Books

Books : reviews

Duncan Harley.
Long Shadows: tales of Scotland's North East.
Doric Board. 2021

Duncan Harley takes the reader on a grand tour of the curious and the bizarre, the strange and the unusual from Scotland’s past. Read about Ellon’s Boatie Tam, blind Johnnie Moir the Bard of Banchory and Charlie Marioni the Cullen Hermit.

Take a peek beneath the skirts of Queen Victoria, learn about a Stonehaven’s Flying Farmer and check out the scandal of Telford’s ‘Cheap John’ Parliamentary Churches. Biggles, Annie Lennox, Mary Webb, Hector the Hero and Robert the Bruce inhabit these pages alongside tales from Fochabers, Cove, Aberdeen City, Maggieknockater, Tomintoul, Braemar and the lost township of Lenabo.

Alongside the local heroes, there are tales about cowboys in Huntly, Buchan’s very first car accident, the Mearns man with a thousand accordions and the little-known voyage of the fishing trawler ‘Girl Pat’.

In his two previous two books, Duncan exposed readers to an exciting mix of history and mythology.

The intention of this new book is to expand greatly these themes in an entertaining and informative way. Please enjoy these wee snippets of Scottish history and smile gently at the past.