Book description
In her charming account of the rural village of Bruach, Lillian
Beckwith paints a vivid picture of life as a Hebridean crofter,
introducing a cast of colourful locals including village clown Johnny
Comic and the irrepressible Erchy and Hector. With her trademark warmth,
wit and lively humour, “Miss Peckwitt” spins a sparkling, unsentimental
tale of an idyllic, long-lost way of life.
‘For an unsentimental, lively, apparently photographically accurate
picture on a Hebridean island, Miss Beckwith’s essays or memoirs or
stories would be hard to beat.’ The Times
‘A sparkling book which could well become a Scottish humorous
classic’ Weekly Scotsman
Lilian Comber wrote fiction and non-fiction for both adults and
children under the pseudonym Lillian Beckwith. She is best known for her
series of comic novels based on her time living on a croft in the
Scottish Hebrides.
Beckwith was born in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, in 1916, where her
father ran a grocery shop. The shop provided the background for her
memoir About My Father's Business
, a child’s eye view of a 1920s family. She moved to the Isle of Skye
with her husband in 1942, and began writing fiction after moving to the
Isle of Man with her family twenty years later. She also completed a
cookery book, Secrets from a Crofter’s Kitchen
(Arrow, 1976).
Since her death, Beckwith’s novel A Shine of Rainbows
has been made into a film starring Aidan Quinn and Connie Nielsen,
which in 2009 won ‘Best Feature’ awards at the Heartland and Chicago
Children’s Film Festivals.
