OXFORDSHIRE'S 29th blue plaque honours the memory of a man who was content to have the life of a village shepherd.

Mont Abbott lived and worked on the land for 80 years, and was made famous by the book Lifting the Latch.

Its author, Sheila Stewart, unveiled the plaque on Saturday at the village of Fulwell, where Mont spent the last 28 years of his life, before his death in 1989.

He was a farm boy, carter, shepherd, and gardener who, apart from his first few years, lived entirely in the area around Enstone.

The humble man of the land joined the company of some more illustrious men and women who have been honoured, including poet laureate John Betjeman, car-maker William Morris, agricultural machine inventor Jethro Tull, and author JR Tolkien.

The book about him was based on a long series of conversations, and was first published by Oxford University Press in 1987, then reissued in 2002 by Day Books, in Charlbury.

The Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board has been placing memorials in the county since 2001.

It meets twice a year to consider nominations, and tries to spread the plaques, which each cost about £400, throughout the county. They honour not just people, but also places with a history.

But the plaques scheme is more than 140 years old, first introduced in London after the MP William Ewart proposed memorial tablets to honour places where the great and famous lived or were born.