Along Came a Llama

This charming rediscovered gem in the tradition of All Creatures Great and Small tells the heartwarming tale of how a baby llama transformed a Welsh farming family forever.

Things llamas like:
Slurping up cherry brandy, Easter chocolate, and Dad’s favorite magazine.
Curling up in ball on the rug by the fire.
Orbiting, helicoptering, and oompahing.
Locking unsuspecting victims in the bathroom.

Things llamas dislike:
Being adopted mother to an orphaned lamb.
Invitations to star on children’s TV shows.
Dreadful British weather.
The dark.

Ruth Ruck’s family live on a rural farm, tucked into the mountains of Wales, no strangers to cow pats on the carpet and nesting hens in the pantry. When dark days strike, they embark on a farming experiment to cheer them all up – but raising a baby llama proves more of an adventure than expected …

Reissued with a new foreword by John Lewis-Stempel, Along Came a Llama is a delightful 1970s farming classic: a charming, witty portrait of country life that will warm the hearts of animal lovers everywhere.

"Full of soul ... One departs this book a convinced llama-lover ... It is a guide to the future. To a good life." ―  John Lewis-Stempel

Ruth Janette Ruck wrote three much-loved memoirs –Place of Stones(1961), Hill Farm Story(1966), and Along Came A Llama(1978) – about her Welsh hill farm Carneddi which became a local tourist attraction in Snowdonia, even starring in an 'About Britain' episode called 'The Lady and the Llama.' She died in 2006 but her family still run the same farm today – minus the llama, alas.

John Lewis-Stempel is a writer and farmer. His books include the Sunday Times bestsellers The Running Hare and The Wood. He is the only person to have won the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing twice, with Meadowland and Where Poppies Blow. In 2016 he was Magazine Columnist of the Year for his column in Country Life. He lives in Herefordshire and France with his wife and two children.