Deborah Devonshire

In fine feather

The telephone rang and it was Mark Amory, literary editor of this magazine.

issue 05 March 2011

The telephone rang and it was Mark Amory, literary editor of this magazine. You could have knocked me down with a feather when he asked me to review Beautiful Chickens. I said yes at once. I already had a copy of the book, given me by the staff at Heywood Hill as a Christmas present, so I knew the fun I was letting myself in for.

The chickens are beautiful indeed. The Frizzle, for instance — a spoilt lady coming out of the hairdressers where they have forgotten to comb out her curls — is truly surreal. But not as surreal as what I overheard a woman telling a friend at the Reading Poultry Show many years ago, long before political correctness had been invented: ‘I put my little Japs in the bath’. She was staying in a hotel, so what the chambermaid must have thought I cannot imagine. Obviously her Japanese Bantams had to be in pristine shape before they went in front of the judge.

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