A Family in Skye 1908-1916

Acair, 2018. 276 pages.

Foreword by Derek Cooper, Introduction by Norman MacDonald

A beguiling acount of an extraordinary island childhood and a classic of early 20th century Hebridean social history. This is an intimate, joyous and ultimately elegaic portrayal of a family growing up on Skye, underpinned by the approach of the First World War and ensuing tragedy. Isobel Macdonald interweaves her own memories with her mother's lively letters from Portree to craft a timely and lyrical retelling of life as lived by on e Skye family in the years before the outbreak of war.

After many years out of print, this handsome new edition includes previously unseen contemporary photographs.

"From an island croft to the trenches. A man's life lost, a family in grief. Here is how the war touched and then wrecked the lives of those caught up in it. Without this remarkable book, the lives of such families would be lost forever, be nothing more than names on gravestones and memorials, or unknown faces in faded photographs. These people lived and had their being, endured uncertainty, pain and suffering. They are no longer simply names. They live on in this book, and take their place in the local and national memory."

This book is in English only.