A Grim Almanac

of Devon

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Author - John Van Der Kiste

Format - Paperback (160 pages)

Publishers - Sutton Publishing Ltd.

ISBN-10: 0750950471

ISBN-13: 978-0750950473

Price - £14.99

"A Grim Almanac of Devon is a day-by-day catalogue of 366 ghastly tales from around the county. Full of dreadful deeds, macabre deaths, strange occurrences and heinous homicides, this almanac explores the darker side of the county's past."

Personally I love almanacs, they are the kind of book where you can either dip into them as the fancy takes or read the entire book in one go, A Grim Almanac of Devon is one that you will want to immediately devour in its entirety. The first date I always visit is my birthday and here I learnt that on that day in 1612 four men were fined 1s by the Ashburton overseers for, 'absentyne themselves from the church on the Sabbath daye all the tyme of divine service.' The next date to visit is Christmas Eve because any sad event that occurs on that day seems to be more tragic than at any other time of the year. In this case in 1896 three prisoners attempted an escape from Dartmoor Prison, one was shot dead, another was recaptured by the guards whilst the third wandered aimlessly around the moor before being caught at Devonport on Boxing Day.

As can be seen from the two examples above, although the book is called A Grim Almanac of Devon there is a lot of Dartmoor interest within its pages. Many of the moorland legends and memorials are included along with their respective photographs which nicely gives the reader a sense of reality. The bibliography shows the impressive extent of Dartmoor research that John has put into his book along with other noted Devon publications. For me the saddest event of this book is that John's mother, the well known and loved Dartmoor enthusiast, died earlier this year before this book was published. She would have been proud that so many of the pages are concerned with the Dartmoor she held so dear.

At first I could not understand why there were 366 daily entries until I came to the 29th of February, here the penny dropped, events would have occurred during leap years and sadly on this day in 1956 a pilot was killed in an air crash near Cadover Bridge (another Dartmoor related incident). It is also interesting to note that the book has been published in a leap year?

All in all this book is an informative and enjoyable read and should grace the bookshelves of anyone's Dartmoor library