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Seal morning
At the age of 10, Rowena Farre left the security of her parents' home in India and was sent to live with her aunt on a lonely croft in the wild and remote Highlands of Scotland. During her stay in Sutherland, she drew strength from the isolation of her new life, gaining an understanding of nature and a sense of identity. She was inspired to write Seal Morning, the story of her unusual childhood and close friendships with a talented seal, two mischievous squirrels, a beautiful red deer and a host of other wild animals. Full of Celtic folklore and ancient wisdom, it is an enchanting representation of an idyllic private world. In a fascinating afterword, Maurice Fleming discusses the few known facts about the Highland years and later life of Rowena Farre, a mysterious figure who shunned publicity and remained elusive to the end.
1959 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1957
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224 people want to read
About the author
Rowena Farre
27 books7 followersPseudonym of Daphne Lois Macready.
Rowena Farre was a British author who spent her early childhood with her parents in Hong Kong, or possibly India. At the age of ten, her parents sent her to live with an aunt in Scotland and later she wrote her first autobiographical novel based on her life there. During WWII she worked as a Radar Operator on a remote RAF station in Pembrokeshire. Shortly after the publication of her first book in 1957 she disappeared mysteriously and efforts to trace her were unsuccessful. She reappeared in 1962 and published her second book about her life with the gypsies. Her third book, about traveling to the Himalayas to find and learn from a renowned guru, was published in 1969. Rowena Farre died in 1979.
Rowena Farre was a British author who spent her early childhood with her parents in Hong Kong, or possibly India. At the age of ten, her parents sent her to live with an aunt in Scotland and later she wrote her first autobiographical novel based on her life there. During WWII she worked as a Radar Operator on a remote RAF station in Pembrokeshire. Shortly after the publication of her first book in 1957 she disappeared mysteriously and efforts to trace her were unsuccessful. She reappeared in 1962 and published her second book about her life with the gypsies. Her third book, about traveling to the Himalayas to find and learn from a renowned guru, was published in 1969. Rowena Farre died in 1979.
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July 15, 2023
“The county of Sutherland is composed for the greater part of moor, bog, and water. Trees are a rarity; birch and pine scatter the moors singly or in small groups. Outcrops of rock, often weathered to strange shapes, are strewn over the landscape. When a storm is approaching, or in the half-light, the effect of this boulder-strewn landscape is eerie and to some people even frightening.”
This unforgiving landscape is part of a particularly barren and remote part of Scotland. Yet some time in the late 1940s, a teacher in the comfortable English Home Counties decided, after twenty years, to give up her career, and make her home in a croft there. She also took with her the ten year old girl, who lived with her. The young girl was Rowena Farre, and the teacher was her Aunt Miriam. A few years afterwards, in 1957, Rowena Farre recounted those years in this autobiographical novel Seal Morning.
It begins with their arrival at the croft, only to realise that there were no modern conveniences; not even those considered necessary at the time. There was no electricity, no running water and obviously no telephone. Lighting was by paraffin lamps, and water had to be collected in a bucket from a nearly stream. In an emergency it would be necessary to walk nine miles to the nearest clachan (a tiny village) and phone out, for no doctor lived there either. Provisions such as milk could be bought from a nearby farmer, but this was also some miles away, so far the most part they decided not to bother, but used dried milk; there would be no way of keeping fresh milk cold anyway. They quickly decided they would grow their own vegetables and herbs, and collect local wild edible plants, and catch the odd rabbit or fowl.
A farm cart had transported Rowena and her aunt to the croft, along with all the furniture they considered necessary (including an upright piano), and including three other residents. These were two grey squirrels, and a baby common rat; none of whom were destined for the pot, but brought as company for the humans in their isolation. “Aunt Miriam” had been well-known in her English neighbourhood as an animal-lover, and these were parting gifts to her from her pupils and friends.
