What do you think?
Rate this book
Crotal & White
Book by Macdonald, Finlay J
172 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
About the author
Finlay J. Macdonald
9 books5 followersFinlay John MacDonald - Fionnlagh Iain MacDhòmhnaill - was born on Harris in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. He spoke Gaelic at home, and started English when he went to primary school. His three books, Crowdie and Cream, Crotal and White, and The Corncrake and the Lysander detail his childhood growing up. Crowdie and Cream was also a series of talks on BBC Radio. He also had a long and successful career as a radio drama and talks producer, a television director, and also a writer and editor.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 26, 2021
Second part in MacDonald's childhood memories of growing up on Harris in the time between the wars. This book finishes off his time at the village school, and having won the bursary on the second attempt, is facing moving away from home to go to what would be secondary school I guess. At that time, children were encouraged to get an education or a job on the mainland - basically the sign of sucess was leaving and not coming back. Which is sad in a way that living there in those communities wasn't valued more. Yet at the same time you can't live off fresh air and nice views.
MacDonald writes in a wonderful voice, you can imagine him sitting by a fire spinning his yarns. I read that these were also done as a BBC radio series, which I can't find online now but I would love to listen to. I also found that BBC ALBA did a three part drama on tv of these books - but it's not on i player, available on DVD or indeed anywhere. Highly frustrating!
It's interesting to read about the anecdotes of the crofting life on Harris in the 1930s, as told from the child's perspective. It's not all schooling and games and mischief, you also hear stories of the traditions of agriculture there (seaweed, potato planting etc), the effects of the depression there, and whilst the children remain oblivious and unconcerned to an extent as kids do, you can see the stress on the adults. It must have been scary. And also we read of generally what life was like. No electricity or central heating, the kids go barefoot for the months of the summer... There was also an interesting observation about coming out of the depression, that I think you could apply to any national or global disaster (just thinking about things like that as we're in the middle of all of this covid)...
"Nations and people aren't aware of the pulling out of national Depressions and Recessions in one purposeful surge from a state of 'all's ill' to a glorious realization of 'all's well', no matter how much pundits interpret symptoms for them. It doesn't happen that way, any more than the man who is recovering from a long and weary illness suddenly sits up one day and say, 'Yesterday I was ill and dying: today hallelujah I am fit and well'.
It's true. It gradually happens and gets better, and it occurs to you much later that your problem went away a while ago.
MacDonald writes in a wonderful voice, you can imagine him sitting by a fire spinning his yarns. I read that these were also done as a BBC radio series, which I can't find online now but I would love to listen to. I also found that BBC ALBA did a three part drama on tv of these books - but it's not on i player, available on DVD or indeed anywhere. Highly frustrating!
It's interesting to read about the anecdotes of the crofting life on Harris in the 1930s, as told from the child's perspective. It's not all schooling and games and mischief, you also hear stories of the traditions of agriculture there (seaweed, potato planting etc), the effects of the depression there, and whilst the children remain oblivious and unconcerned to an extent as kids do, you can see the stress on the adults. It must have been scary. And also we read of generally what life was like. No electricity or central heating, the kids go barefoot for the months of the summer... There was also an interesting observation about coming out of the depression, that I think you could apply to any national or global disaster (just thinking about things like that as we're in the middle of all of this covid)...
"Nations and people aren't aware of the pulling out of national Depressions and Recessions in one purposeful surge from a state of 'all's ill' to a glorious realization of 'all's well', no matter how much pundits interpret symptoms for them. It doesn't happen that way, any more than the man who is recovering from a long and weary illness suddenly sits up one day and say, 'Yesterday I was ill and dying: today hallelujah I am fit and well'.
It's true. It gradually happens and gets better, and it occurs to you much later that your problem went away a while ago.
June 26, 2022
This is the second part of MacDonald’s memoirs of growing up in the southern part of the isle of Harris between the two World Wars, his recounting of a way of life that was on the way to extinction. There is no running water, no electricity - though here battery powered radios make their appearance - and no indoor plumbing; but the island’s first aeroplane sighting occurs. The Great Recession has brought poverty - sales of Harris Tweed have declined to zero - and the author’s father is reduced to killing the family’s pet sheep for food, despite his reluctance at killing anything due to his experiences in the Great War, principally as a sniper. MacDonald contrasts poverty with being broke as broke is a temporary situation, but poverty grinds unremittingly on.
The end of the author’s preliminary schooling is in sight as he sits the exam for the bursary which will allow him to carry on with education beyond the village; an education which Government and parents desired for the children but which will ensure that those children would leave the island in pursuit of the opportunities which it brought. In the meantime he wins a competition organised by Gibbs’s Dentifrice to promote their wares. Sadly the prize was not the bicycle he hoped for. Life in the family is loving but not indulgent and in amongst the nostalgia are some light moments - one involving a piss-pot laced with Andrew’s Effervescent Liver Salts, another where we are told, “There is something irrevocable about a botched haircut” - words and deeds may be forgotten or forgiven, the haircut “lingers on for an eternity, reproachfully.” As a result of his, MacDonald suffered the nickname “convick” - a Gaelic approximation to the English word - for months. We are also treated to the author’s first (and unsatisfactory for the girl concerned) sexual experience at the hands of a teenager MacDonald describes as one of a band of tinkers. The author also has that Scottish gift of an eye for landscape.
The crotal of the title is the name of a lichen that was scraped off the local rocks to be processed to provide a brown dye for Harris Tweed.
Towards the conclusion of this instalment things are beginning to look up economically but the threat of another war has begun to loom large.
The end of the author’s preliminary schooling is in sight as he sits the exam for the bursary which will allow him to carry on with education beyond the village; an education which Government and parents desired for the children but which will ensure that those children would leave the island in pursuit of the opportunities which it brought. In the meantime he wins a competition organised by Gibbs’s Dentifrice to promote their wares. Sadly the prize was not the bicycle he hoped for. Life in the family is loving but not indulgent and in amongst the nostalgia are some light moments - one involving a piss-pot laced with Andrew’s Effervescent Liver Salts, another where we are told, “There is something irrevocable about a botched haircut” - words and deeds may be forgotten or forgiven, the haircut “lingers on for an eternity, reproachfully.” As a result of his, MacDonald suffered the nickname “convick” - a Gaelic approximation to the English word - for months. We are also treated to the author’s first (and unsatisfactory for the girl concerned) sexual experience at the hands of a teenager MacDonald describes as one of a band of tinkers. The author also has that Scottish gift of an eye for landscape.
The crotal of the title is the name of a lichen that was scraped off the local rocks to be processed to provide a brown dye for Harris Tweed.
Towards the conclusion of this instalment things are beginning to look up economically but the threat of another war has begun to loom large.
November 2, 2019
A lovely memoir, told with humor and with a child's eye. It's written with a wry sense of humor, but not written to put on airs, or to romanticize the crofter life. A lovely window into a way of life that was destined to soon fade away from the incursion of mainland wayhs and inventions -- a historical document in itself.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews