From Croft to Craft - Graham Simpson - Bog

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.