My father, Ike Cox, had a lifetime of horse dealing. He had three horsemeat shops during WW2, travelling to all the horse fairs in Britain, hand-slapping horse dealing. I am Ikea s son Doug, and in 1963 my father and me travelled to Appleby Fair in Westmorland by horse-drawn Romany gypsy vardi with a four-wheel wagon and flat cart, with many gallowers tied behind, all for sale. We had a hundred miles to travel, meeting up with many gypsies and travellers on our way. I write our story in the year 2014, telling of how everything was in those distant, bygone years; of our gypsy encampments and our gallowers climbing the steep hills of picturesque Yorkshire Dales. Telling of how it all was on Dealersa Corner and Fair Hill, with many hand-slapping horse deals. Washing the gallowers in the River Eden next to the White CafA (c) and in the evening horse dealing continuing on in the pubs in Appleby village. Singing, clog dancing on the street, bare-knuckle fighting, a trotting race at dawn on the main road on and down at Appleby trotting track. We had a trotter called Half Lug and a big gamble took place. Did she win? Oh for the love of Appleby Fair! We will be back next year on the second Tuesday and Wednesday of June. My story is to the memory of my father, Ike Cox. A 400 page Hardback with my full colour glossy sketches.

Old Jock, the Shepherd, that's what everybody called him. He was born a long time ago in the year of 1880. He was born in a croft farm in the bonny Highlands of Scotland. His father was a shepherd all through the eighteen-hundreds. In those distant bygone years everything was done by horse-drawn and all these old-fashioned ways of how things were done was all passed on to Old Jock from his father. I am Douglas Cox, better known as Countryboy. During the decade of the 1970s I got to know Old Jock very well, very well indeed. During that whole decade he would tell me his whole lifetime of stories. How people would travel by stagecoaches, but more to the point, how he worked his croft farm with horse-drawn machinery and how he shepherded his vast flock of several thousand sheep. I might add, well into his nineties. As I write this story in the year of 2012 Old Jock is now dead, but he dearly wanted me to write about his shepherding lifetime. He told me his story in Scottish broken tongue; I will tell you his story in English broken tongue. And what a terrific knowledgeable story Old Jock did tell!

One day as I was browsing through our local newspaper what I saw made my eyes sparkle. The headline said 'Secret Coverdale' and that made my memories drift far away. I have spent more than 25 years up there, making many friends and acquaintances. The story in my newspaper was saying how Secret Coverdale looks and how holiday-making tourists miss it as they tour around the Yorkshire Dales. They surely do. All the beautiful picturesque scenery they are missing. I thought to myself, I will write a brief story about Coverdale and send it to the newspaper to let their readers have a read of my times I spent up there. So, pen to paper, I wrote and wrote and kept on writing, and by the time I had finished I had more than 200 pages. Far too much to put in a newspaper, so I sent it to my publishers instead and they published it into a book. I tell of many things about Secret Coverdale, meeting many old characters of the dale and all the dales which surround Coverdale, all 700 square miles of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Together with 200 splendid photographs I took, making my book in excess of 400 pages, all in glossy hardback. You could say I know Secret Coverdale like the back of my hand.

This is what I call my own true McCoy of book. By now I am sixty years young; I have spent my life time on mother nature's fields and her countryside. As I wrote my lifetime of stories I had to delve my mind deep back into my past having to recall what happened and how it happened and then writing it down into my story. Believe me, what true stories I do tell, I speak of how things were way back in time in yester-year, I also speak of an old retired head gamekeeper whose lifetime dates way back in time to the late eighteen hundreds and it is his own words that tell his story, telling of how his pheasants were reared the old-fashioned way, out in the rearing fields, speaking of his yearly cycle of all the four seasons, telling his story on the daring poaching he had on his estate, telling the true art of poaching and how it was done. If the poaching isn't in this book, then it probably doesn't exist at all! What a terrific story the old head keeper tells, a real eye-opener for the up-and-coming young keepers of today. Hardback, 500 pages together with my great, detailed sketches!

My name is Douglas Cox, better known as Country Boy. This is my true-to-life story of what happened to me when I was in my early twenties which was way back in time in the decade of the 1970s. I tell of how I would travel with my friend Barry, the long-distance lorry driver, up into the Bonny Highlands of Scotland and while Barry would stay up there haulaging all week long, I would be dropped off. I would sleep rough in my self-made bivouac in the vast fir tree plantations on a Laird's vast estate which stretched thirty miles long and twenty miles wide. The Laird's estate was absolutely out of control with rabbits and I would poach these rabbits all week long with my ferrets and then Barry would pick me up again on his back track home. You readers must now have to ask yourselves, 'DID I GET CAUGHT?' or 'DIDN'T I GET CAUGHT?' poaching the Laird's rabbits. You will have to read my exciting and knowledgeable true-to-the-fact story to find out. Now you readers sit back comfortably and read my true McCoy of a book which is the story of all lifetime's of stories on big time rabbit catching, plus many of my graphic, in great detail illustrations, this book is a hardbook version 359 pages.