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The Crofter and the Laird: Life on an Hebridean Island
When John McPhee returned to the island of his ancestors?Colonsay, twenty-five miles west of the Scottish mainland?a hundred and thirty-eight people were living there. About eighty of these, crofters and farmers, had familial histories of unbroken residence on the island for two or three hundred years; the rest, including the English laird who owned Colonsay, were ?incomers.? Donald McNeill, the crofter of the title, was working out his existence in this last domain of the feudal system; the laird, the fourth Baron Strathcona, lived in Bath, appeared on Colonsay mainly in the summer, and accepted with nonchalance the fact that he was the least popular man on the island he owned. While comparing crofter and laird, McPhee gives readers a deep and rich portrait of the terrain, the history, the legends, and the people of this fragment of the Hebrides.
170 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
John McPhee
121 books1,890 followersJohn Angus McPhee is an American writer. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the fourth occasion in 1999 for Annals of the Former World (a collection of five books, including two of his previous Pulitzer finalists). In 2008, he received the George Polk Career Award for his "indelible mark on American journalism during his nearly half-century career". Since 1974, McPhee has been the Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 144 reviews
April 4, 2026
I find that it’s quite impossible to describe to somebody what exactly constitutes good writing. But when you read anything by John McPhee, you know that whatever this good writing is, you found it.
In this tiny book set on a tiny Scottish island of Colonsay where John McPhee spent some time in the late 1960s driven by that odd ancestral compulsion some of us get from time to time, The Crofter and The Laird gives us a few sketches of life on this tiny speck of land, a difficult life often of subsidized subsistence, where pride and deep resentment are equally mixed.
We get to meet a few quite colorful inhabitants of this place (138 people on an eight-by-three miles dot of land 25 miles off the coast of Scotland — that’s in 1969, there seem to be fewer now) and learn a few snippets of history and geography and economy, with the uncertain future looming ahead. The sheep, the fishing, the infamous brutal Highland clearances, the remnants of the old feudal contract between the laird and the tenants, the disappearance of the Gaelic language, the Hebridean legends. The subtle barely-there differences distinguishing the native “islanders“ from the “incomers”; the loss of young people to the mainland to more opportunities than hard island life.
And of course, what is suggested by the title itself – The Crofter and the Laird — the ages-long tensions between the owner and the tenants. The island is owned by an Englishman from whom the tenants expect a lot but perceive receiving very little. The owner is expected to provide maintenance of the island and the homes as well as employment; the tenants are expected to pay rents (but at least no longer expected to take their hats off and bow to the laird — although the older men still do).
The tenants feel that the new island owner, the son of the old master, is basically phoning it in. The new island owner, however, is tired of running this enterprise at a net loss, with the rents low, but unable to raise them due to the islanders poverty, and so he’s finding the ways to cut down expenses on the upkeep of the island. And nobody’s happy with this situation, neither the crofters nor the laird. And John McPhee show both sides and let us do our own thinking with no preachy sentimentality in sight.
Although it is a non-fiction book that seems to mainly belong to the field of social anthropology with a small dab of a travelogue, it is a wonderful example of skillful storytelling. It captures the feel of time and place so well and so seemingly effortlessly. It tickles my brain just right and I can’t wait to eventually read all of his books.
5 stars. And special thanks to Justin, who not only introduced me to John McPhee, but specifically pointed out this book to me. Thanks, friend!
“Colonsay is less like a small town than like a large lifeboat. By a scale of things that begins with cities and runs to hamlets, the island is some distance off the end. The usual frictions, gossip, and intense social espionage that characterize life in a small town are so grandly magnified on Colonsay that they sometimes appear in surprising form, in the way that patches of skin magnified a hundred diameters may appear to be landscapes of the moon. Air and water, sea and sky, life is imploded upon the people here by the blue bottles that surround them.”
In this tiny book set on a tiny Scottish island of Colonsay where John McPhee spent some time in the late 1960s driven by that odd ancestral compulsion some of us get from time to time, The Crofter and The Laird gives us a few sketches of life on this tiny speck of land, a difficult life often of subsidized subsistence, where pride and deep resentment are equally mixed.
“But if you expect many things in life, crofting isn't the way to get them. Crofting cannot keep up with the times. Most people expect more than the bare necessities of living now. And crofting is not a livelihood. It's an existence.”
We get to meet a few quite colorful inhabitants of this place (138 people on an eight-by-three miles dot of land 25 miles off the coast of Scotland — that’s in 1969, there seem to be fewer now) and learn a few snippets of history and geography and economy, with the uncertain future looming ahead. The sheep, the fishing, the infamous brutal Highland clearances, the remnants of the old feudal contract between the laird and the tenants, the disappearance of the Gaelic language, the Hebridean legends. The subtle barely-there differences distinguishing the native “islanders“ from the “incomers”; the loss of young people to the mainland to more opportunities than hard island life.
