Julie Seddon reviews Racing Pigs and Giant Marrows - Travels Around the North Country Fairs. By Harry Pearson. IF you know your Anglo-Nubians from your Toggenburgs, your Ayrshires from your dairy Short Horns or quite simply your Tamworths from a Gloucester Old Spot then you'll be head over heels in love with Harry Pearson's latest creation. Racing Pigs and Giant Marrows is a comical narrative ambling across Northern England munching on a generous slice of home-made fruit cake at the big country fairs. Of course I was forgetting that Lancaster is a district with strong agricultural links and of course its own platform for displaying gargantuan sized turnips and cauliflowers. Readers are bound to know what an Old Gloucester Spot is.

You might think this book is the equivalent of watching the televised sheep dog trials on a Sunday morning, but that would be completely missing the point. Pearson's observations are acute, funny and above all Northern. He might be a Yorkshireman but he quite diplomatically embraces Cumbrians and even Lancastrians as he trawls agricultural circles, trying to steer clear of the smell of frying onions and hot dogs - a common feature at summer fairs along with celebrity guests from Coronation Street. Pearson is a historical man at heart.

He charts the lineage of goats, horses, sheep and birds with devoted academic energy. With equally amusing enthusiasm, he relates the history of countryside fairs and their role in the Agrarian Revolution.

But alongside his historical narrative and digressions into the finer points of Egton Gooseberry Fair there are brilliant observations on the idiosyncrasies of human life. Take, for example, show judges. They are a law unto themselves. Don't ever think of entering your prize Victoria sponge into a best cake competition, if it's got a soggy bottom you'll be openly chastised.

Unfortunately, Pearson didn't make it to the annual Lancaster and Morecambe Agricultural Show which is a great shame because there were goats and horses a-plenty to provide a rich source of anecdotes.

Anyway, Pearson's book will make you chuckle. It is a historical harvest festival of delights that cultivates the country fairs of the 90s.

Racing Pigs and Giant Marrows is available from Lancaster's Waterstones bookshop on King Street. Here's some books we would like to recommend. James Herriot's Yorkshire Stories, illustrated by Lesley Holmes. Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin by Margaret Forster, Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson, One Year in Provence by Peter Mayle and Tim Parks' Italian Neighbours.

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