A gripping, heart-breaking account of the famine winter of 1847' -
Rosemary Goring, The Herald
Longlisted for the Highland Book Prize
When Scotland's 1846 potato crop was wiped out by blight, the country
was plunged into crisis. In the Hebrides and the West Highlands a huge
relief effort came too late to prevent starvation and death. Further
east, meanwhile, towns and villages from Aberdeen to Wick and Thurso,
rose up in protest at the cost of the oatmeal that replaced potatoes as
people's basic foodstuff.
Oatmeal's soaring price was blamed on the export of grain by farmers and
landlords cashing in on even higher prices elsewhere. As a bitter winter
gripped and families feared a repeat of the calamitous famine then
ravaging Ireland, grain carts were seized, ships boarded, harbours
blockaded, a jail forced open, the military confronted. The army fired
on one set of rioters. Savage sentences were imposed on others. But
thousands-strong crowds also gained key concessions. Above all they won
cheaper food.
Those dramatic events have long been ignored or forgotten. Now, in James
Hunter, they have their historian. The story he tells is, by turns,
moving, anger-making and inspiring. In an era of food banks and growing
poverty, it is also very timely.
