This book, which is a mixture of fact, anecdote and quotation, describes the author's meandering exploration of some of the best of England's provincial second-hand bookshops, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the Isles of Scilly. Judged by the contents of the author's bookshelves, he has a strong but highly selective interest in sport, with rugby union, cricket and bowls foremost, and the odd place allowed to football and golf. There are biographies and autobiographies from Bernard Shaw to Alan Ross; a dozen volumes by W H Hudson, greatest of naturalists; travels with Henry James and Paul Theroux and Edwin Muir; books on cinema Westerns; essays by Ford Madox Ford and Edward Thomas; a novel or two; and a little poetry. The bulk of these books, as you may notice, are dependent, to a greater or lesser extent, on fact, suggesting, correctly, that their owner is a journalist.

Not All Mud and Scrums is about rugby union before professionalism. The book begins and ends with the historic Scotland-England Grand Slam match at newly-opened Murrayfield in 1955. There are men, matches and moments here, seen from the press box and the terraces with an eye for the odd and a feeling for the past. It will be of a special interest to those who, like the author, were introduced to the game in simpler times.