The Cornkister Days

The Cornkister Days
Author: David Kerr Cameron
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2016-02-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0857909096

A detailed look at the lives of the Scottish tenant farmers and laborers who worked the land from the late 1700s to the early 1900s. With a knowledge and a skill that reveals his passion for the land and its people, David Kerr Cameron picks his way through the rural upheavals and developments of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries towards the landscape we recognize today. In doing so he provides a wide-sweeping and unforgettable view of our rural history and completes his great rural trilogy portraying the old farming landscapes of Scotland’s North-East Lowlands. Both nostalgia and great understanding are revealed as the author recalls a society based on the plough, a society that moved against the tapestry of the year: “This was the backcloth against which the farmtoun folk lived out their days; its seasons and rituals governed their lives, and ultimately their destinies. Here now is that story, the story of a landscape all but lost before the onward march of agri-business and agri-technology.” The days recalled are the days of the Clydesdale horse and the hired man, the cottar and crofter, the farmtoun tenant, and his laird. Praise for The Cornkister Days “Here you can smell the tang of the soil and hear the jingle of the harness. Cameron takes his place among the great Scottish writers of the last century.” —Jack Webster

The Ballad and the Plough

The Ballad and the Plough
Author: David Kerr Cameron
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2016-03-03
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0857903284

The era of the great farms of Scotland is over now. They flourished for nearly eighty years from the mid 19th century, and those years are renowned for the strength of their characters and the legendary status of their stories. Probably the finest and richest aspect of bothy life was the ballad. Often sentimental, sometimes simplistic, they nevertheless give unrivalled detail about a vanished way of life and work. Quoting generously from the ballads, David Kerr Cameron has written a book rich in anecdote and insight. The working day was hard and long, and mealtimes consisted mainly of porridge and potatoes. Yet laughter and generosity of spirit were commonplace. For these communities, horses were as important as people, and tens of thousands of noble Clydesdales helped to cultivate the land. Ploughmen, dairymaids, bailiffs and shepherds all appear in the pages of this unique testament to the Scottish countryside. Together with Willie Gavin, Crofter Man and The Cornkister Days, this volume forms a remarkable trilogy on life in rural Scotland.

Out of the Valley

Out of the Valley
Author: Ronald Blythe
Publisher: Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2007
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781853118548

Canterbury Press is proud to have acquired these backlist Ronald Blythe titles, consisting of illustrated collections of the authors regular weekly column on the back page of the Church Times where, with a poets eye, he observes the comings and goings of the rural world he sees from his ancient farmhouse in the South of England. Each volume was critically acclaimed on publication.

Chapman

Chapman
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1984
Genre: Book reviewing
ISBN:

The Cornkister Days

The Cornkister Days
Author: David Kerr Cameron
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2016-03-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0857909096

With a knowledge and a skill that reveals his passion for the land and its people, David Kerr Cameron picks his way through the rural upheavals and developments of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries towards the landscape we recognise today. In doing so he provides a wide-sweeping and unforgettable view of our rural history and completes his great rural trilogy portraying the old farming landscapes of Scotland's North-east Lowlands. Both nostalgia and great understanding are revealed as the author recalls a society based on the plough, a society that moved 'against the tapestry of the year: 'This was the backcloth against which the farmtoun folk lived out their days; its seasons and rituals governed their lives, and ultimately their destinies. Here now is that story, the story of a landscape all but lost before the onward march of agri-business and agri-technology'. The days recalled are the days of the Clydesdale horse and the hired man, the cottar and crofter, the farmtoun tenant and his laird.

'As Good as a Holiday'

'As Good as a Holiday'
Author: Heather Holmes
Publisher: John Donald
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2000
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

In Scotland the potato harvest has been the last large-scale agricultural process to be mechanized. Until recently, it was undertaken by a large number of people. This text examines that work in an area of Scotland famous for its potato growing.