And of course, what is suggested by the title itself – The Crofter and the Laird — the ages-long tensions between the owner and the tenants. The island is owned by an Englishman from whom the tenants expect a lot but perceive receiving very little. The owner is expected to provide maintenance of the island and the homes as well as employment; the tenants are expected to pay rents (but at least no longer expected to take their hats off and bow to the laird — although the older men still do).
Colonsay House, the laird’s headquarters.
The tenants feel that the new island owner, the son of the old master, is basically phoning it in. The new island owner, however, is tired of running this enterprise at a net loss, with the rents low, but unable to raise them due to the islanders poverty, and so he’s finding the ways to cut down expenses on the upkeep of the island. And nobody’s happy with this situation, neither the crofters nor the laird. And John McPhee show both sides and let us do our own thinking with no preachy sentimentality in sight.
Although it is a non-fiction book that seems to mainly belong to the field of social anthropology with a small dab of a travelogue, it is a wonderful example of skillful storytelling. It captures the feel of time and place so well and so seemingly effortlessly. It tickles my brain just right and I can’t wait to eventually read all of his books.
5 stars. And special thanks to Justin, who not only introduced me to John McPhee, but specifically pointed out this book to me. Thanks, friend!
June 21, 2021
More so than any other piece of nonfiction I've read recently, this book perfectly encapsulates a moment in time--life on the island of Colonsay in the 1960s. Sheep, bagpipes, a crumbling priory, but there's more to it than that.
The laird owns the land and the crofters lease and work it, expecting the laird to protect and provide for them. The author gently touches on various aspects if life on the island--there's mail delivery three times a week, a single schoolroom houses all of 23 students, and a Bapstist minister arrives once every three weeks for those residents who aren't Church of Scotland--and after a while these residents begin to feel like friends, neighbors at the very least. The final pages touch on Hibridean legends, and though almost too brief, they are thoroughly engrossing.
The question I now have is, has life there changed entirely or not at all? Because I might need to buy myself a little house there someday.
The laird owns the land and the crofters lease and work it, expecting the laird to protect and provide for them. The author gently touches on various aspects if life on the island--there's mail delivery three times a week, a single schoolroom houses all of 23 students, and a Bapstist minister arrives once every three weeks for those residents who aren't Church of Scotland--and after a while these residents begin to feel like friends, neighbors at the very least. The final pages touch on Hibridean legends, and though almost too brief, they are thoroughly engrossing.
The question I now have is, has life there changed entirely or not at all? Because I might need to buy myself a little house there someday.
November 2, 2021
In 1969 John McPhee took his wife and four young daughters from Princeton, New Jersey, to the island of Colonsay, ancestral home of the McPhee clan, twenty-five miles off the west coast of Scotland. Eight miles long and three wide, it was home to 138 people. The entire island was owned by the laird, Donald Howard, the 4th Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal who was responsible for upkeep of the island in return for the payment of rents and service from the tenants. It was a strange medieval holdover, a bit of feudal history lingering into the present.
Life on Colonsay was circumscribed by its economic system, and the population fell as young people moved away to the mainland in search of jobs and opportunities. Twenty years previously the population had been 250, and in the distant past it seems to have supported a thousand people along with a monastery. After McPhee’s visit the population continued to drop, to a low of around 100, but in recent decades it has recovered a bit and is now close to the same level as it was when he visited. I searched the internet for more information, but could not find whether the feudal system still exists; I found references to a modern land reform act but nothing tying it to Colonsay.
Most of the people lived by sheep herding or farming. There were a few large farms, but most of the allotments were crofts, plots of forty acres or less. Surprisingly, there was no maritime industry, no one working at fishing or lobstering. There was one small store with an attached pub, a one-room school, a doctor, a postman, and a dockmaster, and that was about it.
The island was a money losing proposition for the laird, whose family got rich building railroads in Canada. The laird lived most of the year in Bath, England, and only visited the island during the summer. When McPhee spoke with him he had an interesting, but perhaps not surprising, perspective. The rents collected were low, and could not be raised because the inhabitants were barely surviving as it was. The laird reduced expenses by laying off workers at his estate, and reducing free services such as electricity, but the income still did not meet the outlay, particularly since he, as landlord, was responsible for maintaining the roads, fences, and dwellings. He said that the tenants would do nothing for themselves, and then complain about the delays it took the laird’s agent to fix things.
