Gentlenesse
This evening I finished reading "No Way But Gentlenesse" by Richard Hines. Raised in Hoyland, South Yorkshire, Richard was born into a coal mining family. He had an older brother called Barry who became famous for writing "Kes" in the late nineteen sixties. That novel was later made into an iconic film. It was all about a boy called Billy Casper who had little going for him but he managed to capture a young kestrel and train it. He called the bird Kes. As an English teacher, I taught "Kes" to several classes over the years and it became a standard GCSE English Literature text. One of the things that I always loved about that novel is that it portrayed a coal mining community with understanding and compassion. Barry Hines's lived experience was his principal source. But how had Barry Hines found out about kestrels and falconry? Simple really: in the mid-sixties his brother Richard had become something of a self-trained expert and had reared and ...