Clap Hands for the Singing Molecatcher: Scenes from a Scottish Childhood

by Roderick Grant

Clap Hands for the Singing Molecatcher is both hilarious and deeply moving in its splendid account of the writer’s childhood on a remote country estate in Morayshire in the 1940s and 1950s; a place where isolated hill farms, limitless moorland and the rock-strewn banks of wild, tumbling rivers became the backdrop for a variety of adventures and experiences. Laughter, tragedy and dramatic incident thread their way through the life of a growing boy and the lives of the people he observes.

Roderick Grant’s book is not merely one of nostalgic recall. It is a richly evocative memoir of a time and place when horses still drew ploughs and children walked seven miles or more each day to reach their school; and where shepherd and gamekeeper, farmer and labourer, forester, railway worker, teacher, laird and minister, and their families, were all part of a community, close-knit in its isolation from the changing post-war world.

176 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 2007

About the author

Roderick Grant was born in Forres, Morayshire, in 1941, where he attended the local academy. He has worked as a forestry worker, a journalist, a newspaper editor, a television presenter, a radio broadcaster, a bookshop manager and a postman.

A number of his titles have been successful on both sides of the Atlantic, among them novels such as A Private Vendetta and The Clutch of Caution, and in non-fiction, The 51st Highland Division at War and his childhood memoirs Clap Hands for the Singing Molecatcher.

Reviews

[Carole · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice easy read about childhood post war in Highlands of Scotland.

[Di Castle · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read. I read this book a few years ago and it inspired me to write my own memoir. While I am still struggling with this and the several forms it now seems to take I frequently refer to the wonderful prose and humour of this author. I will always have a picture in my head of his journey to school accompanied by his dog and jackdaw. That's the first chapter so no spoiler there!