The lives of the people were not easy, barely rising to the subsistence level, but they loved the land and supported each other, and hated losing their children to better opportunities on the mainland. Once children left they returned only for brief visits.
This book is not sociology, it is story-telling, and McPhee is a fine story teller. The people he profiles come alive with their own personalities, their struggles and their lives. Many of them can trace their families back generations on the island, to the days before the power of the clans was destroyed at Culloden in 1746. History, geography, and weather are woven into the narrative, the history going all the way back to the Neolithic age, as revealed in excavations of the middens, up through the time of the Vikings, and into the modern era. The ancient myths are also recounted, of mer-people and monsters, and heroic deeds. Put together, all these threads help to create a story of a place and time, of the present being just the near end of a past that reaches back through time out of mind, binding people and beliefs to the lands and to one another. McPhee tells a fine story in a book that is is barely 150 pages long, and it was a pleasure to read.
Life on Colonsay was circumscribed by its economic system, and the population fell as young people moved away to the mainland in search of jobs and opportunities. Twenty years previously the population had been 250, and in the distant past it seems to have supported a thousand people along with a monastery. After McPhee’s visit the population continued to drop, to a low of around 100, but in recent decades it has recovered a bit and is now close to the same level as it was when he visited. I searched the internet for more information, but could not find whether the feudal system still exists; I found references to a modern land reform act but nothing tying it to Colonsay.
Most of the people lived by sheep herding or farming. There were a few large farms, but most of the allotments were crofts, plots of forty acres or less. Surprisingly, there was no maritime industry, no one working at fishing or lobstering. There was one small store with an attached pub, a one-room school, a doctor, a postman, and a dockmaster, and that was about it.
The island was a money losing proposition for the laird, whose family got rich building railroads in Canada. The laird lived most of the year in Bath, England, and only visited the island during the summer. When McPhee spoke with him he had an interesting, but perhaps not surprising, perspective. The rents collected were low, and could not be raised because the inhabitants were barely surviving as it was. The laird reduced expenses by laying off workers at his estate, and reducing free services such as electricity, but the income still did not meet the outlay, particularly since he, as landlord, was responsible for maintaining the roads, fences, and dwellings. He said that the tenants would do nothing for themselves, and then complain about the delays it took the laird’s agent to fix things.
The lives of the people were not easy, barely rising to the subsistence level, but they loved the land and supported each other, and hated losing their children to better opportunities on the mainland. Once children left they returned only for brief visits.
This book is not sociology, it is story-telling, and McPhee is a fine story teller. The people he profiles come alive with their own personalities, their struggles and their lives. Many of them can trace their families back generations on the island, to the days before the power of the clans was destroyed at Culloden in 1746. History, geography, and weather are woven into the narrative, the history going all the way back to the Neolithic age, as revealed in excavations of the middens, up through the time of the Vikings, and into the modern era. The ancient myths are also recounted, of mer-people and monsters, and heroic deeds. Put together, all these threads help to create a story of a place and time, of the present being just the near end of a past that reaches back through time out of mind, binding people and beliefs to the lands and to one another. McPhee tells a fine story in a book that is is barely 150 pages long, and it was a pleasure to read.
December 28, 2015
There was a toast among the clans when they banqueted. A clansman would rise, lift a cup, and say, "To the land of the bens and the glens!" And up from the food the faces would move, and every man would roar out, "To the land of the bens and the glens!"
Och, a toast to start.
Our current President dismisses any evidence which disagrees with his political positions by calling it 'anecdotal'. Sniff. But I live in a world where stuff trumps theory.* I learn from stuff, from passed-down legends, and the stories that we tell. Which is why I go to John McPhee to learn about the little island Colonsay in the Hebrides. Because it's stories that he tells.
McPhee starts not with a toast, but thus:
The Scottish clan that I belong to--or would belong to if it were now anything more than a sentimental myth--was broken a great many generations ago by a party of MacDonalds, who hunted down the last chief of my clan, captured him, refused him mercy, saying that a man who had never shown mercy should not ask for it, tied him to a standing stone, and shot him.
Och, again.
So off it was, McPhee and his family (wife and four daughters) to live a year on Colonsay. To listen and take notes.
Two men were drinking side by side last night in the pub.
"I know you think I'm a bastard," said one, touching his cap.
The other said, "We'll let that pass. I've not come here to discuss that."
They are direct and brief, you see.
What is said in these places will frequently include a high proportion of factual incorrectness, but truth and fiction often seem to be riding the same sentence in such a way that the one would be lonely without the other.
And tied, inexorably to this hard land.
Almost every rise of ground, every beach, field, cliff, gully cave, and skerry has a name. There are a hundred and thirty-eight people on Colonsay, and nearly sixteen hundred place names.
