We will let the following article speak for itself — apart from pointing out what its writer has so successfully proved, that Jim Perrin is far from the infallibility he assumes when it comes to his knowledge of country ways, and the creatures of the countryside:

The Countryside Alliance complains [about Jim Perrin].

”The Countryside Alliance has sent a formal complaint to the Guardian following an article printed on Saturday14 July titled ‘Country Diary: no sanctuary for hunted partridge at Melangell’s church‘, explaining the many ways in which the article fails to uphold the paper’s own Editorial Code on accuracy. Our complaint asks that the article be amended or removed from the Guardian website, and a correction published, and states that if the Guardian fails to do so we will refer the article to the Independent Press Standards Organisation. Continue reading →

We were phoned today by one of the many well-wishers who keep us informed. They had seen online a post — please refer here to the estimable blog To Hatch a Crow* (whose editor seems always to have his finger on the pulse!) — which they thought might be of interest: and indeed, so it was. We contacted him, the author of the critical piece: ‘Touching the Void — When Writers Lose the Plot!’, which he had posted on the 10/07/2018. Very kindly he gave us permission to quote him and we will do so, but to begin with we would like to give something of the background.

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On the 24/04/2005 ‘Llywarch’ posted his review on Amazon of Joe Simpson’s extraordinary book Touching the Void. (It was one of 370 reviews with a showing of 4.5 out of 5 stars.) He gave it a paltry two stars and short shrift. There followed two comments — although strangely they were posted later, in 2014, after a gap of nine years. Here is ‘Llywarch’s’ (JP?) review (with his favoured ‘psychology’):

‘Interesting subliminal basis behind all the hype: the severed cord, the struggle out of the crevasse, the crying in the night, the welcoming arms at the end of the long struggle. But please, doesn’t all that crawling — and our identification with it — infantilise us just a little? As for Simpson’s other titles, when can we anticipate the Deep Gloom Lifting?’ Continue reading →

Reading the heartfelt post which Dr Duff recently contributed has brought into even sharper focus Jim Perrin’s distasteful behaviour.

At the beginning of their relationship, when she trusted him, doubtless Jac would have confided in him, and thus he was able to acquire his knowledge of her past love and their lost child. ‘Knowledge is Power’, and we have been told by others how adept Jim Perrin was at discovering their secrets… But to make public that traumatic period in our sister’s life was a mean betrayal of her deepest confidences, and that he should have written of this highly personal matter in West, when she had died — and in the exaggerated and melodramatic way that he did — was nothing less than repellent self-interest. Possibly he thought it added spice to the book…

It was not Jim Perrin’s place to reveal something which had been so guarded and so private; it was not his story to tell. For him to have done so is yet another example of his self-aggrandisement. Continue reading →