Telling Tales: Growing Up on a Highland Farm

by Jane Yeadon

Telling Tales is a nostalgic and beautifully written account of growing up on a small family farm which vividly evokes a way of life that, although so recent, is now all but forgotten. For Jane Yeadon, growing up on a farm in the north of Scotland in the 1950s was at times idyllic - but it could also be incredibly challenging. And when her father died in a tragic motorbike accident, it had a devastating effect on everyone as they struggled to make ends meet and hold on to the farm. While her mother turned her hand to writing popular newspaper articles on the life of a tenant crofter to make extra money, Jane and her big sister Elizabeth helped out Dod, the farm grieve, with the daily hard work around the farm. And there was always lots to do as Jane began to find her place in the scheme of things while experiencing country life, the village school and meeting a whole host of unforgettable characters along the way.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

271 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 9, 2015

Reviews

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, devouring it over the weekend. Yeadon remembers how it felt to be a small child surrounded by arbitrary adults. Her mother and others never actually say "because I said so" but she knew that's what they meant. Her life in the Highlands is beautifully evoked--hard to realise today that many crofters didn't have electricity until the 1960s! At one point she mentions never having seen herself in a full-length mirror until she was six.

If the book has a weakness, it is that the author sometimes mentions events and people as if the reader already knows all about them, and only explains several pages or chapters later. This too is characteristic of children of the age of 4 or 5, but doesn't add to the reading experience. There was a bit too much unexplained Scots vocabulary, as well. A footnote or two, or even just a parenthesis, would have helped.

[Sadie · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ 25%. I'm just not a fan of the childish narration, with its rambling/stream-of-consciousness style. I did, however, find some of the Scottish slang interesting -- e.g. a "dry greet" instead of "crocodile tears".