Memoirs dedicated to Bill Barnes and other Drakensberg staff members
David Cook writes in the Foreword:
"When the author, a friend and colleague of long standing, approached me to write a foreword to this account of his life as a game ranger at Giant's Castle Game Reserve in the early 1960s, I agreed without a moment's hesitation.
The reason for this is simple. Quite apart from the fact that his narrative traces the early adventures, trials and tribulations of a young man about to embark on a career in wildlife conservation, George Hughes has brought to life my own memories of game ranging during those same years when I took up a post at Giant's Castle offered to me by Colonel Jack Vincent, then the Director of the Natal Parks Board. Like the author, I had not the faintest idea of what duties I would have to perform in a part of Natal that I had only once fleetingly visited, and neither had I any real practical experience or formal training in nature conservation. I was a greenhorn in every sense of the word."