Kerr Cameron

A Kist of Sorrows

 
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Unpublished sequel: Compacts Of The Soul.

The period is around 1880. The evictions are still going on, but less nakedly now: landlords are raising rents to levels the crofters cannot pay, and are forcing them out that way. We see it happening in the parish of Kilbirnie, where the pastor, Pringle, records the process sadly in his journal, but it powerless to prevent it. When the laird, Hallerton, sells part of his estate, including the croft hill, to Gurney, an iron-master from Aberdeen, his factor makes short work of the crofters: MacAllister is savagely beaten up, and MacCaskill, leader of an attempt to organise opposition, and, as Pringle writes, “my most senior and respected elder, a pillar of the community”, is arrested and “led away cuffed like a common miscreant”.

MacCaskill’s daughter Morag has had to seek employment in a farmtoun: a hard fate; but old and crippled Campbell, who owns the town, is kind to her after his dour fashion. Though she loses the man she loves, she bears his son and, by the finish, she at least has an assured future.

The novel is written in a lilting prose that does not disguise its serious purpose, deep compassion and grave rhetoric. It makes a brave impact, and that it could have been written over a century ago is no bar to its romantic attractions.

 

Books by David Kerr Cameron

Featured
David Kerr Cameron
David Kerr Cameron

When British servicemen were observing nuclear tests in the Pacific during the 1950s, the Prime Minister of the time, Sir Anthony Eden, was warned that they risked a lingering death from cancer. His response is reported to have been, 'A pity, but we cannot help it.'

A Kist of Sorrows
A Kist of Sorrows

Last night I took the old roads and heard the old speak. I listened again to the sdll voices and felt the sting of the wind on my cheek. And it was good, like a home-coming.

The old track is grass-grown, almost obliterated by the years, and I am a stranger now where the old wind wanders, where it reeshles the dry broom and tugs at the tufted grass. The hill is quiet, shorn of voices.

Time has mellowed the stones, as it has sutured the hurts of the heart; hallowed them as the last reminder of the folk who once had their life and their being here. They rest, stilled forever in their coffin'd sleep, and now on the hill nature has reclaimed her own.

The Gaberlunzie Man
The Gaberlunzie Man

McQaid is a sword - and occasionally dagger - for hire in the turbulent Highlands, as disillusionment grows against the Hanoverian regime. On a fine summer night in 1745 he is summoned to the bedside of the dying laird of Auchlour and commissioned on the most secret errand of his life ...

London Pleasures, From Restoration to Regency
London Pleasures, From Restoration to Regency

The year 1660 witnessed not only the restoration of the monarchy but also the beginning of a new lusty and licentious age. Under the Merry Monarch, Charles II, London shurgged off Puritanism and launched itself into debauchery to enjoy two centries of uninhibited pleasure. This richly evocative portrayal of the capital will take you on an unforgettable historical pleasure trip.

Willie Gavin, Crofter Man
Willie Gavin, Crofter Man

David Kerr Cameron has captured and recorded for future generations a culture and a landscape that have now gone forever

The Ballard And The Plough | A Folk-History of the Scottish Farmtouns
The Ballard And The Plough | A Folk-History of the Scottish Farmtouns

Quoting generously from bothy ballads, David Kerr Cameron has written a book rich in anecdote and insight.

The Cornkister Days | A Portrait of a land and it rituals
The Cornkister Days | A Portrait of a land and it rituals

With a knowledge and a skill that reveals his passion for the land and its people, David Kerr Cameron picks his way through the rural upheavals and developments of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries towards the landscape we recognise today. In doing so he provides a wide-sweeping and unforgettable view of our rural history and completes his great rural trilogy portraying the old farming landscapes of Scotland's North-east Lowlands.

The English Fair
The English Fair

Colourful, boisterous and often bawdy, the old-time fairs punctuated the routine of the year like exploding stars in the firmament. They were also a vital part of England's economy. This comprehensive and readable study examines a long neglected subject and its impact on trade and everyday lives.

 
Authors
David Kerr Cameron
Journalist, Scottish Fiction, British History, British Traditions, David Kerr Cameron Author
Journalist, Scottish Fiction, British History, British Traditions, David Kerr Cameron Author

David Kerr Cameron was born in Aberdeenshire in 1928.

After National Service in the RAF he joined Kirriemuir Herald, a Scottish weekly, 1951. He worked at various newspapers and magazines, including the Farming Express, where he was managing editor.

In 1966 he joined the Daily Telegraph, where he was, in succession, a Features Sub-Editor, Chief Features Sub-Editor, Weekend section/Books section production Sub-Editor of both Sunday and daily pages, and finally Sub-Editor on Arts desk. He retired from the Daily Telegraph in 1993.

He never forgot the rigours of farming life in Aberdeenshire, which he wrote about with un-sentimental vividness in his books.

The Ballad and the Plough (1978), Willie Gavin, Crofter Man (1980), and The Cornkister Days (1984), all of which won Scottish Arts Council Awards, gave the social history of the North-East a readability that drew comparisons with the work of the late John Prebble.

 

Journalist, Scottish Fiction, British History, British Traditions, David Kerr Cameron Author
 

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