Biography
Biography
A Peerie Peek at da Past
Agnes hobbin
Agnes hobbin
The variety of subjects covered make A Peerie Peek at da Past a refreshing and interesting account of times past.
Agnes Hobbin was born in 1921, the daughter of a crofter fisherman from Geosetter, Bigton, in the parish of Dunrossness, Shetland. She started nursing the day war was declared, leaving it on marriage in January 1947. Twenty-three years later in 1970, after bringing up a family, she resumed nursing, gaining the certificate of Health Visiting at Dundee College of Technology in 1976. She practised full-time health visiting until her retirement.
Our price: £8.99
A Raft in the Pool
John A.W. Strachan
John A.W. Strachan
These are boyhood memories from a way of life long departed: remembered with honesty, humour and great affection.
Born in 1940 in Yell, Shetland, John A.W. Strachan grew up at a time when piped water and electric light were still distant dreams for the outlying isles.
But the simplicity of the life was made up for by the richness of character in the islands.
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As Time Goes By
David Strachan
David Strachan
A potpourri of tales from times past mostly with a nautical flavour.
Beginning with his early years at Sound and schooldays at Lerwick Central Public School and in Yell, the author takes us through his experiences on the training ship Dolphin, voyages in the merchant navy and his time as a Distressed British Seaman.
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Design For Life
Peter Jamieson
Peter Jamieson
Peter Jamieson’s life had been completely destroyed by addiction and crime. When finally he had nowhere else to go, he went home – and it was there, on the tiny island of Papa Stour, that he was to meet the one person who could change his life.
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Edward Charlton
Edward Charlton
Edward Charlton
Edward Charlton was a seventeen-year-old medical student when he sailed from Leith to Lerwick in 1832 and had to convince the authorities that the ship was not stricken with cholera. He arrived in time to witness the great storm which ravaged the fishing fleet that summer, and spent three months travelling though the Mainland, Yell and Unst and collecting specimens of birds and rocks. He was so enchanted by Shetland that he returned two years later, this time visiting Foula and also casting his fly on the Mainland lochs. His journals give a vivid picture of Shetland in the 1830s, and the changes he found when he came back for a more hurried visit in 1852.
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Four Score and Ten
James W. Irvine
James W. Irvine
Prolific author James W Irvine reflects on his life.
Our price: £11.40
Memoirs of a Lerwick Boy
Bruce Sandison
Bruce Sandison
Bruce Sandison was born at Torry, in Aberdeen, in 1934. Had it not been for the vagaries of his parents’ work following the herring fishing his birthplace would almost certainly have been the Auld Rock. Arriving in Shetland when only a few weeks old, from then to the outbreak of the Second World War. His memoirs begin in his childhood days of old Lerwick and describe his life through to retirement.
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Noo Dan
Douglas Smith
Douglas Smith
This is Douglas Smith's first book, although he has become a familiar writer with many articles published in local journals, mainly relating to the links between Shetland and Norway during the Second World War.
Here Douglas Smith outlines his family story with its ties to Lerwick and writes of growing up and his schooldays in the very different town landscape of the thirties and as a youngster in wartime Shetland when he witnessed the aftermath of a fatal mine blast and German Heinkels attacking a seaplane in the north harbour.
Douglas Smith’s work gave him an unparalleled insight into the changing fortunes of the islands as conditions gradually improved over the years. It also involved him in many of the environmental issues raised by the arrival of the oil industry in the islands in the 1970s.
Here Douglas Smith outlines his family story with its ties to Lerwick and writes of growing up and his schooldays in the very different town landscape of the thirties and as a youngster in wartime Shetland when he witnessed the aftermath of a fatal mine blast and German Heinkels attacking a seaplane in the north harbour.
Douglas Smith’s work gave him an unparalleled insight into the changing fortunes of the islands as conditions gradually improved over the years. It also involved him in many of the environmental issues raised by the arrival of the oil industry in the islands in the 1970s.
Our price: £12.99
On the Rocks - A lightkeepers's tale
Lawrence Tulloch
When Lawrence Tulloch became a lightkeeper aged twenty-eight it gave him and his family job security and a home. In On the Rocks a lightkeeper's tale he looks back at the work and routines involved in keeping lights from Muckle Flugga to Chicken Rock and recounts the ups and downs of living in close proximity with other keepers. Many became friends for life, but great patience had to be exercised with those few who made things a bit difficult. The characters he met and the stories they had to tell bring a vanished era back to life.
Lawrence Tulloch
When Lawrence Tulloch became a lightkeeper aged twenty-eight it gave him and his family job security and a home. In On the Rocks a lightkeeper's tale he looks back at the work and routines involved in keeping lights from Muckle Flugga to Chicken Rock and recounts the ups and downs of living in close proximity with other keepers. Many became friends for life, but great patience had to be exercised with those few who made things a bit difficult. The characters he met and the stories they had to tell bring a vanished era back to life.
Our price: £15.99
School Days 1951-1962
Gordon B. Smith
Gordon B. Smith
Retired Master Mariner Gordon Smith, who now lives in New Zealand, recalls his school days and growing up in Lerwick
Our price: £12.00