Along the way, I learned the origin of the expression "every dog has its day" and also, timely, the New Year's tradition of first footing. Dark-haired, I will not have to toss a lump of coal through my neighbor's front door before handing him the whiskey.
I read this to be entertained (I was) and to learn about a little island (and maybe I did). John McPhee wrote this because that's what he does; but also, I'm sure, to learn whence he came.
Angus, my grandfather, was a heater in a steel mill. He got the ingots white-hot and ready for the roller. He ate his lunch out of a metal box and never developed much loyalty to the steel company, possibly because his immediate superior was his brother-in-law. "Oh, God damn it, Angus, if it weren't for my sister, I'd fire you," the brother-in-law said once, and my grandfather said, "John, if it weren't for your sister, I wouldn't have to work."
Och.
Here's to the land of the bens and the glens!
__________________________________
*I hope the upcoming election does not make me have to stop using that verb.
Och, a toast to start.
Our current President dismisses any evidence which disagrees with his political positions by calling it 'anecdotal'. Sniff. But I live in a world where stuff trumps theory.* I learn from stuff, from passed-down legends, and the stories that we tell. Which is why I go to John McPhee to learn about the little island Colonsay in the Hebrides. Because it's stories that he tells.
McPhee starts not with a toast, but thus:
The Scottish clan that I belong to--or would belong to if it were now anything more than a sentimental myth--was broken a great many generations ago by a party of MacDonalds, who hunted down the last chief of my clan, captured him, refused him mercy, saying that a man who had never shown mercy should not ask for it, tied him to a standing stone, and shot him.
Och, again.
So off it was, McPhee and his family (wife and four daughters) to live a year on Colonsay. To listen and take notes.
Two men were drinking side by side last night in the pub.
"I know you think I'm a bastard," said one, touching his cap.
The other said, "We'll let that pass. I've not come here to discuss that."
They are direct and brief, you see.
What is said in these places will frequently include a high proportion of factual incorrectness, but truth and fiction often seem to be riding the same sentence in such a way that the one would be lonely without the other.
And tied, inexorably to this hard land.
Almost every rise of ground, every beach, field, cliff, gully cave, and skerry has a name. There are a hundred and thirty-eight people on Colonsay, and nearly sixteen hundred place names.
Along the way, I learned the origin of the expression "every dog has its day" and also, timely, the New Year's tradition of first footing. Dark-haired, I will not have to toss a lump of coal through my neighbor's front door before handing him the whiskey.
I read this to be entertained (I was) and to learn about a little island (and maybe I did). John McPhee wrote this because that's what he does; but also, I'm sure, to learn whence he came.
Angus, my grandfather, was a heater in a steel mill. He got the ingots white-hot and ready for the roller. He ate his lunch out of a metal box and never developed much loyalty to the steel company, possibly because his immediate superior was his brother-in-law. "Oh, God damn it, Angus, if it weren't for my sister, I'd fire you," the brother-in-law said once, and my grandfather said, "John, if it weren't for your sister, I wouldn't have to work."
Och.
Here's to the land of the bens and the glens!
__________________________________
*I hope the upcoming election does not make me have to stop using that verb.
January 25, 2018
I need more like this. MacPhee’s accounts work by dream logic—which is the inverse of nonsense. A sentence may seem not to lead to its successor, and yet there’s no other sentence that could take the next one’s place. Subject matter changes from geography to myth to history to local finance to weather page by page, and yet the evolution of concepts feels clear even though there’s no connective tissue visible. There’s no overarching argument, no bullet list of takeaways, and yet for all that—because of all that—one leaves with the feeling something consequential has been said.
June 26, 2012
This book is the one I always recommend to folks who've never read John McPhee. Short and lyrical, a lovely introduction to his writing.
August 18, 2013
A croft is less than a farm, only forty acres. The laird is the owner, in this case the owner of the entire island of Colonsay. Hear it from one of the islanders, "Some crofters don't work their crofts. They have a cow, a few sheep. That is all. My father was always one for working the croft. When I took it over, I kept it going. It's not right to let the land be neglected. I'm quite happy here. I make out, so long as the shore's handy and such like. But if you expect many things in life, crofting isn't the way to get them. Crofting cannot keep up with the times. Most people expect more than the bare necessities of living now. And crofting is not a livelihood. It's an existence." Surprisingly the temperature doesn't get extemely cold, rarely below 40, but hardly ever above 60. So staying warm and dry is a constant gathering of driftwood, careful measuring out use of coal, and repair of roof leaks. Now throw in Scottish churlishness, gossip as a way of life, and knowing everything about all 138 people on an island the size of Minneapolis. Fascinating.
August 5, 2021
3.5 Stars!
The Highlands and Islands of Scotland is a part of the world which is so overcrowded with myths, legends and outright nonsense, that it can take a long time to hack your way through all the talk of tartan, castles and whisky to come across the everyday reality hidden somewhere behind all of that.
There is some really fine writing in here, granted McPhee occasionally gets a little carried away by the romanticised notion of Scotland rather than the reality, but let’s not get too harsh. We do get a real feel for the island of Colonsay and he really brings the people and the place alive, contrasting the beauty and the bleak with equal conviction.
At times this has the feel of a quirky, offbeat documentary done on a pauper’s budget and at other times some of the words and passages smoulder like coals in an open fire giving off a lovely wee heat, and a general sense of well-being.
This isn’t a great book, but it is a good one, and one that successfully captures a time and place as if sealed in amber at the tail end of the 1960s. McPhee bears witness in a way that we get characters instead of caricatures. We get immersed in the gossip and the mythology and swept up by the enigmatic traditions and the dramatic landscape, and all the other little pieces which make up the fabric of this isolated island community.
May 13, 2012
I was going to re-read this for our trip to Colonsay in April. My impression after reading it was that things probably haven't changed all that much on the island since 1970.
The people are still resourceful and hold multiple jobs around the island. They are still vastly outnumbered by the ghosts of former inhabitants and by the 'nearly sixteen hundred place names' on Colonsay.
It's easy to forget about the present in a place like Colonsay and get immersed in the past -- fantastically vivid in a place with standing stones and ruined dwellings and ancient remains everywhere you look.
One of the high points of our visit was being able to buy the definitive history of Colonsay, Lonely Colonsay, from the man who is author-publisher-bookseller-bus driver-piermaster and get his autograph, while also getting a tail-wagging slobbery greeting from his very friendly dog.
We also loved seeing the tiny little bookshop/publishing house on the beach where this edition of the book was published. They were in the process of moving out of the scenic bookshop into new, more accessible premises in town, but it still had the House of Lochar sign up.
The people are still resourceful and hold multiple jobs around the island. They are still vastly outnumbered by the ghosts of former inhabitants and by the 'nearly sixteen hundred place names' on Colonsay.
It's easy to forget about the present in a place like Colonsay and get immersed in the past -- fantastically vivid in a place with standing stones and ruined dwellings and ancient remains everywhere you look.
One of the high points of our visit was being able to buy the definitive history of Colonsay, Lonely Colonsay, from the man who is author-publisher-bookseller-bus driver-piermaster and get his autograph, while also getting a tail-wagging slobbery greeting from his very friendly dog.
We also loved seeing the tiny little bookshop/publishing house on the beach where this edition of the book was published. They were in the process of moving out of the scenic bookshop into new, more accessible premises in town, but it still had the House of Lochar sign up.
September 25, 2024
This is the 4th McPhee book I've read. McPhee takes his material from just about anything and anywhere. The first I read was Rising from the Plains, which is a geological history of Wyoming. He interviews a geology professor from UW who is filled with stories, anecdotes about Wyoming's history. In particular, the Guernsey Uplift, which is where I live. Very interesting. The 2nd book was The Pine Barrens. This was about a wide area in New Jersey that has been the source of many myths, stories, tales. It featured prominently in the Repairman Jack series by F. Paul Wilson, which is why I read it. Then I read The Survival of the Birch Canoe, which traces the history of the birch canoe. In it, McPhee meets the current guru of canoe making and accompanies him on a test run of a couple of his canoes. This turns into the camping trip from hell. Still, a great story and good book. This current book, The Crofter and the Laird, details the relationship of the Crofters or farmers/inhabitants and the landowner on the isle of Colonsay in the Hebrides Islands west of Scotland. An unusual social arrangement at best and one vanishing in the modern world. He interviews and meets most of the islands 140+ inhabitants and hears their many stories and tales of their ancestors. I liked the book for the most part but it seemed to ramble a lot. In fact, I didn't realize I had got to the end because it was embedded in one of those stories. Anyway, an interesting look at the people of Scotland.
February 5, 2018
“What is said in these places will frequently include a high proportion of factual incorrectness, but truth and fiction often seem to be riding the same sentence in such a way that the one would be lonely without the other.”
John McPhee - an American writer and descendant of the Clan McPhee - visited his ancestral homeland of Colonsay (one of the Hebridean islands) in the summer of 1969; and this book (history, geography, travelogue and tall tales from the pub) resulted from his time there. It’s a detailed exploration of many of the elements which make up the Colonsay life, from sheep to education to lobster fishing. McPhee explores everything from Gaelic legends to the contemporary arrangement between the island’s owner (Donald Howard, the 4th Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, aka ‘the Laird’) and his tenants, both islanders and incomers. Many individuals living in Colonsay at that time are treated to personal portraits, and these wonderfully individual glimpses of the islanders were one of my favourite aspects of the narrative.
A keen interest in Scotland’s history and/or geography would definitely be a plus, for any potential reader of this book, but even without it - and my interest was certainly milder than keen - the author truly makes his setting come alive.
John McPhee - an American writer and descendant of the Clan McPhee - visited his ancestral homeland of Colonsay (one of the Hebridean islands) in the summer of 1969; and this book (history, geography, travelogue and tall tales from the pub) resulted from his time there. It’s a detailed exploration of many of the elements which make up the Colonsay life, from sheep to education to lobster fishing. McPhee explores everything from Gaelic legends to the contemporary arrangement between the island’s owner (Donald Howard, the 4th Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, aka ‘the Laird’) and his tenants, both islanders and incomers. Many individuals living in Colonsay at that time are treated to personal portraits, and these wonderfully individual glimpses of the islanders were one of my favourite aspects of the narrative.
A keen interest in Scotland’s history and/or geography would definitely be a plus, for any potential reader of this book, but even without it - and my interest was certainly milder than keen - the author truly makes his setting come alive.
February 23, 2021
Returning in the late 1960's to the Hebridean island of his ancestors, Colonsay, off the west coast of Scotland, with wife and children in tow, John McPhee lived and wrote there for several months. He delved into the lives and quirky personalities of the 140 or so people who still lived there, on their isolated island owned by an English "laird" who only visited there in the summertime. Baron Strathcona, whose great-grandfather Donald Smith rose from humble origins to later make his vast fortune in Canadian railways and even to drive the last spike in the line that finally completed the cross-country railroad that linked east coast to west coast, was not necessarily enamored of his role. It turned out that playing the part of feudal lord was no longer very financially viable, especially since the laird collected rather paltry rents and was saddled with the costs of maintaining the homes of his islander tenants. The source of the islanders' livelihood was not very clear -- government and tourism, with a dash of farming -- but at at rate it was enough to keep body and soul together but not enough to keep their children from fleeing the island when they came of age.
My own ancestors came from another island of the Outer Hebrides, South Uist, to the northwest of Colonsay, before very sensibly emigrating to Canada. So, I took a particular interest in this book, for its portrait of the lives of these Scots a couple of generations ago, a way of life that is no doubt already gone and replaced with a new, less isolated and more prosperous one. McPhee does a remarkable job of making his way into this society, and recording what he sees and hears with a style that tends more to the novelistic that the traditional non-fiction form. He also spends no small amount of time also exploring the history of this island and its many myths, and it's all a bit meandering, but if you're not in a hurry, you'll decidedly enjoy this book.
My own ancestors came from another island of the Outer Hebrides, South Uist, to the northwest of Colonsay, before very sensibly emigrating to Canada. So, I took a particular interest in this book, for its portrait of the lives of these Scots a couple of generations ago, a way of life that is no doubt already gone and replaced with a new, less isolated and more prosperous one. McPhee does a remarkable job of making his way into this society, and recording what he sees and hears with a style that tends more to the novelistic that the traditional non-fiction form. He also spends no small amount of time also exploring the history of this island and its many myths, and it's all a bit meandering, but if you're not in a hurry, you'll decidedly enjoy this book.
April 3, 2019
This is one of John McPhee's earlier works. The book tells of the time that McPhee took his wife and four daughters to live in a house on Colonsay Island in the Scottish Hebrides. John McPhee was descended from early settlers on the island. They rent a home from a crofter (a renter) and McPhee tells his story and later brings in the story of the laird (the main landowner) who returns each summer to collect rent. The book includes his wonderful descriptions of the people and the landscape, and is augmented by some great pen-and-ink drawings. However, the book includes no map and while he is a wonderful wordsmith, there is no overarching arc to the story he tells of their time on the island, so when the book ends you know that that theme could have started the book just as easily as it ends it. I enjoyed how he captured life on this island of about 200 people back in the mid-1960s.
December 11, 2022
Set in the late 1960s on the Scottish island of Colonsay where the author has relocated his family from the States. He writes descriptively about the inhabitants of the island, the landscape and the history, albeit a bit haphazardly at times. It's a reflection of the time of writing I suppose, but there was almost no mention of the family's personal experiences (and only ever his) of living in such a different environment. The characters described on the island are also almost exclusively the men. Written in different circumstances, on different islands in different eras, but the contrast is very stark compared to Tamsin Calidas' "I am an island", which is written from the female perspective of island life.
