A bumper collection of the work of award-winning West Country journalist and author David Foot, 'Footprints' spans the full range of his work - from cricket, football and boxing to theatre, local history and murder. With an observant eye, a fascination with human nature and a felicitous way with words, David Foot - who died in 2021 at the age of 92 - wrote with insight and freshness on a wide cast of characters: from cricketer Viv Richards and rugby star Carwyn James to actor Peter O'Toole, politician Harold Macmillan and poet Siegfried Sassoon. As a cricket writer he won multiple awards, developing a style all his own. His biography of Harold Gimblett, breaking new ground by exploring the mental turmoil of the Somerset and England batsman who committed suicide, regularly features high in lists of best cricket books of all time. As a drama critic he was the first to review a Harold Pinter play and the last to review a George Formby performance. As a historian of Bristol's past he dug into hidden corners, tapping into memories of a lost world of working-class boxing booths and, through a lady lavatory attendant, the sad and sordid nightlife of the Downs in the 1930s. As a working journalist for more than sixty years, he reflected on the changing world of newspapers, notably in 'Country Reporter', a beautifully evocative and often hilarious account of his apprenticeship in Yeovil. 'Footprints' contains all this and more, some of it - like extracts from his biography of WG Grace rejected by publishers in the 1960s - never previously published. There is also private writing: from perceptive teenage diaries, right through to poignant late-life reflections on memory loss. The result is a highly original book. It is both a collection of writing by a superb wordsmith and the intimate story of how a boy from humble rural roots in Somerset overcame setbacks to become a writer not only of beguiling prose but of wisdom, compassion and humanity - a writer, in the words of one reviewer, 'of deep perception and rare sympathy'.

About the Author
Stephen Chalke was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in 1948 and now lives in Bristol. In 1996 he left full-time employment in adult education to become a writer and publisher of cricket books. His work has been primarily that of an oral historian, capturing the memories of past generations and placing them in the context of the surrounding social history. In his 22 years at the helm of Fairfield Books he published 42 titles, 19 of which he wrote himself. Eight of these publications won national Book of the Year awards, including five by himself and one by David Foot, whose last four books he published. In 2019 the Cricket Writers' Club honoured him with the Peter Smith Award for his 'outstanding contribution to the presentation of cricket to the public'.


Book Information
ISBN 9781739929343
Author Stephen Chalke
Format Hardback
Page Count 384
Imprint Charlcombe Books
Publisher Fairfield Books
Weight(grams) 1000g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 160mm * 32mm