Description
Double the mayhem, double the charm! For the first time, the complete equine/domestic comedies of David Beaty are published together in a special omnibus edition.
David Beaty was a prolific author in the postwar era famous for thrillers such as Cone of Silence and Call me Captain which reflected his experiences in WW2 as a pilot with the RAF and later as an airline captain. But on the ground, he met his greatest match when he foolishly gave in to his daughters’ pleas for a family pet…
Milk & Honey: Travails with a Donkey (first published in 1963 under the pseudonym Paul Stanton) is Beaty’s hilariously warm comedic memoir of a household upended by an equine tyrant named Honey. Armed with the same sharp psychological insight he used to decode aircraft accidents in his seminal work The Naked Pilot: The Human Factor in Aircraft Accidents, Beaty/Stanton attempts to outmanoeuvre the rescued donkey, who refuses to be tamed, leading to a series of hilarious escapades and eventually his begrudging affection.
Published posthumously at the behest of David’s widow, this edition includes the previously unpublished sequel Only a Miracle: Confessions of a former Horse-Hater. The chaos continues when a pony is added to the family menagerie, proving that lightning – and four-legged mayhem – can strike twice.
Written from a home shared with his equally prolific novelist wife, Betty, this double-feature shows a delightfully human side to one of aviation’s greatest minds. Relatable, witty, and effortlessly charming, it is a masterclass in mid-century British humour – and a timeless celebration of the beautiful, exasperating mess of pet ownership and family life.
“A delightful, sun-dappled anomaly… a masterclass in situational humour and mid-century British charm.”
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