Letters: Skye’s Swimming Cows

A letter from the June issue of Scottish Field from J.S.Knight, Market Drayton, Shropshire.   I refer to your online article by Mairi Fraser, re-published on 29 March 2019 (originally published in print in 2014), regarding the Skye cattle farmers, the Macdonalds, maintaining an ancient tradition by swimming their cows from Staffin to Staffainn island.…

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Letters: Two poems to mark VE Day

David Starsmeare shares two of his poems to mark VE day. The poems are from a set which take us from the early days of war, his times as an evacuee in the West Country, and then back to London.     Celebrations VE DAY, May 1945 Wounded in France long years before Our father…

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World War I – as seen first hand in the trenches

Mud and Bodies is a fascinating collection of letters and extracts from the war diaries of Captain NAC Weir during the period 1914-1920. The diaries were found by his grandson shortly after his death and provide a first-hand account of the life of a young soldier on the Western Front during WW1. It includes an…

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New book mines rich seams for historical insight

Marian Pallister tells the story of Argyll and its rich mining history in Not a Plack the Richer. Using in-depth research into official records, letters and maps, she has produced an informative and absorbing tome. Pallister’s great grandfather was a County Durham miner who moved to Argyll, so she was inspired to write on this…

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