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The Hills is Lonely: Tales from the Hebrides

“I got the impression that they could imagine only two reasons why a woman should choose to settle down in Bruach: either that she was running away from the police, or escaping from a lurid past.” Neither reason applies to Lillian Beckwith, in these classic stories based on her convalescence on an isolated Hebridean island where `even the sheeps on the hills is lonely`. On the island of Bruach she observes, muses at and joins the native crofters in their unique rhythm of life; where friends fistfight in the evening and discuss bruises the next morning; where the taxi driver is also the lorry driver, coal merchant and undertaker; where the locals don`t remove their hats during a funeral so their heads won`t get cold; and where the post office`s `opening hours` fit around the daily milking of cows and not the other way round. In a series of vividly drawn sketches, taking in birth, death, marriage and the seasons of life, Lillian Beckwith`s writing is shot through with warm, cosy affection and droll wit.