GROWING up in a fox-hunting family, Lucy Jones wasn’t allowed to watch any TV shows where the cunning fox was portrayed as the hero.

But that hasn’t stopped her from becoming a huge fan of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox, and penning her own study into the countryside’s most cunning character.

The freelance writer, who has had work published in BBC Earth, BBC Wildlife The Guardian and TIME, rounded off the first day of events at the 23rd annual Swindon Festival of Literature on Monday evening.

Taking the hot seat at Lower Shaw Farm she answered a number of questions from festival organiser Matt Holland and explained her enchantment with the mammal that led to her writing Foxes Unearthed – a story of love and loathing in Modern Britain.

“It is the urban fox debate where the love and loathing is really pronounced, especially in the last ten years or so,” said the London-based writer.

“One person living in a street in London may love foxes and feed them, whereas the person living next door may loath them and contact a pest controller to shoot them for £300.

"That is something that is really pronounced across our cities.”

She also explained that although foxes are well-known for killing an entire coop of chickens and only making off with one, this didn’t mean that they killed for fun – but rather that they intended to come back for the remainder of the kill.

Despite foxes being well-known locally for getting into chicken coops, the majority of guests at the talk raised their hands to show their love of foxes when Lucy asked them to show whether they were a fox lover or a hater. Only a couple indicated that they were on the fence.

But foxes aren’t easily defined into rural and urban foxes.

“There are also commuter foxes, where a fox in the countryside may travel into Swindon for its meal and then come back,” she said.

“Or there are those that grow up in Swindon and decide to move out to the countryside.

“If all foxes are killed like Boris has asked for in London we would have a huge rat problem,” she added, and explained that inner-cities also had foxes to thank for the diverse range of plants, which many believe have arrived as a result of wandering foxes.

She also dispelled the myth of foxes making a racket during the mating season, saying that the blood curling screams which ring out over the countryside are in fact romantic calls from the vixens to indicate that they are in heat and ready to mate, and not as a result of pain during the act itself as is commonly believed.

The event came to a close around sunset so Mr Holland could ensure the farm’s chickens were safely back in their coop for the night.