Farmer's Boy

by John R. Allan, Douglas Percy Bliss (Illustrator), Charlie Allan (Introduction)

Rare book

161 pages, Paperback

First published February 21, 1935

About the author

John Robertson Allan was educated at the University of Aberdeen. He worked as a journalist in Glasgow but later returned to his native Aberdeenshire to farm at Little Ardo, Methlick.

His first book Farmer's Boy was published in 1935. This was followed by Summer in Scotland (1938), Down on the Farm, Northeast Lowlands of Scotland and The Seasons Return.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Livingston · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant blend of nostalgia, humour and pathos...oh and whisky, lots of whisky. I read a chapter every day after lunch, and came to anticipate my daily escape to this kinder world of vivid characters with increasing enjoyment. I loved the writer's style, descriptive and fresh, I found myself being pulled one way and then another never knowing what to expect.

[Cátia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely book, and it feels so nostalgic, even for people whom did not grow up in the same setting as the main character's!

[Helen (Helena/Nell) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful piece of writing. It's as vivid as Cider with Rosie, as perfect as any memoir I have ever read. There's a whole world in it.

It's a slightly mysterious world. It's never explained why the narrator has apparently no mother and no father, and is being brought up by his remarkable grandparents. But this fact is accepted by the reader, just as the child accepts, explores and celebrates the strange world of grandparents, uncles and farm workers.

The characters are both as real as a tube of toothpaste, and at the same time somehow larger than life, as remarkable human beings sometimes are.

This should be on every Scottish school's reading list. It should be as well-known as Sunset Song and Treasure Island. Meanwhile, I plan to give it to everyone I know.