Clap Hands for the Singing Molecatcher: Scenes from a Scottish Childhood

Clap Hands for the Singing Molecatcher is both hilarious and deeply moving in its splendid account of the writer’s childhood on a remote country estate in Morayshire in the 1940s and 1950s; a place where isolated hill farms, limitless moorland and the rock-strewn banks of wild, tumbling rivers became the backdrop for a variety of adventures and experiences. Laughter, tragedy and dramatic incident thread their way through the life of a growing boy and the lives of the people he observes.Roderick Grant’s book is not merely one of nostalgic recall. It is a richly evocative memoir of a time and place when horses still drew ploughs and children walked seven miles or more each day to reach their school; and where shepherd and gamekeeper, farmer and labourer, forester, railway worker, teacher, laird and minister, and their families, were all part of a community, close-knit in its isolation from the changing post-war world.

Reviews of Clap Hands for the Singing Molecatcher: Scenes from a Scottish Childhood

'Absolutely fascinating … beautifully written' * BBC * 'Vividly paints the sights, smells, events and characters of rural Scotland in such a comedic way that it is hard not to laugh out loud' * Press & Journal * 'Evocative and lively' * Scots Magazine * 'Beg, borrow or buy a copy today, I promise that you will be entranced' * Nairnshire Telegraph * 'I was captivated . . . Grant's evocative style, with humour never far away, recalls H.E. Bates and the best of his country writing' — Sue Baker 'a detailed, loving and always interesting recollection of an adventurous Scottish childhood, refreshingly honest about the dawn of sexual awareness' — Angus MacVicar