An Englishwoman and her family in the 1950s trade life in the city for a small farm near Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands in this beloved memoir. A real classic among Highland books, A Croft in the Hills captures, in simple, moving descriptions, what it was really like trying to make a living out of a hill croft fifty years ago. A couple and their young daughter, fresh from city life, immerse themselves in the practicalities of looking after sheep, cattle and hens, mending fences, baking bread, and surviving the worst that Scottish winters can throw at them. Praise for A Croft in the Hills “Katharine Stewart’s memories are, as she says herself a tale of other times, almost a glimpse of legend . . . Evocative and charming.” —Scottish Book Collector

Originally published: s.l.: William Blackwood, 1980.

This book has been seminal in bringing to the fore the injustices that have been inflicted on the Highlands in the name of government and landlord – injustices often lost in the name of dry statistics and academic balance. Written by a man who has gone on to become both an award-winning historian of the Highlands and a leading figure in the public life of the region, The Making of the Crofting Community has attracted praise, inspired debate, and provoked outrage and controversy over the years. This book remains necessary to challenge standard academic interpretations of the Highland past. Having long been one of the classics of Birlinn's John Donald list, this revised and updated new edition includes a substantial new preface and an extensive reworking of the existing text.

This practical guide is an introduction to crofting law for those with an interest in it or who may touch upon it, whether that is lawyers, law students, land agents, crofters, landlords, or anyone else with an interest in it. It covers the main issues briefly and concisely, aiming to highlight the complexity of crofting law and the pitfalls and traps that await the uninitiated. The aim is that readers will, as a result, be better versed in the basics of crofting law. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Brian Inkster is a solicitor specialising in crofting law. He is the Hon Secretary of the Crofting Law Group, a member of the Crofting Group of Scottish Land & Estates, the Cross-Party Group on Crofting at the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government Crofting Stakeholder Forum, the Crofting Register Stakeholder Forum and the Scottish Government Crofting Bill Group. Brian blogs about crofting law at the Crofting Law Blog (croftinglawblog.com) and regularly writes articles for The Crofter (the trade magazine of the Scottish Crofting Federation). He also provides comment and articles to local and national newspapers and magazines such as The West Highland Free Press, The Shetland Times, The Oban Times, The Northern Times, The Scotsman, The Herald, The Press & Journal, The Scottish Farmer, Scottish Legal News and The Journal of the Law Society of Scotland. Brian also gives talks on crofting law to universities and at conferences, workshops and seminars. He has provided detailed submissions to the Scottish Government on proposed crofting law reform. Brian has been interviewed about crofting law on BBC Alba, BBC Reporting Scotland and Sunday Politics Scotland. He has also been interviewed about crofting law on local and national Scottish radio news programmes. Brian was born and brought up in Shetland. He is the son of a fisherman rather than a crofter. He studied law at the University of Edinburgh before moving to Glasgow in 1991 to undertake his legal traineeship. Following conclusion of his traineeship Brian continued to practice law in Glasgow where he founded his own law firm, Inksters, in 1999. Inksters now also have offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Forfar, Inverness, Lerwick, Portree, Thurso and Wick. Inksters provide a free legal advice helpline on crofting law to members of the Scottish Crofting Federation. Brian provides tutoring on Acquiring and Evaluating a Croft / Crofting Law Basics to the Access to Crofting Toolkit Course run by the Scottish Crofting Federation. Brian also has a speciality in the law of servitudes (easements) having acted for the pursuers in Moncrieff v Jamieson. This case was ultimately decided in the House of Lords and has been described by Professor Roddy Paisley as "one of the most important cases on servitudes in the last 100 years". It established for the first time in law that, in certain circumstances, you can have a servitude right to park a car ancillary to a right of access. Brian obtained the distinction of being named Solicitor of the Year at the Law Awards of Scotland in 2006. He was called "a one man Scottish legal institution" in the Recommended Law Firm Guide 2010. At the Law Awards of Scotland in 2014 he was recognised as Managing Partner of the Year. Brian has an active interest in entrepreneurship, marketing, technology and corporate social responsibility in relation to running a law firm. He is often asked to speak on these topics at conferences, summits and retreats.

SCOTTISH CROFTERS: A HISTORICAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF A CELTIC VILLAGE focuses on Geall, a community in the Scottish Outer Hebrides. With an understanding gained from an intimate, long-term relationship with Scotland, things Scottish, and the people of the community, the author describes Geall as a human community and places it in the wider cultural, historical, economic, and sociopolitical contexts of maintaining relationships to Scotland, England and Europe. The book emphasizes the way symbols are used to interpret elements of the culture such as economy, power, mental illness, and religion by exploring the significant symbols associated with the state, the mechanisms for integrating community and state, and how people define leaders and social role.

This immensely practical book is an essential tool for everyone who works with or advises crofters or landlords on their respective rights and duties under the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993.

Since its first publication in 1984, Night Falls in Ardnamurchan has become a classic account of the life and death of a Highland community. The author weaves his own humorous and perceptive account of crofting with extracts from his father's journal - a terse, factual and down to earth vision of the day-to-day tasks of crofting life. It is an unusual and memorable story that also illuminates the shifting, often tortuous relationships between children and their parents. Alasdair Maclean reveals his own struggle to come to terms with his background and the isolated community he left so often and to which he returned again and again. In this isolated community is seen a microcosm of something central to Scottish identity - the need to escape against the tug of home.

For over the past two centuries Shetland, Scotland was a place where women dominated the family, economy, and the cultural imagination. Women constructed in their minds an identity of themselves as "liberated" long before organized feminism was invented. Reconstructing this "woman's world" from written and oral sources, this book will appeal to scholars in the fields of social and cultural history, social anthropology, gender and women's studies.

The acclaimed author of Highland Homespun recounts her experiences as a croft farmer on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands during WWII. The West Highland peninsula of Moidart, in the isolated coastal region known as the Rough Bounds, is as magical as it is remote. It was here that the celebrated author Margaret Leigh chose to pursue an independent life as a crofting farmer in the 1940s. In Spade Among the Rushes, Leigh vividly recounts her struggles to snatch land back from the wilderness as she attempts to transform a deserted croft into a home. Although far from the Blitz of the Second World War, the effects of the conflict were felt throughout the Highlands. The rationing of food and vital materials, the battles with bureaucrats who had no understanding of a crofter's needs, and even the appearance of a Nazi mine off the coast, all frustrate Margaret Leigh's efforts. But despite the hardships, the land and the people of the Highlands gave her a contentment she had never known before. This edition has a new Introduction by Katie Maclean, who knew Margaret Leigh during her time in Moidart.