Thistle Soup

East Lothian is ‘The Garden of Scotland’ and the setting for this delightfully idiosyncratic story of country life. Here unfold the ups and downs of four generations of one farming family from the northern Orkney Isles, who move to the little farm of Cuddy Neuk in the south of Scotland just before the outbreak of the Second World War. A young Peter, the ‘peedie’ (wee) boy who sets his heart on filling his somewhat eccentric grandfather’s straw-lined wellies, grows up to run the family farm and become a farmer father to his own sons, putting his ability to see the funny side of things to good use as adversities crop up with intriguing reality along an unpredictably tortuous path through life. Often hilarious, always heartfelt and at times sad, this is a book that will appeal, not only to those who are interested in the Scotland of today, but also to people who recall, or have been told about, rural ways that are gone forever.