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The promise that it's all for charity works wonders in shifting Red Nose

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The promise that it's all for charity works wonders in shifting Red Nose books or collections of celebrity recipes Some causes aren't quite so fashionable, though. The Fox's Prophecy, published this week by Michael Joseph (£7.99) is a delightful pocket book bravely dedicated to the Hunt Servants' Fund. An anonymous poem, written around 1870, the Prophecy concerns the encounter of a huntsman with a talking silver fox. Does it admonish him for his bloodthirsty ways? Not a bit of it; what follows is a hymn of praise to fox-hunting ("Too well I know, by wisdom taught/The existence of my race/O'er all wide England's green domain/Is bound up with the Chase") and a dire warning about the decline of country ways. R W F Poole's entertaining commentary swipes at politicians, Europhiles, Murdoch, animal sentimentalists and wimmin, all of whose excesses the wily old fox predicted.

Rather more PC are the concerns of Michael Gibson's A Hymn to Heald Mill, a collection of poems extolling nature and protesting about plans to build a second runway at Manchester's Ringway airport. The poems are reproduced in Gibson's dainty copperplate, written with a quill pen. Clearly a character, he lives in a Romany caravan and once tried to get the inspector to accept a tune on his tin whistle as a valid submission to the runway inquiry. "You must persuade me how playing a tin whistle would help the inquiry," said the inspector, and you can see the poor man's point. Proceeds from the 1918 edition of The Fox's Prophecy were gratefully received by the Red Cross, who declined this time round. For their 125th anniversary they have their own fund-raiser, I Owe My Life...

(Bloomsbury, £15.99), a history of the organisation with contributions from the likes of Nigel Havers, Shirley Williams and Rula Lenska.8 "A Hymn To Heald Mill" is available from Jardine's Bookshop, 73 King's St, Knutsford, Cheshire at £7 (plus £1.50 p&p).. AT THE Bank of England's Mutilated Notes Section in Newcastle, the branch manager is just unpacking one of the 150 or so letters and packages which arrive there each day. "I think," she grimaces, "that this may have been through a dog." The sender of the package has failed to provide explicit details of how its contents - alleged to be banknotes - came to be in this state. But the branch manager (whose name cannot be divulged for security reasons) has strong suspicions "They look gungy," she says "Yellow And there might be a bit of blood as well. I'm afraid some of these jobs can be a bit nasty." Fortunately, employees at the Mutilated Notes Section tend to have strong stomachs They have to. Their job is to examine bank-notes that have been accidentally damaged, so that their owners can be refunded their full value. But often the contents of the packages that people send in are more or less unrecognisable, and as disgusting (smelling, rotting, charred, half-digested) as the accompanying explanations are bizarre.However severe the damage, the Bank of England's promise to "pay the bearer", printed on every note, must be honoured, and the branch manager and her five female employees (they call themselves "The Mutilated Ladies") are expert at identifying and authenticating traces of original notes among the mangled remains.

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