July 18, 2017
A slim book that tells the story of the crofter/laird relationship in Scotland through one island village, that happens to be where McPhee's family originated. He goes there as a writer with a wife and small children and tells the crofter/laird dynamic from both perspectives--those that work the land and the man that owns the land they work. From that end, the book is entertaining and informative, but in McPhee's eyes it is as if there were no women or children on this island, not his own wife and children, which I imagine--or hope?--took up a significant part of what this one year on the Hebridean island was like.
December 23, 2023
In these little essays about life on the Scottish island of Colonsay, McPhee writes lovingly and with good humor about ancestry and anachronism. The pastoral life of crofters seemed to be unchanged from a century earlier, but modernity and the cost of life hangs in the background like a pressure that might cause this cultural bastion to collapse. Instead of dwelling too anxiously on the threats to Colonsay, McPhee instead celebrates the people of the island and how they and their families have lived for over a dozen generations.
October 31, 2017
Not even Sir Walter Scott could exaggerate the romantic beauty of that lake and mountain country penetrated by fjords that came in from the seas that were starred with islands.
- John McPhee
I expected something like a coherent description of life on a Hebridean island from beginning to end, perhaps sprinkled with comparisons to life in America and the author’s realisation that life on that island was heaven, or something of that sort. What I got was a collection of stories about the people on Colonsay, each illuminating some part of their way of life, and McPhee’s various encounters with them (equally illuminating) – stories that, when so flawlessly woven together, somehow became a whole that I wished were much longer than it is.
I have never read anything by McPhee before, but after this one I am eager for more. His writing is simple and without judgment – you never truly get an idea of his opinion of this or that person, this or that event, but are presented with the facts as they are and then you can form your own opinion (or just enjoy the read). That is quite impressive to me. McPhee has got himself a new admirer. It is clear, however, that he has fallen in love with the environment found on Colonsay – and you probably will, too, if you read this.
/NK
- John McPhee
I expected something like a coherent description of life on a Hebridean island from beginning to end, perhaps sprinkled with comparisons to life in America and the author’s realisation that life on that island was heaven, or something of that sort. What I got was a collection of stories about the people on Colonsay, each illuminating some part of their way of life, and McPhee’s various encounters with them (equally illuminating) – stories that, when so flawlessly woven together, somehow became a whole that I wished were much longer than it is.
I have never read anything by McPhee before, but after this one I am eager for more. His writing is simple and without judgment – you never truly get an idea of his opinion of this or that person, this or that event, but are presented with the facts as they are and then you can form your own opinion (or just enjoy the read). That is quite impressive to me. McPhee has got himself a new admirer. It is clear, however, that he has fallen in love with the environment found on Colonsay – and you probably will, too, if you read this.
/NK
June 19, 2020
Travel log, nature log, and guide to the faeries and histories of Colonsay Island. Bleak and depressing and at times very sad. Nonetheless, beautifully written. A fast, enjoyable read. The first book I've read by John McPhee and I'm delighted to read more. As of 2020, Colonsay is still doing okay.
July 7, 2019
I stumbled across this book about 3/4 year ago I think. It's been on my nightstand ever since, and I've read it on and off. Every time I opened it, it immediately took me back to life on another Scottish island, one that was my home away from home 2 years ago. I miss it often, and this book helped a lot with that. Its written in a very interesting and, to me, new way, which I had to adjust to but came to love throughout. If you're looking for a blunt ant just slightly romanticized view into island life, this is for you.
May 25, 2020
Great writing and sublime storyweaving. Extra interest as I spent some beautiful days on Colonsay last summer.
January 30, 2018
I really enjoy John McPhee's work, and the first couple of chapters in this book were engaging, but then--not so much. It may, in fact, be a very true-to-life depiction of the Scots world now, but that's why I visit rather than live there.
August 10, 2025
Really great ending. Worth reading just for those last few pages.
July 3, 2020
DNF
En amerikaners forherligende møde med et udkantsområde og hans benovelse over, at man rent faktisk lever af naturen sådan et sted. Selv om bogen har en del år på bagen, er det for mig, et klart billede på, hvor langt by og land er kommer fra hinanden.
Jeg blev meget træt af, at han hele tiden gør alt op i penge og jeg kunne kun trække på smilebåndet over, at han glædeligt genfortæller lokale overleveringer og skrøner, som om det er den skinbarlige sandhed og ikke historier der er blevet pyntet på og tilpasset i gennem årtier.
Jeg havde forventet stemning og spændende fortællinger om livet på Hebriderne, men jeg blev desværre slemt skuffet.
