Would You Believe It ?

“When I was a boy”, writes the Hon Eldred MacFriary, “I remember we used to catch red squirrels by tying half-sucked toffee apples to the lower branches of a great big beech tree in my uncle’s (Lord Grassenthwaite’s) grounds at Grassenthwaite Castle. We would then hide in a nearby shrubbery. It didn’t take long for the little brutes to emerge from behind the trunk with their fluffy red tails bobbing and, overcome by that insatiable curiosity of theirs, approach the toffee apples, grabbing them between their front paws. Of course their fur stuck to the toffee, and after they had had a lick or two they would try to scamper away, but found themselves trapped. We jumped up and wrung their necks. We often caught a dozen in a day that way. Great sport, but disappointing eating.”

* Hon Eldred MacFriary, Our Animal Friends: a Memoir of Country Life (Bagnall & Stockling, 1995)

Would you believe it ?