Denys Watkins-Pitchford was also known as 'BB'.
He wrote a range of books on natural history, shooting and conservation. Many of these remain in print despite being first published and have really nice illustrations by BB himself, including paintings and engravings.
He was an artist, writer, and outdoorsman, and wrote upwards of 50 books for adults and children. His regular column in “The Shooting Times” gave him his pseudonym, apparently'BB' was the size of the lead shot he used to hunt geese.
'The Little Grey Men' was the first of a pair of books featuring a quartet of gnomes and their adventures. They are described in the introduction as "the last gnomes in Britain".
The subtitle is: 'A story for the young in heart'Their names are Baldmoney, Sneezewort, Dodder and Cloudberry. These are all the names of plants.
Cloudberry goes exploring and disappears so they build a boat called the 'Dragonfly' and go in search of him. The book is the story of the gnomes' epic journey, set against the background of the English countryside, beginning in spring, continuing through summer, and concluding in autumn, when the first frosts are starting to arrive.
The book was first published in 1942. It won the Carnegie Medal.
The books are available in modern editions and you can find earlier editions from online retailers.
Read it on the Internet Archive here.
There was a TV adaptation of the book in 1975,
BB prefaced Down the Bright Stream with a text copied by his clergyman father from a Cumbrian gravestone:
