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Crowdie and Cream and Other Stories
Peopled with characters like Great Aunt Rachel 'built like a Churchill tank and with a personality to match', these are the stories of a childhood, of the hard years of the Depression. and then the departure of the island's young men to fight in the Second World War. Together they bring alive the warmth and closeness of a unique Hebridean community.
In Crotal and White Finlay J. Macdonald continues his story with a witty account of his adolescent years during the depression. Hard days for the villagers. but their sense of humour never deserted them. And when young Finlay won the bursary to secondary school in the Northlands it was with a mixture of joy and sadness that he prepared to leave behind him a community that would soon be changed forever.
In Crotal and White Finlay J. Macdonald continues his story with a witty account of his adolescent years during the depression. Hard days for the villagers. but their sense of humour never deserted them. And when young Finlay won the bursary to secondary school in the Northlands it was with a mixture of joy and sadness that he prepared to leave behind him a community that would soon be changed forever.
- GenresScotlandMemoirNonfiction
544 pages, Paperback
First published May 19, 1983
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143 people want to read
About the author
Finlay J. Macdonald
9 books5 followersFinlay John MacDonald - Fionnlagh Iain MacDhòmhnaill - was born on Harris in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. He spoke Gaelic at home, and started English when he went to primary school. His three books, Crowdie and Cream, Crotal and White, and The Corncrake and the Lysander detail his childhood growing up. Crowdie and Cream was also a series of talks on BBC Radio. He also had a long and successful career as a radio drama and talks producer, a television director, and also a writer and editor.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 19, 2021
Born in 1925, “Finlay J” was a well-known and important figure in Scottish broadcasting and publishing, particularly in Gaelic. This book is an autobiographical trilogy.
I wonder if it is always the case (as it tends to be with me) that we respond much more deeply to the first book in a series, which seems to contain all the author’s inspiration and energy. I enjoyed all three books, but it is as children that we are at our most elemental, and Finlay J tells it like it was (well, as in the best tradition, with a bit of Gaelic exaggeration!). As he says,
“Time as it is lived doesn’t slide into neat compartments, least of all in the long memory. The diarist or the historian or the biographer may be forced to define his parameters and affix his tags of time and date, and by doing so achieve an accuracy which is a different thing altogether from the truth, just as the photographer, freezing his bit of landscape, can only hope to capture a view while letting the scenery escape. And so, even if I were of a mind to do so, I could not hope to catalogue the building of the village stone by stone, because it wasn’t of stones alone that it was built, but of moments, of moods, of happenings that were sometimes long and sometimes short and frequently overlapping; most indefinably of all, it was built on tears and laughter.”
“Crowdie and Cream” recaptures Finlay J’s childhood in the Isle of Harris, in a new village of eight crofts, land made available to First World War veterans from families who had been evicted in the Clearances. A major theme throughout the books is Finlay’s relationship with his father, an intelligent and literary-minded man who, to his unending regret, was never able to access the benefits of education, and who was not a particularly good crofter. He had been a sniper in WW1 and his subsequent aversion to using firearms provides an interesting thread. By the end of this book the years of The Depression have come. Self-reliant communities such as Finlay’s suffered less than the population in cities because they could sustain themselves directly from land and sea. Having said that, life was very hard, and one thing I like very much about Finlay J’s writing is that never does the account become gloomy or maudlin (in the way, perhaps, that “Angela’s Ashes” does). He does not shy away from describing the rampant exploitation of the makers of tweed. He narrates one example in detail and goes as far as to hope explicitly that the man concerned, a Mr Brooks of Manchester, is reading about the devastating effect he had on the village families. At that time also there was no market for the crofters’ livestock. Here is an abbreviated extract about the family’s straitened circumstances:
“Lazarus” (so named because he had been left for dead!) “represented the nadir of our fortunes. When he was sold (as a yearling) at the annual cattle sale – a sale which was by then reduced to a symbolic sham – he fetched less than a pound, because any more would have made it uneconomical for a buyer to ship him to the mainland. It was that year too that we killed Daisy . . .” (the calf’s mother).
Within the serious narrative of the realities of Hebridean life, the account is peppered with hilarious anecdotes that sometimes go on for pages or even begin in one book and end in another. This is authentic humour in the isles – the humour is in the story and the characters, in their context and in their lives. For me this was a re-reading after several years, and it was enjoyable all over again, enhanced by my reading it aloud on siar.fm and so sharing the humour. Many of the anecdotes related by Finlay J reminded me of the way this island was when I came here; for instance, the way the postman didn’t get out of his van but simply hooted the horn and you had to go down to the road and collect the mail – or “mails” as was said then. One of my favourite stories from the south end where I live is when an adjacent isle became connected to us by a causeway, and got its first minibus. The driver stopped to offer a lift to a crofter with a sack of potatoes on his back. The man replied, “Oh, chan eil, chan eil, tha càbhag orm . . ." (Not at all, not at all, I’m in a hurry . . .”).
The second book, “Crotal and White” moves into Finlay J’ s early adolescence and also marks the rise of the Harris Tweed Industry - 'crotal' is a lichen that is used in dyeing. I was interested to see that a man from this island (Barra) went up to Harris in the thirties to teach the Harrismen weaving! He inspired Finlay J’s father to buy a loom, and their circumstances became easier. The tragic dichotomy, for Finlay J, was that success in those days was equated with leaving the island. This tenet was fed into him by everyone, including his teachers, from an early age. Fortunately he did live long enough to see the beginnings of the resurgence of the Gaelic language and culture and the early attempts to develop opportunities for ‘success’ within the islands’ framework.
The third book, “The Corncrake and the Lysander” reaches the onset of World War Two, and weaves in (sic) the beginnings of the end for the traditional way of life of the islands, and the end, for Finlay J, of his life as fully part of the island. Towards the end of the book there was a detailed account of the departure from Tarbert Pier of the boys who had signed up for the Army (Finlay was too young) and of the later news that their regiment had not escaped at Dunkirk but had been captured. Finlay J is too consummate a story-teller to end there, however, and the last few pages of the book seem to take him into his adult life with what comes across as “a bit of a yarn”. There would have been much of this sort of stuff in the life he went on to lead as a public figure in BBC and Gaelic media, and he obviously enjoys the telling.
A highly enjoyable read of life almost a hundred years ago in Harris. You’ll remember the story of the day the ‘plane landed on the beach – still a daily event where I live!
I wonder if it is always the case (as it tends to be with me) that we respond much more deeply to the first book in a series, which seems to contain all the author’s inspiration and energy. I enjoyed all three books, but it is as children that we are at our most elemental, and Finlay J tells it like it was (well, as in the best tradition, with a bit of Gaelic exaggeration!). As he says,
“Time as it is lived doesn’t slide into neat compartments, least of all in the long memory. The diarist or the historian or the biographer may be forced to define his parameters and affix his tags of time and date, and by doing so achieve an accuracy which is a different thing altogether from the truth, just as the photographer, freezing his bit of landscape, can only hope to capture a view while letting the scenery escape. And so, even if I were of a mind to do so, I could not hope to catalogue the building of the village stone by stone, because it wasn’t of stones alone that it was built, but of moments, of moods, of happenings that were sometimes long and sometimes short and frequently overlapping; most indefinably of all, it was built on tears and laughter.”
“Crowdie and Cream” recaptures Finlay J’s childhood in the Isle of Harris, in a new village of eight crofts, land made available to First World War veterans from families who had been evicted in the Clearances. A major theme throughout the books is Finlay’s relationship with his father, an intelligent and literary-minded man who, to his unending regret, was never able to access the benefits of education, and who was not a particularly good crofter. He had been a sniper in WW1 and his subsequent aversion to using firearms provides an interesting thread. By the end of this book the years of The Depression have come. Self-reliant communities such as Finlay’s suffered less than the population in cities because they could sustain themselves directly from land and sea. Having said that, life was very hard, and one thing I like very much about Finlay J’s writing is that never does the account become gloomy or maudlin (in the way, perhaps, that “Angela’s Ashes” does). He does not shy away from describing the rampant exploitation of the makers of tweed. He narrates one example in detail and goes as far as to hope explicitly that the man concerned, a Mr Brooks of Manchester, is reading about the devastating effect he had on the village families. At that time also there was no market for the crofters’ livestock. Here is an abbreviated extract about the family’s straitened circumstances:
“Lazarus” (so named because he had been left for dead!) “represented the nadir of our fortunes. When he was sold (as a yearling) at the annual cattle sale – a sale which was by then reduced to a symbolic sham – he fetched less than a pound, because any more would have made it uneconomical for a buyer to ship him to the mainland. It was that year too that we killed Daisy . . .” (the calf’s mother).
Within the serious narrative of the realities of Hebridean life, the account is peppered with hilarious anecdotes that sometimes go on for pages or even begin in one book and end in another. This is authentic humour in the isles – the humour is in the story and the characters, in their context and in their lives. For me this was a re-reading after several years, and it was enjoyable all over again, enhanced by my reading it aloud on siar.fm and so sharing the humour. Many of the anecdotes related by Finlay J reminded me of the way this island was when I came here; for instance, the way the postman didn’t get out of his van but simply hooted the horn and you had to go down to the road and collect the mail – or “mails” as was said then. One of my favourite stories from the south end where I live is when an adjacent isle became connected to us by a causeway, and got its first minibus. The driver stopped to offer a lift to a crofter with a sack of potatoes on his back. The man replied, “Oh, chan eil, chan eil, tha càbhag orm . . ." (Not at all, not at all, I’m in a hurry . . .”).
The second book, “Crotal and White” moves into Finlay J’ s early adolescence and also marks the rise of the Harris Tweed Industry - 'crotal' is a lichen that is used in dyeing. I was interested to see that a man from this island (Barra) went up to Harris in the thirties to teach the Harrismen weaving! He inspired Finlay J’s father to buy a loom, and their circumstances became easier. The tragic dichotomy, for Finlay J, was that success in those days was equated with leaving the island. This tenet was fed into him by everyone, including his teachers, from an early age. Fortunately he did live long enough to see the beginnings of the resurgence of the Gaelic language and culture and the early attempts to develop opportunities for ‘success’ within the islands’ framework.
The third book, “The Corncrake and the Lysander” reaches the onset of World War Two, and weaves in (sic) the beginnings of the end for the traditional way of life of the islands, and the end, for Finlay J, of his life as fully part of the island. Towards the end of the book there was a detailed account of the departure from Tarbert Pier of the boys who had signed up for the Army (Finlay was too young) and of the later news that their regiment had not escaped at Dunkirk but had been captured. Finlay J is too consummate a story-teller to end there, however, and the last few pages of the book seem to take him into his adult life with what comes across as “a bit of a yarn”. There would have been much of this sort of stuff in the life he went on to lead as a public figure in BBC and Gaelic media, and he obviously enjoys the telling.
A highly enjoyable read of life almost a hundred years ago in Harris. You’ll remember the story of the day the ‘plane landed on the beach – still a daily event where I live!
October 28, 2019
"Peopled with characters like Great Aunt Rachel, 'built like a Churchill tank and with a personality to match,' this is the story of the Macdonald's home-made home where the author's mother spun wool for Harris tweed while his father tilled their thirteen acres and tended the livestock, and of the young Finlay growing up in the warmth and closeness of a unique Hebridean community."
~~back cover
One review called this book "enchanting and entertaining" and it certainly is all that. There are several books recounting the hard life of a crofter, but this one, seen through the eyes of a young boy and in unusually prosperous circumstances, is a wonderful story of a young boy growing up: the pranks and mischievousness, and the chores and life of a crofter.
~~back cover
One review called this book "enchanting and entertaining" and it certainly is all that. There are several books recounting the hard life of a crofter, but this one, seen through the eyes of a young boy and in unusually prosperous circumstances, is a wonderful story of a young boy growing up: the pranks and mischievousness, and the chores and life of a crofter.
June 21, 2020
This is MacDonald’s memoir of growing up in Harris, (which is known as the Isle of Harris even though it’s only the southern half of an island: ditto the Isle of Lewis, the northern half.)
Between the Twentieth Century’s two great wars the south of Harris was being repopulated with the aid of a Government intiative but this was still a harsh time when there were few amenities in the temporary turf-roofed dwellings the families occupied while they built their own stone ones - and not many in those - though the remains of the houses whose occupants had been cleared several generations earlier were a stark reminder of worse. There were no inside toilets – the great outdoors sufficed. Water for drinking and cooking was drawn from a nearby burn. In the times Macdonald is remembering the more convenient Tilly lamp superseded paraffin lighting and its whiter light was a source of regret. Electricity and gas were not even a dream.
The book embeds a history of Harris as the author explains his family’s circumstances and delves into the customs of the islanders while the delights of Toffee Cow (McCowans Highland Toffee, now sadly no more) become one of the author’s pleasures as he grows.
A lot of the narrative describes MacDonald’s schoolroom reminiscences, especially the initial tribulations of being solely a Gaelic speaker till he attended school (whose medium was of course exclusively English -inevitably the tawse features at times) and despite this not being published till the author was in his fifties he still manages to retain (or simulate) a child’s perspective. “Gillespie and I had long since learned to distrust adults when they were trying to sound reasonable.” He also comments on the curious circumstance by which the education all the parents desired for their children would most likely ensure that those children would leave the island in pursuit of the opportunities which that education had brought.
The coming of the Great Depression brings further hardship as the Harris Tweed trade declines. (Its use of human waste to fix the dyes require for colouring the tweed obliging everyone - visitors included - to avail themselves of the pee-pot when nature called is matter-of-factly described.)
There are several moments of humour, the new schoolteacher’s Word Game foundering on the definition of an organ, the kilted Dr MacBeth misunderstanding the question asked of him by a new father – this last had me giggling for about half a minute; not the usual response to reading tales of bygone Scottish life.
Like many a Scottish novel this autoboigraphy is another of those laments for a past time, of the loss of a way of life, a documentation of things past. MacDonald certainly has an eye for it, and a way with words – even if they are in his second language.
Between the Twentieth Century’s two great wars the south of Harris was being repopulated with the aid of a Government intiative but this was still a harsh time when there were few amenities in the temporary turf-roofed dwellings the families occupied while they built their own stone ones - and not many in those - though the remains of the houses whose occupants had been cleared several generations earlier were a stark reminder of worse. There were no inside toilets – the great outdoors sufficed. Water for drinking and cooking was drawn from a nearby burn. In the times Macdonald is remembering the more convenient Tilly lamp superseded paraffin lighting and its whiter light was a source of regret. Electricity and gas were not even a dream.
The book embeds a history of Harris as the author explains his family’s circumstances and delves into the customs of the islanders while the delights of Toffee Cow (McCowans Highland Toffee, now sadly no more) become one of the author’s pleasures as he grows.
A lot of the narrative describes MacDonald’s schoolroom reminiscences, especially the initial tribulations of being solely a Gaelic speaker till he attended school (whose medium was of course exclusively English -inevitably the tawse features at times) and despite this not being published till the author was in his fifties he still manages to retain (or simulate) a child’s perspective. “Gillespie and I had long since learned to distrust adults when they were trying to sound reasonable.” He also comments on the curious circumstance by which the education all the parents desired for their children would most likely ensure that those children would leave the island in pursuit of the opportunities which that education had brought.
The coming of the Great Depression brings further hardship as the Harris Tweed trade declines. (Its use of human waste to fix the dyes require for colouring the tweed obliging everyone - visitors included - to avail themselves of the pee-pot when nature called is matter-of-factly described.)
There are several moments of humour, the new schoolteacher’s Word Game foundering on the definition of an organ, the kilted Dr MacBeth misunderstanding the question asked of him by a new father – this last had me giggling for about half a minute; not the usual response to reading tales of bygone Scottish life.
Like many a Scottish novel this autoboigraphy is another of those laments for a past time, of the loss of a way of life, a documentation of things past. MacDonald certainly has an eye for it, and a way with words – even if they are in his second language.
June 23, 2020
I can just imagine him sitting by a crackling fire with a pipe in his mouth, recounting these stories of his childhood. I'd not heard of Finlay J MacDonald before picking up this book (bought as a second hand oddity and for the Scottish connection) but it says on the back that this comes off a series of talks he did for the BBC. The book was published in the early 1980s, but accounts for his childhood between the two world wars growing up on the south of Harris. It's very interesting for the way of life back then, and no matter how isolated the island life is, they're still not free of global effects - men getting drafted into the war, the depression of the 30s hitting them. And before you get rose-tinted about the honest, hearty island life, times were tough. No indoor plumbing, no central heating, TB was accepted as part of the landscape, kids died, women were there to keep home and have kids and religion was forced on everyone. You can't live on good views and fresh air alone, and as much as I love Scotland I can't say I would have wanted to have lived there and then.
But this is not a woe-is-me, hear about the hard times kind of book. For as he points out himself, kids don't really understand the bigger picture or that they are hard times; and MacDonald has a great way of telling a yarn. These are anecdotal snippets, the way we all remember our childhood, about the school, mischief and adventures, and the family life of a crofter. There are some fantastic characters, I suppose with being remote and isolated from the mainland, people out there develope their eccentricities. Some good, such as the doctor, some not so good, such as Finlay's first school teacher who must have been the original Trunchbull. And then the stories from the depression, and his parents struggling for money and food, and the marvellous cat, Tiger, who would proudly display his nightly kills of five dead rabbits on the doorstep every morning (an unknowingly keep them fed), and one morning rocked up with five trout. There's a little touch of melancholy, as this is an old man remembering his childhood and family, now all long gone, but with happiness and fondness. A community where only Gaelic was spoken and the kids had to pick up English in the schoolroom. A world away now.
But this is not a woe-is-me, hear about the hard times kind of book. For as he points out himself, kids don't really understand the bigger picture or that they are hard times; and MacDonald has a great way of telling a yarn. These are anecdotal snippets, the way we all remember our childhood, about the school, mischief and adventures, and the family life of a crofter. There are some fantastic characters, I suppose with being remote and isolated from the mainland, people out there develope their eccentricities. Some good, such as the doctor, some not so good, such as Finlay's first school teacher who must have been the original Trunchbull. And then the stories from the depression, and his parents struggling for money and food, and the marvellous cat, Tiger, who would proudly display his nightly kills of five dead rabbits on the doorstep every morning (an unknowingly keep them fed), and one morning rocked up with five trout. There's a little touch of melancholy, as this is an old man remembering his childhood and family, now all long gone, but with happiness and fondness. A community where only Gaelic was spoken and the kids had to pick up English in the schoolroom. A world away now.
June 24, 2024
The memories ofa boy growing up in a crofting community in Harris during the 1920s and 1930s. I visited Harris in 1970 and read this book because I was revisting on holiday. In 1970 there were still vestiges of the world the author describes present and in living memory. Alllthough much has changed and tourism now plays a much much greater part in Island life the landscape has not changed. The rugged charm and wildness still remain.
GK Chesterton wrote "The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce variety and uncompromising divergences of men…In a large community, we can choose our companions." This for me is part of the charm of this book, particularly in how the relationship between the young boy and a grumpy old bachelor develops, and in a most surprising way. In a city it is much easier to hide a clique.
Worth reading if you are visiting the Outer Hebrides.
GK Chesterton wrote "The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce variety and uncompromising divergences of men…In a large community, we can choose our companions." This for me is part of the charm of this book, particularly in how the relationship between the young boy and a grumpy old bachelor develops, and in a most surprising way. In a city it is much easier to hide a clique.
Worth reading if you are visiting the Outer Hebrides.
September 16, 2017
What a lovely book! The author describes his childhood and youth on the isle of Harris in the 1930s - and realises that the traditional way of life was changing forever at that time. The characters, the incredible way of life, and the attitudes of the time make a wonderful story. At times the earthy humour makes you smile, and then the poverty and struggles make you weep. Well written, the version I had was three books in one - Crowdie and Cream, Crotal and White, and The Corncrake and the Lysander, which takes his life to starting the big school and the outbreak of the second World War. A way of life chronicled which has gone forever.
October 20, 2017
Utterly captivating
November 22, 2023
Started off quite boring to be honest, but the story got more interesting as it went by. Language was old fashioned and stayed that all the way through.
September 29, 2024
The perfect read before a walking tour of the Outer Hebrides! History, geography, geology, culture...and loads of beautiful language.
September 22, 2013
A charming and easy to read memoir about growing up in the Hebrides in the early C20th. I particularly enjoyed the details of how Harris Tweed is made, ie. the women scraping 'ripe' crotal (a brittle grey lichen) off the rocks on the machair and moor, and then the 'matured urine' used later on the material. Community life and Scottish customs and traditions are detailed as remembered by Macdonald. His childhood adventures and mishaps are recounted warmly, and he paints memorable portraits of various characters in the village.
April 30, 2007
What a fun book! The author grew up on the Isle of Harris, in the Outer Hebrides, right after the First World War and remembers some of his favorite moments of childhood, from the time his family moved to their own croft to the day when he considered himself a 'man'.
Amusing anecdotes, interesting facts about Island life, all told with an intelligent wit. If you find a copy of this knocking about somewhere, grab hold!
Amusing anecdotes, interesting facts about Island life, all told with an intelligent wit. If you find a copy of this knocking about somewhere, grab hold!
January 28, 2009
Nonfiction - I read the 3 books in the series about life in the Hebrides in Scotland (Island of Lewis and Harris). Learning about island life and dependence on one another as u r not anywhere close to the mainland of Scotland is very interesting and I loved it! Finlay is a wonderful writer and u can just picture the people and the places on the island. Another destination I intend to go one of these days!
April 18, 2011
My particular copy of this book is just 'Crowdie and Cream' without the other stories.
A fascinating insight into a time gone by in a place like no other. The Hebridean islands of Scotland. This is the authors memories of an impoverished crofters childhood in the years after the first world war.
A fascinating insight into a time gone by in a place like no other. The Hebridean islands of Scotland. This is the authors memories of an impoverished crofters childhood in the years after the first world war.
October 22, 2013
This is Finlay J Macdonald's story of his boyhood on Harris in the Outer Hebrides just after WWI. I have just visited Harris and so I could identify many of the places Mr Macdonald describes. Really well written and a fabulous read. Highly recommended
October 30, 2008
Read while I was traveling in Scotland and felt that it gave me insight into my heritage. THe opening episodes were so funny I cried.
January 2, 2011
A very enjoyable and interesting view of life on the island of Harris post WW I. There are two others in the autobiographical trilogy and I will try to read these, too.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews