Casper and Shadow for Chapter Nine, for example,
were based on images sent by Mal.
An old print sent by Mal which formed the basis for the pictures of Casper and Shadow in Chapter Nine |
To begin with I
sent Mandy pencil roughs of the drawings but we have been working together for
a while so she trusts me to just get on with it and after the first couple I
would just send her the completed drawing. This isn’t to say I can just do it
how I like though, if Mandy (or Mal for that matter) didn’t think the result
was up to scratch she told me so and I would do it again. This didn’t happen
often though and the whole process ran remarkably smoothly.
Once all the
drawings were completed, they were scanned and, if necessary, cleaned up in
photoshop. This doesn’t necessarily mean the images were dirty or messy, just
that certain things need to be adjusted at times. For example, I used both
marker pens and Indian ink in the drawings and when scanned some lines or marks
can reflect the light from the scanner slightly differently and appear lighter
or darker than those made using different tools or media. Adjusting them in
Photoshop means you can make the blacks look more uniform and closer to how the
image looks in real life.
The difference between the 'raw' scan and the cleaned-up version used in the book |
After that the
images were all emailed to Mandy who formatted the text and placed the images
where they needed to be. I did the cover design based on a template provided by
the printer which gives guidelines for things such as the barcode placement and
how close to the edge the text can go without accidentally being trimmed when
the covers are printed. The cover was then saved as a pdf and again emailed to
Mandy. Then, for Mal, Mandy (after some publishing wizardry!) and I, came the
task of telling the world about ‘The Tales of Old Billy Badger’!
Click to get your copy here! |