Book Signing - Once Upon a Raven's Nest

There is no need to book for the morning book signing with Catrina and we look forward to welcoming you.

Booking is advised for the afternoon walk and talk at 2pm

You may pre-order copies of Once Upon a Raven's Nest here

'Once Upon a Raven's Nest is a genuinely captivating tale of rural-lore - told through the thrilling narrative of one man's life; a good ol' country boy, a right character whose scraps and scrapes litter the pages. Chainsaws and tractors and torn love affairs fill the book, as Tommy's story is laid bare in a series of episodes and fractured snapshots carefully scattered within a timescale of environmental decline. There is a tough, brutal beauty here in Davies' depiction of the ways of the British countryside but love, and delight and the best of humanity, too' - James Canton

Those of you who live locally may recognise that 'good ol' country boy as Ralphie, Hedley Ralph Collard...

Once Upon a Raven's Nest is an account of an epoch of change; of the earth and of a human life. It is the story of a working class man, one Thomas Hedley of Exmoor, and of the planet during the period of its great acceleration towards the current climate emergency. 

Born in 1955 to a rural, working class family in Somerset, Thomas refused to conform. His fierce independence, recklessness and contrariness led not only to scrapes and self-inflicted dangers but to a life enriched by the love of women. Catrina Davies came to know him in his last years and has given his life and times in his own words, creating a rich, pungent language in a knowing, poetic and poignant voice.

We learn of his accumulation of engines, tools and guns, the complexity of his connection to nature, the animals he loved and his desire to hunt them. He recounts the terrible consequences of his fatal attraction to risk and machinery which led to his being paralysed for the last years of his life, confined to a wheelchair, hopelessly dependent but still watching, noticing, recording, loving the world.

It's only when you add up all those small things that you get a sum so fraught with heartache you can't even start to reckon on how much you've lost.

In Davies's miraculous retelling of Thomas Hedley's life it is as if a world has been remembered rather than written. Once Upon A Raven's Nest is an unforgettable history of a life that is almost lost and an account of the destruction man has wrought on the earth in the time that Hedley worked the land.

Once Upon a Raven's Nest £18.99

Published April 2023 by Quercus Publishing

Number of pages - 400 22 x 138 mm