Fishermen: A Community living from the Sea
David & Charles, 1977, ISBN 0 7153 7448 6
Revised Ed. Shaun Tyas, Stamford, 1999, ISBN 900289 22 9


The Story of Lavender
London Borough of Sutton Libraries & Art Services, 1892, ISBN 0 907335 05 5
2nd revised ed. Heritage in Sutton 1989, ISBN 0 907335 18 7


Joint Tenants: Man and Beast
a Book about Attitudes to Animals
Commissioned from, written and accepted by Croome Helm


Gertrude Jekyll, Biography
Viking, 1991, ISBN 0 670 82788 6
Penguin paperback, 1991, ISBN0 14 015666 6


Barbara Hepworth: A Life of Forms
Viking, 1995, ISBN 0 670 84303 2 6
Penguin paperback, 1996, ISBN 0 14 016672
 

Fishermen: A Community living from the Sea

‘Sally Festing does for fishermen what Ronald Blyth's Akenfield did for country working .. This is a book about people whose life had a timeless quality which our machine age living can never hope to emulate.'


Press Comments on First Edition

Fishermen is a fine book ... It is a valuable book and one which very much needed to be written. New Society

Sally Festing knows how to talk to fishermen ... especially that resilient race that extracts its living off the north Norfolk coast ... it can take its place with Cobbett's Rural Rides as a chronicle of how Man and Nature coalesced in one particular place at one particular time ... The Times

... the author lets these men tell much of their own story, which they do with a dramatic simplicity ... This timely and very readable book looks not only at the job but also at the quality of life within these fast-disappearing small fishing communities. Times Ed. Supplement

Sensibly and sensitively, Ms Festing encourages the fishermen and their wives to describe their perilous and precautious lives for themselves. Tribune

...has succeeded in winning the confidence of the old fishermen - often the most suspicious and taciturn of mortals ... a few more years and it would have been too late. Eastern Daily Press

For Sale, copies  of the second,  handsome, paperback edition with a new foreword and 18 black & white photographs not included in the first edition.
£12.00 + £2.00 p&p

The Story of Lavender

London Borough of Sutton Libraries & Art Services, 1892, ISBN 0 907335 05 5

2nd revised ed. Heritage in Sutton 1989, ISBN 0 907335 18 7

'A unique and enchanting book recording the cultivation history, folklore, botany, literature and uses of one of our best-loved plants.'

Review
 
This is a unique and well-researched book 133-paged book tracing English lavender's history, cultivation and industry, and giving a very informative account of the lavender trade's rise and fall in the UK. The study contains so much original material which is a delight to read - detailed accounts of many of the original  principle lavender growers and companies, set out in such a way as to include fascinating anecdotes and stories of many of the personalities involved.


Background to the circumstances in which lavender fields once stood - at Carshalton, Beddington, Mitcham, Wallington, Sutton, Hitchin etc. - are to be found, together with profiles of lavender distilling companies such as Potters & Moore. It is a credit to Sally Festing, who I believe is a librarian, that she has been able to unearth so much about this part of our ethno-botanical heritage and agro-industrial culture.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~nodice/new/bookreviews/book18/book_reviews_book_18.htm
 

For Sale   copies of the Second Revised Edition with a new Foreword & a chapter about the different botanical species and their cultivation. £4.50 + £2.00  p&p.
 

Joint Tenants: Man and Beast
a Book about Attitudes to Animals

'Since mid twentieth-century man's relationship with animals has been a fundamental, sometimes a burning issue. Concern with endangered species and their habitats unites 'greens' in general with the hugely vocal voice of birdwatchers and pet owners. 'Wildlife friendly' farming methods are being introduced. Legislation in the UK has banned hunting with dogs, and the sale of skins and furs has almost stopped. A band of vociferous animal 'liberationists' concentrate their attention on medical research. Some have been imprisoned for the damage they have caused. Indeed one, resorting to a hunger strike, died martyr to his cause. The UK has been the centre for animal activism but British supporters have taken their message to New Zealand and the US. In America, pet culture has fostered the growth of psychology in veterinary medicine and the law relating to animal welfare has become a respectable academic discipline. There is even a name for the scientific study of human-animal interactions: anthrozoology.
To understand present attitudes we need to be clear about the past. There is a wealth of philosophical analysis of our treatment of animals through the ages, yet we live with misconceptions...

Exerts from the text appeared in The New Scientist (Animal Experiments: the long debate, 28.1.1989), The Journal of Garden History (Menageries and the landscape garden, 1988, 8:4, p104-117,) and Country life (Pampered and Petted: 18th-Century Household Pets). In 1889 the author withdrew this book from publication because she felt it required pictures in order to sell. The subject, however,  has become hotter every year.
 

Gertrude Jekyll, Biography

Reviews

'Sally Festing's biography is as generous as it is meticulous ... Festing's own felicitous descriptions of some of the 400 Jekyll gardens, and in particular of Munstead, help to make the book as enjoyable as it is illuminating of the private life of a formidable, admirable woman'. Miranda Seymour in the Sunday Times

'A remarkable achievement ... This account gets about as close to prodding beneath the surface of the woman as any will'. Roy Strong in the Evening Standard

'Sally Festing sets out to give Gertrude Jekyll's work an extra dimension by increasing our knowledge of her family life and of her contradictory private and public character. She has done some thorough and original research.' Clayre Percy in the Spectator

'Affectionate and perceptive .. Ms Festing has a fine and sympathetic eye for the detailed effects which Jekyll created.' Richard Mabey in the Sunday Telegraph

Barbara Hepworth: A Life of Forms

Shortlisted by the Yorkshire Post for the best art biography of the year.

'Sally Festing has made a very good job of a formidable task .. I was moved by the basic truthfulness of her approach and her insights into the loneliness of a creative life'. - Daily Telegraph

'It offers much information which cannot be found elsewhere and it also contains some insights that are compelling ... the brilliance, dignity and pain of this conflicted life shine through' - Sunday Times

'A moving portrait emerges of a driven, ultimately fulfilled but rarely happy woman, who decided early on it was best to ''devote oneself to work quite ruthlessly.' - Independent

'Hepworth's official biography has yet to be seen but it will have to be exceptional if it is to add much to this account of a highly complex human being.' - Yorkshire Post

The Turn of the Tide: North Norfolk's Saltmarsh Coast,2004, ed. Ian Scott
Using the words of people who live in Wells-next-the-Sea, I describe the present and open up the future of a seaside town I’ve known since childhood.

The Return of the Tide: North Norfolk’s Saltmarsh Coast, 2010, ed. Ian Scott and Richard Worsley

What people do when they’re not working.