En amerikaners forherligende møde med et udkantsområde og hans benovelse over, at man rent faktisk lever af naturen sådan et sted. Selv om bogen har en del år på bagen, er det for mig, et klart billede på, hvor langt by og land er kommer fra hinanden.
Jeg blev meget træt af, at han hele tiden gør alt op i penge og jeg kunne kun trække på smilebåndet over, at han glædeligt genfortæller lokale overleveringer og skrøner, som om det er den skinbarlige sandhed og ikke historier der er blevet pyntet på og tilpasset i gennem årtier.
Jeg havde forventet stemning og spændende fortællinger om livet på Hebriderne, men jeg blev desværre slemt skuffet.
June 5, 2020
Life on a Scottish island as only McPhee can report it. A way of life vanishing in 1969.
October 8, 2019
If you could, would you?
That’s the first question I’d like to ask anyone who read this book. Meaning, if you found out your ancestors lived on a barely populated island in Scotland and if you, centuries past your relatives stay there, had the professional freedom to travel there with your family and live for a time.....would you?
I would. But only if I can take John McPhee with me (he’s old now, I know, but I’d need someone to help me with all the coal related chores).
This book is an exercise in what it means to attend. To attend to a place. To attend to the people of that place. To attend to yourself, your story, your line of ancestors who necessarily came before you for there to be a you at all. Do those before-people, and how they lived, matter? The Crofter and the Laird offers up its calm but confident “yes.”
For English teachers, here is an excellent mentor text for Creative Nonfiction.
For everyone, here is a book that won’t take you long to read but will, I imagine, stay with you for a long time.
That’s the first question I’d like to ask anyone who read this book. Meaning, if you found out your ancestors lived on a barely populated island in Scotland and if you, centuries past your relatives stay there, had the professional freedom to travel there with your family and live for a time.....would you?
I would. But only if I can take John McPhee with me (he’s old now, I know, but I’d need someone to help me with all the coal related chores).
This book is an exercise in what it means to attend. To attend to a place. To attend to the people of that place. To attend to yourself, your story, your line of ancestors who necessarily came before you for there to be a you at all. Do those before-people, and how they lived, matter? The Crofter and the Laird offers up its calm but confident “yes.”
For English teachers, here is an excellent mentor text for Creative Nonfiction.
For everyone, here is a book that won’t take you long to read but will, I imagine, stay with you for a long time.
December 5, 2017
Fantastic, my new favourite non-fiction writer. Obscenely clean and balanced writing that puts you in the middle of a real place.
June 15, 2016
I was hitch-hiking on the isle of Mull, the Hebrides, in the middle of May when a young couple gave me a lift. After exchanging views on interesting books, I was advised to read "The Crofter and the Laird" by John McPhee. So I did.
In its own genre I find it a very good book. John McPhee, a staff writer in "The New Yorker" decided to go with his family back to his ancestors tiny island Colonsay, the Hebrides, to live there for a time.
This book is extraordinary in its own more or less McPhee-invented genre. I completely agree with Ian Crichton-Smith: "The book is in many ways unusually frank and the portraits incicive ... neither sentimental nor judgmental, but clear-cut and sensible." It is about interactions and relationships, history, mythology,language and topography, all in a wonderful mix. I found it more interesting than a good traveller's tale. Thanks to the young couple!
In its own genre I find it a very good book. John McPhee, a staff writer in "The New Yorker" decided to go with his family back to his ancestors tiny island Colonsay, the Hebrides, to live there for a time.
This book is extraordinary in its own more or less McPhee-invented genre. I completely agree with Ian Crichton-Smith: "The book is in many ways unusually frank and the portraits incicive ... neither sentimental nor judgmental, but clear-cut and sensible." It is about interactions and relationships, history, mythology,language and topography, all in a wonderful mix. I found it more interesting than a good traveller's tale. Thanks to the young couple!
November 24, 2017
McPhee’s Scottish ancestors lived on the Hebrides island called Colonsay, twenty five miles west of mainland Scotland. McPhee, his wife, and their four daughters, ages 2,4,6, and 8 visited the island and lived there for a year. The crofters are the people who lived on Colonsay, and the Laird was the absentee owner and landlord who ruled the island and the hundred and thirty-eight people who lived there, as of 1970 when the book was written. It was a life of old traditions that were fading away, and perhaps by now are almost completely gone.
September 12, 2014
I'm a huge fan of John McPhee and just finished binge watching 57 episodes of Monarch of the Glen, a BBC production which ran from 2000 to 2005. It was marvelous to toggle back and forth between the program and The Crofter and the Laird.
September 18, 2008
Spend some time on a Scottish island. Interesting, well written.
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