Whithorn: An Economy of People, 1920-1960

Between 2012 and 2013 Julia Muir Watt interviewed twenty-nine individuals from Whithorn, in Dumfries and Galloway, and its hinterland about their memories of the period from 1920 to 1960s. The core period relates to the time before WWII, and the resultant disruption of the small world of Whithorn – a world now largely gone.In addition, Julia Muir Watt interviewed the Whithorn-born poet and scholar Alastair Reid, and Andrew McNeillie – his father John McNeillie’s book Wigtown Ploughman, with its descriptions of farmworkers’ poor conditions, was very controversial when it was published in 1939. The book also includes extracts from the writings of Gavin Maxwell, author of Ring of Bright Water.The book is the second to be published in association with The European Ethnological Research Centre as part of their research programme Dumfries and Galloway: A Regional Ethnology, the first being Stranraer and District Lives: Voices in Trust edited by Caroline Milligan. These are also part of a wider programme The Regional Ethnology of Scotland Project.