From Croft to Craft

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This book while fiction, is grounded on recorded truths and history of the times, portraying the story of a young crofter runaway, determined to lead his family out of the despair. Determined to pull his family together again and oppose the combined tyranny of the Lairds and the English he uses wit, guile and courage, to secure a subsidy to build a small fishing boat providing a precarious income and cover for his crew to distill and sell illicit whisky. In 1707 the last Scottish parliament, composed of only unelected gentry met in Scotland's Capitol, Edinburgh to vote on a new political entity called the 'United Kingdom' which would now rule Scotland thus abolishing the Scottish Parliament and Sovereignty. Those who voted against the new regime would lose their hereditary estates and titles and those who voted for, would gain more land with added cash. Previously the two most direct contenders for the new 'British' throne had literally 'lost their heads' by being both Scottish and Catholic, while the remaining contender 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' now a hunted fugitive, fled the country. New sovereigns were sought from relatively obscure, but tame Dutch or Hanoverian families to assume the now powerful British throne. Perhaps this story may be a useful metaphor for Scotland to boldly strike out for full, independence, returning to its former sovereign status as a small but gifted democracy within the European Family.

Graham Simpson, author of this book, Edinburgh born, but from a family whose forebears suffered from the infamous 'Highland Clearances, having being forced to either starve or emigrate, became fishermen in the dangerous, coastal waters giving me license to, research and develop this book with a 'What If' premise that, had there been enough smart, audacious young men and women to challenge the status quo, Scotland would not be what it is today...the northern rump of England, resource- rich with skilled labour. but essentially a colonial property. Here, my story starts and to give added 'Scots Aura' to the tale, I changed the family name to Fraser, both belonging the Fraser Clan. Having tracked family 'heritors' from the 1750's with records of birth, marriage and death, even street addresses and occupations. I began to research what sort of life my people had lived. It was generally, hard and cruel. There were few human rights, and none but the gentry could vote nor run for public office. With Scotland, constantly under attack by English armies, often aided by the local gentry, until the final, tragic defeat of 1746 at Culloden, where even our bravest warriors could not defeat cannonade with only claymore and shield.