The Sea for Breakfast

Beckwith continues with her self-deprecating, fish-out-of-water Hebridean series. Here, her character further embeds herself in her adopted Bruachite community, pointing out the absurdities (some of which she has proudly adopted herself) with loving humour. She captures perfectly the distinct lyrical cadences of Bruach speech and the sensible rough charm of Bruach routines. Daily life in Bruach is full of contradictions, isolation coupled with close-knit impromptu ceilidh, down-to-earth remedies with the superstitious, the outward brashness to outsiders that belies the deep rallying care they would offer when need be. I'm so glad I've the rest of the series to look forward to.

I am re-reading these books after a break of (probably) 20 years, and The Sea for Breakfast has more stories that I recall than The Hills is Lonely: such as the uses for gun-cotton appropriated while beachcombing, the Tinkers, and the Christmas Party.
As a child of the 1980's, staying with relatives during annual holidays in the Western Isles was a sometimes ecstatic, sometimes traumatic, and always memorable experience. So I recognise the hard work of the peat cutting, the single track roads with passing places, the weekly shop at the grocery van, the smoking and drinking, the changeable weather, and the make do and mend approach to life. I wish the characters from my youth were such loveable free-spirits as those who populate these books!

Lillian Beckwith goes to live in tiny Bruach, a village in the Scottish highlands. This is her second book about her adventures there, but I hadn't read the first and figured everything out just fine.

It's just a string of stories, relating to her life in the village, one day cutting peat, one day taking her cow to the bull, one day trying her hand at lobstering. Underneath all her adventures are a sense that this is the life. It's hard, it's dirty, it's different from everything she expected - but it is real.

Some of the stories are fictionalized a bit. She uses dialect to try to convey the accents of the villagers, which can be a little confusing to read. There is a very brief glossary at the back, but I was still a little stumped as show more to some of the words. But it made for very relaxing, funny, lighthearted reading. Most of her books are out of print, but if you happen to find one, they really are lovely books. show less

Book two in the series. A wonderfully descriptive and hilarious look at life on a Hebrides island in the last 50s. Delightful.

A beautiful setting, wonderful quirky characters, and terrific writing. I highly recommend this one!

Better interaction in this book, more sympathy and caring for the locals, who are wonderful, 'though highly characterised.

The second in Lillian Beckwith's Bruach memoirs, of her time in a remote village in the Scottish Hebrides.