Description
Book SynopsisWhithorn: An Economy of People is an exploration of a unique face-to-face society in Galloway in the south west of Scotland. It paints a picture of a largely cashless economy based on trust, frugality and the skilled labour and strategies of its residents to remain independent of the rest of the world while keeping closely connected to each other.
Between 2012 and 2013 Julia Muir Watt interviewed twenty-nine individuals from Whithorn and the Machars about their memories. From those interviewed we learn what it was like to grow up, to go to school, and to work and to play in Whithorn in the twentieth century, before and after the Second World War.
A great strength of oral history is that it can provide a direct insight into a lived life. In this collection, we have many such insights into life in and around the burgh of Whithorn. In telling of their experiences, those interviewed also provide an understanding into what it felt like to live those lives.
Co-published with the European Ethnological Research Centre based on the research undertaken by them in their programme Dumfries and Galloway:A Regional Ethnology – part of a wider research programme the Regional Ethnology of Scotland Project (RESP).
Trade Review' … presents a fascinating picture of life in a particular part of Scotland, and the transcripts and extracts from oral testimonies included offer insight into a number of themes and issues about the experiences of the inhabitants of the area, relevant to a range of existing academic work … a welcome addition to the body of research examining 20th-century Scotland.' Scottish Archives
Table of ContentsWhithorn Manse by Alistair Reid
Acknowledgements
Preface
Editorial note
Lost of Illustrations
Introduction
WHITHORN: AN ECONOMY OF PEOPLE, 1920-1960
1. Leaving and Returning: Nostalgia of the Writers
2. Outside-In: the Rural Town
3. Outside: the Farms
4. Work and rest: The Timing of Pleasures
5. Up and Down: Wealth and Poverty
6. Here and There
7. Here and Hereafter
8. Incursion and Dispersion: Second World War
Index