Within a week they had their first visitor: a local shepherd. He too had heard Aunt Miriam was “fond of animals” so had brought a gift. Not a lamb, as you might expect, but a pair of otter cubs. These were quickly named “Hansel and Gretel”. They called the rat (whom they managed with difficulty to rear and domesticate) “Rodney”, and the two squirrels “Sara and Cuthbert”.
After about a year, Rowena took a short holiday to the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, and returned with another addition to the household: a Common Seal. A kindly fisherman had given the seal to her, after it had been washed off some rocks and become separated from its mother. Full of confidence that she could rear it, Rowena wrapped the seal in a tartan rug, and carried it on the two days’ journey home to Aunt Miriam.
The seal was named “Lora”, and she became not only part, but the focus of their lives. The household ran around Lora. Unlike the otters, who swam in the nearby tarn, Lora stayed in the house, insisting on being involved in daily activities, and even sleeping on her own bamboo bed, like a family dog. Of all the wild animals who shared their home, Lora was the one treated very much as a pet by the young Rowena.
The cry of a seal is uncannily like that of a baby, and they are able to make the most extraordinary - and very loud - sounds in different moods. In addition to this, they unusually seem to share the human’s tendency to cry at times of great emotion; the difference being that seals’ eyes are huge, in comparison with ours, and their tears, far more copious.
This encouraged Rowena to treat the seal as if she were a human child, and quickly learn to interpret Lora’s reactions in the same way. Lora appeared to dislike the sound of Rowena singing and playing the piano, adding her own cacophonic chorus. Rowena then wondered if Lora could be taught various musical skills. She describes in detail, how Lora managed to learn how to blow into a flute, a child’s trumpet and a harmonica; and also to “play” the rudiments of tunes on a xylophone, by holding the bearer in her mouth and tapping the note bars, as Rowena pointed to them.
We gradually deduce that Seal Morning must in part be fantasy, although heavily based on reality. When Lora is no longer in their lives, the story of Seal Morning is over, so in part this is a metaphorical title about Rowena Farre’s life. These parts have caused scepticism amongst many who read and review the book. Over the years critics have begun to describe it as a fantasy rather than the straightforward autobiography Rowena Farre insisted it was. Yet I do not personally find this hard to believe as a fact; merely how “musical” the results sounded. Aquatic mammals are among the most intelligent creatures on Earth, and when denied their natural habitat, will seek ways of occupying themselves - especially if there is the possibility of a reward to come at the end. Think of dolphins in a dolphinarium, doing “tricks”. Is this really so different? It is a conditioned response, perhaps with an element of play behaviour, and when not viewed anthropomorphically, is not particularly surprising.
Lora grew to love her harmonica, and producing what was doubtless a discordant noise from it, once she had learnt how to blow into it. The author does not make any claims for a “musical seal”, but describes a seal who loved to be the centre of attention, and encouraged to make a satisfying din, by performing tricks which had taken enormous patience, and many hours to perfect.
Seal Morning follows the lives of Rowena and her aunt, over the next seven years. It combines descriptions of the wild uninhabited terrain, with anecdotal episodes of the variety of animals who shared their home. Much of the day would be spent in the basic chores, of gardening, harvesting their vegetables and preparing their meals from what they had grown and caught. Rowena also had lessons to complete to a required standard to ensure that she could stay on the croft. and not have to attend school. For she loved being a part of this life, which proved to be a truly unique existence.
She learnt a great deal first hand about nature and wildlife. She would observe and record in minute details, occasionally being tempted to make decisions of which she knew her aunt would not approve. For example on finding a nest of ptarmigan’s eggs, she carefully removed one, and took it home to hatch. She did successfully rear the ptarmigan, calling it “Jim”, and eventually released it. A good while later the ptarmigan, now fully grown with stunning white plumage, returned to the croft, battering its wings at the window, seeking shelter from a storm.
Many are the anecdotes, masquerading as scientific experiments, by Rowena. Both the squirrels and the rat liked the same treats. Moreover, they knew the words “peanuts” and “raisins”, (as well as other words such as “basket, out, roof”, and their own name). Rowena would carefully place peanuts at one end of the dresser, and raisins at the other. She would then say either “nuts” or “raisins”. Rodney the rat knew exactly which end to go to, depending what was said, but the squirrels would confusedly dash from one end to the other, in search of their tasty reward.
One episode describes when one of the tame squirrels accidentally fell down the chimney into a bowl of porridge. Others are about Sith, an unusually aggressive deer. Perhaps the most amusing chapter however, describes when Lora became the star at a “ceilidh” (a local musical event) just outside Aberdeen. An uncle of Rowena’s had persuaded her Aunt Miriam that Lora would provide a welcome novelty event, to break up the amateur musicians’ performances. The journey was duly made, and Rowena led Lora into the drawing room, where she waited with the other artiste:
“The singer started off charmingly and started with the assurance of a professional. She managed to sing a few notes of an old Hebridean air before the inevitable happened; Lora raised her head and roared her way from a deep bass to a seal top C. Even a full Covent Garden chorus would not have been able to compete with that, and the singer wisely gave up there and then. The audience were hysterical with laughter. They had not heard anything as good as that for a long while.”
Quickly the order of events was changed to allow Lora to perform on her xylophone, and the other performers began to look a little chastened at the amount of enthusiastic encores the seal received. After a rendering of the National Anthem:
“… the melodeon player got up. He did not look too happy at having to follow such a popular performer. I began to realise why professional actors so heartily dislike children and animals taking part in a play; when they are around nobody else gets a look in.”
As the ceilidh continued, Rowena decided to lock Lora in her Uncle’s study, but Lora had other ideas. Not liking being excluded from all the interesting action, she began to howl, and her piteous wails drew the attention of some of the guests. Someone let her out, and she was instructed to sit by Rowena and be quiet. But the tears of frustration welled up, and she sat there with tears pouring down her face. Most of the guests took pity on her, and the other performers gave in with good grace. The evening belonged to Lora, the musical seal.
In the eleven chapters of Seal Morning, Rowena Farre recounts many amusing episodes such as this, interspersed with aspects of animal welfare and behaviour she learned through the years at the croft. There are many descriptions of her daily life with Aunt Miriam, and the remote area they lived in, describing a way of life which was becoming a rarity then, and is is now all but lost. One chapter is about Celtic folklore and legend: the ancient wisdom,and the spells used by the local wise man or wise woman, all now gone without trace, except in a few individual’s memories.
It ends when Lora unaccountably disappeared one Spring day, swimming in the lochan. Some bad luck following that year made Rowena urge her aunt to get away for a holiday. Both had been greatly affected by the loss of Lora. Aunt Miram duly went to stay with some friends in Berkshire, and Rowena was very surprised to read in one of her letters that Aunt Miriam was to be married to a Canadian she had met:
“Somehow it never occurred to me in those days that anyone over the age of thirty-five could seriously contemplate getting married; such is adolescence.”
Rowena was now seventeen, and she had three months in which to pack up and sell the croft, by which time her father would have returned from India. A local predicted “You will be travelling far in coming years”, and he proved to be right, as Rowena Farre “wandered extensively all through Britain, and later typed and dish-washed my way to Iceland where I spent some time studying a seal colony.”
Returning to London, five years later, Rowena Farre felt the urge to visit her old home in Sutherland. Remote as it was, she found it hard to locate. Neither of the two families she remembered in the nearly clachan were still there, but eventually she found a broken ruin, which clearly nobody had inhabited since she left:
“All that remained of our former home was in ruins and overgrown with nettles … the roof had fallen through, the glass panes had slipped from the windows and the walls were crumbling ruins. Using my rucksack as a buffer, I pushed my way through the nettles and gazed into the room which had once been a parlour. Nettles had even sprung up through the broken stonework. At one side of the room, just as we had left it, was a wooden chair, covered with mildew. Next I peered into my old room. Disintegrated almost beyond recognition was Lora’s bamboo couch, and protruding from under it was a rusted toy trumpet.”
The byre was in the same sort of condition, with no sign of the trim vegetable garden, where they had been so industrious, and of which they had been so proud. Rowena Farre wished she had never returned.
But as she left, she looked at the changing hills and dark waters of the lochan, and when a thrush alighted on her shoulder, she felt her spirits raise. Perhaps this was a descendant of all the birds she had once known. And so the story ends.
Trying to find out what became of Rowena Farre, is not easy. Just before the publication of Seal Morning Rowena Farre disappeared from her lodgings, and as the book achieved popularity and became a best seller, her publisher had to go to considerable efforts to trace her.
Questions were raised as to its authenticity, and the “Northern Times” and other journalists were unable to locate the croft in which she claimed to have lived.
It was eventually discovered that the writer’s real name was Daphne Lois Macready. She was a deeply private person, who not only shunned publicity after the publication of Seal Morning, but who remained elusive all her life, until her death in 1979. Rowena Farre was the daughter of a British Army medical officer, and her great-grandfather was the celebrated actor-manager W.C. Macready. She had lived in India in early childhood, and looked on this as a second home. She had been sent back to Britain to live with her Aunt Miriam of the book, because it was thought it better for her health. Before moving to Scotland, they had lived in Buckinghamshire and Kent, and all her education had been undertaken by her aunt.
When her aunt married and moved abroad, she trained as a typist and took a job in an office but tried to find work outdoors during the summer months. On her travels she lived among tinkers and gypsies.
Seal Morning was followed five years later by “A Time from the World” (1962), an account of her life among gypsies. (In the United States this was published under the title “Gypsy Idyll”.) In 1969 she also wrote a book describing her spiritual pilgrimage in Ceylon and India, called “The Beckoning Land”. However neither book achieved the popularity of Seal Morning.
This book has a disjointed feel, yet the parts where Rowena Farre describes the remote area of Scotland are enchanting. It is as if she had captured a moment in time, lost forever. There are beautiful charcoal sketches of the animals too, by Raymond Sheppard. If you enjoy country tales with a quirky difference, you may enjoy this book.
This unforgiving landscape is part of a particularly barren and remote part of Scotland. Yet some time in the late 1940s, a teacher in the comfortable English Home Counties decided, after twenty years, to give up her career, and make her home in a croft there. She also took with her the ten year old girl, who lived with her. The young girl was Rowena Farre, and the teacher was her Aunt Miriam. A few years afterwards, in 1957, Rowena Farre recounted those years in this autobiographical novel Seal Morning.
It begins with their arrival at the croft, only to realise that there were no modern conveniences; not even those considered necessary at the time. There was no electricity, no running water and obviously no telephone. Lighting was by paraffin lamps, and water had to be collected in a bucket from a nearly stream. In an emergency it would be necessary to walk nine miles to the nearest clachan (a tiny village) and phone out, for no doctor lived there either. Provisions such as milk could be bought from a nearby farmer, but this was also some miles away, so far the most part they decided not to bother, but used dried milk; there would be no way of keeping fresh milk cold anyway. They quickly decided they would grow their own vegetables and herbs, and collect local wild edible plants, and catch the odd rabbit or fowl.
A farm cart had transported Rowena and her aunt to the croft, along with all the furniture they considered necessary (including an upright piano), and including three other residents. These were two grey squirrels, and a baby common rat; none of whom were destined for the pot, but brought as company for the humans in their isolation. “Aunt Miriam” had been well-known in her English neighbourhood as an animal-lover, and these were parting gifts to her from her pupils and friends.
Within a week they had their first visitor: a local shepherd. He too had heard Aunt Miriam was “fond of animals” so had brought a gift. Not a lamb, as you might expect, but a pair of otter cubs. These were quickly named “Hansel and Gretel”. They called the rat (whom they managed with difficulty to rear and domesticate) “Rodney”, and the two squirrels “Sara and Cuthbert”.
After about a year, Rowena took a short holiday to the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, and returned with another addition to the household: a Common Seal. A kindly fisherman had given the seal to her, after it had been washed off some rocks and become separated from its mother. Full of confidence that she could rear it, Rowena wrapped the seal in a tartan rug, and carried it on the two days’ journey home to Aunt Miriam.
The seal was named “Lora”, and she became not only part, but the focus of their lives. The household ran around Lora. Unlike the otters, who swam in the nearby tarn, Lora stayed in the house, insisting on being involved in daily activities, and even sleeping on her own bamboo bed, like a family dog. Of all the wild animals who shared their home, Lora was the one treated very much as a pet by the young Rowena.
The cry of a seal is uncannily like that of a baby, and they are able to make the most extraordinary - and very loud - sounds in different moods. In addition to this, they unusually seem to share the human’s tendency to cry at times of great emotion; the difference being that seals’ eyes are huge, in comparison with ours, and their tears, far more copious.
This encouraged Rowena to treat the seal as if she were a human child, and quickly learn to interpret Lora’s reactions in the same way. Lora appeared to dislike the sound of Rowena singing and playing the piano, adding her own cacophonic chorus. Rowena then wondered if Lora could be taught various musical skills. She describes in detail, how Lora managed to learn how to blow into a flute, a child’s trumpet and a harmonica; and also to “play” the rudiments of tunes on a xylophone, by holding the bearer in her mouth and tapping the note bars, as Rowena pointed to them.
We gradually deduce that Seal Morning must in part be fantasy, although heavily based on reality. When Lora is no longer in their lives, the story of Seal Morning is over, so in part this is a metaphorical title about Rowena Farre’s life. These parts have caused scepticism amongst many who read and review the book. Over the years critics have begun to describe it as a fantasy rather than the straightforward autobiography Rowena Farre insisted it was. Yet I do not personally find this hard to believe as a fact; merely how “musical” the results sounded. Aquatic mammals are among the most intelligent creatures on Earth, and when denied their natural habitat, will seek ways of occupying themselves - especially if there is the possibility of a reward to come at the end. Think of dolphins in a dolphinarium, doing “tricks”. Is this really so different? It is a conditioned response, perhaps with an element of play behaviour, and when not viewed anthropomorphically, is not particularly surprising.
Lora grew to love her harmonica, and producing what was doubtless a discordant noise from it, once she had learnt how to blow into it. The author does not make any claims for a “musical seal”, but describes a seal who loved to be the centre of attention, and encouraged to make a satisfying din, by performing tricks which had taken enormous patience, and many hours to perfect.
Seal Morning follows the lives of Rowena and her aunt, over the next seven years. It combines descriptions of the wild uninhabited terrain, with anecdotal episodes of the variety of animals who shared their home. Much of the day would be spent in the basic chores, of gardening, harvesting their vegetables and preparing their meals from what they had grown and caught. Rowena also had lessons to complete to a required standard to ensure that she could stay on the croft. and not have to attend school. For she loved being a part of this life, which proved to be a truly unique existence.
She learnt a great deal first hand about nature and wildlife. She would observe and record in minute details, occasionally being tempted to make decisions of which she knew her aunt would not approve. For example on finding a nest of ptarmigan’s eggs, she carefully removed one, and took it home to hatch. She did successfully rear the ptarmigan, calling it “Jim”, and eventually released it. A good while later the ptarmigan, now fully grown with stunning white plumage, returned to the croft, battering its wings at the window, seeking shelter from a storm.
Many are the anecdotes, masquerading as scientific experiments, by Rowena. Both the squirrels and the rat liked the same treats. Moreover, they knew the words “peanuts” and “raisins”, (as well as other words such as “basket, out, roof”, and their own name). Rowena would carefully place peanuts at one end of the dresser, and raisins at the other. She would then say either “nuts” or “raisins”. Rodney the rat knew exactly which end to go to, depending what was said, but the squirrels would confusedly dash from one end to the other, in search of their tasty reward.
One episode describes when one of the tame squirrels accidentally fell down the chimney into a bowl of porridge. Others are about Sith, an unusually aggressive deer. Perhaps the most amusing chapter however, describes when Lora became the star at a “ceilidh” (a local musical event) just outside Aberdeen. An uncle of Rowena’s had persuaded her Aunt Miriam that Lora would provide a welcome novelty event, to break up the amateur musicians’ performances. The journey was duly made, and Rowena led Lora into the drawing room, where she waited with the other artiste:
“The singer started off charmingly and started with the assurance of a professional. She managed to sing a few notes of an old Hebridean air before the inevitable happened; Lora raised her head and roared her way from a deep bass to a seal top C. Even a full Covent Garden chorus would not have been able to compete with that, and the singer wisely gave up there and then. The audience were hysterical with laughter. They had not heard anything as good as that for a long while.”
Quickly the order of events was changed to allow Lora to perform on her xylophone, and the other performers began to look a little chastened at the amount of enthusiastic encores the seal received. After a rendering of the National Anthem:
“… the melodeon player got up. He did not look too happy at having to follow such a popular performer. I began to realise why professional actors so heartily dislike children and animals taking part in a play; when they are around nobody else gets a look in.”
As the ceilidh continued, Rowena decided to lock Lora in her Uncle’s study, but Lora had other ideas. Not liking being excluded from all the interesting action, she began to howl, and her piteous wails drew the attention of some of the guests. Someone let her out, and she was instructed to sit by Rowena and be quiet. But the tears of frustration welled up, and she sat there with tears pouring down her face. Most of the guests took pity on her, and the other performers gave in with good grace. The evening belonged to Lora, the musical seal.
In the eleven chapters of Seal Morning, Rowena Farre recounts many amusing episodes such as this, interspersed with aspects of animal welfare and behaviour she learned through the years at the croft. There are many descriptions of her daily life with Aunt Miriam, and the remote area they lived in, describing a way of life which was becoming a rarity then, and is is now all but lost. One chapter is about Celtic folklore and legend: the ancient wisdom,and the spells used by the local wise man or wise woman, all now gone without trace, except in a few individual’s memories.
It ends when Lora unaccountably disappeared one Spring day, swimming in the lochan. Some bad luck following that year made Rowena urge her aunt to get away for a holiday. Both had been greatly affected by the loss of Lora. Aunt Miram duly went to stay with some friends in Berkshire, and Rowena was very surprised to read in one of her letters that Aunt Miriam was to be married to a Canadian she had met:
“Somehow it never occurred to me in those days that anyone over the age of thirty-five could seriously contemplate getting married; such is adolescence.”
Rowena was now seventeen, and she had three months in which to pack up and sell the croft, by which time her father would have returned from India. A local predicted “You will be travelling far in coming years”, and he proved to be right, as Rowena Farre “wandered extensively all through Britain, and later typed and dish-washed my way to Iceland where I spent some time studying a seal colony.”
Returning to London, five years later, Rowena Farre felt the urge to visit her old home in Sutherland. Remote as it was, she found it hard to locate. Neither of the two families she remembered in the nearly clachan were still there, but eventually she found a broken ruin, which clearly nobody had inhabited since she left:
“All that remained of our former home was in ruins and overgrown with nettles … the roof had fallen through, the glass panes had slipped from the windows and the walls were crumbling ruins. Using my rucksack as a buffer, I pushed my way through the nettles and gazed into the room which had once been a parlour. Nettles had even sprung up through the broken stonework. At one side of the room, just as we had left it, was a wooden chair, covered with mildew. Next I peered into my old room. Disintegrated almost beyond recognition was Lora’s bamboo couch, and protruding from under it was a rusted toy trumpet.”
The byre was in the same sort of condition, with no sign of the trim vegetable garden, where they had been so industrious, and of which they had been so proud. Rowena Farre wished she had never returned.
But as she left, she looked at the changing hills and dark waters of the lochan, and when a thrush alighted on her shoulder, she felt her spirits raise. Perhaps this was a descendant of all the birds she had once known. And so the story ends.
Trying to find out what became of Rowena Farre, is not easy. Just before the publication of Seal Morning Rowena Farre disappeared from her lodgings, and as the book achieved popularity and became a best seller, her publisher had to go to considerable efforts to trace her.
Questions were raised as to its authenticity, and the “Northern Times” and other journalists were unable to locate the croft in which she claimed to have lived.
It was eventually discovered that the writer’s real name was Daphne Lois Macready. She was a deeply private person, who not only shunned publicity after the publication of Seal Morning, but who remained elusive all her life, until her death in 1979. Rowena Farre was the daughter of a British Army medical officer, and her great-grandfather was the celebrated actor-manager W.C. Macready. She had lived in India in early childhood, and looked on this as a second home. She had been sent back to Britain to live with her Aunt Miriam of the book, because it was thought it better for her health. Before moving to Scotland, they had lived in Buckinghamshire and Kent, and all her education had been undertaken by her aunt.
When her aunt married and moved abroad, she trained as a typist and took a job in an office but tried to find work outdoors during the summer months. On her travels she lived among tinkers and gypsies.
Seal Morning was followed five years later by “A Time from the World” (1962), an account of her life among gypsies. (In the United States this was published under the title “Gypsy Idyll”.) In 1969 she also wrote a book describing her spiritual pilgrimage in Ceylon and India, called “The Beckoning Land”. However neither book achieved the popularity of Seal Morning.
This book has a disjointed feel, yet the parts where Rowena Farre describes the remote area of Scotland are enchanting. It is as if she had captured a moment in time, lost forever. There are beautiful charcoal sketches of the animals too, by Raymond Sheppard. If you enjoy country tales with a quirky difference, you may enjoy this book.
October 24, 2019
Highly recommended if you like animal stories.
November 10, 2015
(3.5) Here’s an obscure nature classic for animal lovers who can’t get enough of Gerald Durrell and James Herriot. It was a bestseller and a critical success when first published in 1957, and the fact that it has been reprinted several times in the new millennium is testament to its enduring appeal. It’s the account of seven years Farre spent living in a primitive Scottish croft (no electricity or running water) with her Aunt Miriam, starting at age 10. Despite an abrupt beginning, a dearth of dialogue and slightly rushed storytelling, I found this very enjoyable.
Like the young Durrell, Farre kept a menagerie of wild and half-domesticated animals, including Cuthbert and Sara the gray squirrels, Rodney the rat, Hansel and Gretel the otters, and – the star of this memoir – Lora, a common seal pup. Other pets came and went, like an ill-tempered roe deer fawn, a family of song thrushes, and a pair of fierce wild cat kittens. Early chapters about the struggle to keep all these ravenous creatures fed and wrangled are full of humorous mishaps, like Cuthbert falling down a chimney into the porridge.
Farre acquired Lora on a trip to Lewis. Like dogs, seal pups are very loyal and attached. Farre fed Lora a bottle on her lap and let her sleep at the foot of the bed. Lora was also strikingly intelligent: she recognized 35 words, collected the mail from the postman, unpacked groceries and had an aptitude for music, including playing the mouth organ and xylophone and ‘singing’ along to piano accompaniment. She and the otters, along with Ben the dog, loved to frolic in the water and slide down snowy hills in the winter.
Besides capturing animal antics, what Farre does best in this book is to evoke the extreme isolation of their living situation. Aunt Miriam had saved up £75 a year for them to live off, but also painted designs on wooden bowls for extra cash. The regular summer routine of storing up food was not about passing the time but survival. Near-catastrophes, like getting lost in a mountain mist or the goats raiding Lora’s food supply, showed how precarious life could be. There was little to do on winter days, and only five or six hours of daylight anyway;
A life with animals is bound to involve some sadness. One pet gets picked off by a peregrine; another is injured in a trap and has to be put down. Ben’s fate is particularly sad. Lora’s, by contrast, is just mysterious: after seven years at the croft, she simply disappeared. Farre never learned what became of her.
At age 17, Farre had to decide how to make her own way in life. She took solo camping trips to contemplate her future, doing some informal seal research on Shetland and Iceland. Especially after Aunt Miriam met a Canadian man on an extended trip to visit friends in Berkshire and got engaged, it was clear that their crofting life together was soon to end. Farre hints at what happened next for her: she would go on to travel with British gypsies and journey to the Himalayas, subjects for two further autobiographies. The book ends on a melancholy note as Farre returns to the croft five years later and finds it no better than a ruin.
Farre died relatively young, aged 57 in 1979. Alas, an afterword by Maurice Fleming introduces an element of doubt about the writer and the strict veracity of her memoir. For one thing, Rowena Farre wasn’t her real name. “Piecing Daphne Lois Macready’s life together is like laying out a jigsaw from which some bits are missing and others faded,” Fleming writes. We know she was born in India to an Army officer and the family moved around the Far East for a number of years. However, Farre does not account for her formal schooling, and no evidence of the croft has ever been found. In other words, we don’t know how much is true.
Does this matter? It doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of this lively animal-themed memoir (after all, Herriot also did plenty of fictionalizing), but it does make me wonder whether some of Lora’s feats might be made up. Are seals really as intelligent and personable as she makes them out to be? I was left feeling slightly uneasy, and wanting to do more research about both Farre and seals to figure out what’s what. Still, this is a wonderfully cozy read to pick up by a fire this autumn or winter.
With thanks to the publisher, Birlinn, for the free copy.
(Originally published with images at my blog, Bookish Beck.)
Like the young Durrell, Farre kept a menagerie of wild and half-domesticated animals, including Cuthbert and Sara the gray squirrels, Rodney the rat, Hansel and Gretel the otters, and – the star of this memoir – Lora, a common seal pup. Other pets came and went, like an ill-tempered roe deer fawn, a family of song thrushes, and a pair of fierce wild cat kittens. Early chapters about the struggle to keep all these ravenous creatures fed and wrangled are full of humorous mishaps, like Cuthbert falling down a chimney into the porridge.
Farre acquired Lora on a trip to Lewis. Like dogs, seal pups are very loyal and attached. Farre fed Lora a bottle on her lap and let her sleep at the foot of the bed. Lora was also strikingly intelligent: she recognized 35 words, collected the mail from the postman, unpacked groceries and had an aptitude for music, including playing the mouth organ and xylophone and ‘singing’ along to piano accompaniment. She and the otters, along with Ben the dog, loved to frolic in the water and slide down snowy hills in the winter.
Besides capturing animal antics, what Farre does best in this book is to evoke the extreme isolation of their living situation. Aunt Miriam had saved up £75 a year for them to live off, but also painted designs on wooden bowls for extra cash. The regular summer routine of storing up food was not about passing the time but survival. Near-catastrophes, like getting lost in a mountain mist or the goats raiding Lora’s food supply, showed how precarious life could be. There was little to do on winter days, and only five or six hours of daylight anyway;
“Another hour in the croft and I would have had a nervous breakdown,” said Aunt Miriam. Life up here got you like that sometimes.
Really there are very few adults these days who possess the mental and emotional self-sufficiency necessary for leading satisfactory existences in these remote parts.
A life with animals is bound to involve some sadness. One pet gets picked off by a peregrine; another is injured in a trap and has to be put down. Ben’s fate is particularly sad. Lora’s, by contrast, is just mysterious: after seven years at the croft, she simply disappeared. Farre never learned what became of her.
At age 17, Farre had to decide how to make her own way in life. She took solo camping trips to contemplate her future, doing some informal seal research on Shetland and Iceland. Especially after Aunt Miriam met a Canadian man on an extended trip to visit friends in Berkshire and got engaged, it was clear that their crofting life together was soon to end. Farre hints at what happened next for her: she would go on to travel with British gypsies and journey to the Himalayas, subjects for two further autobiographies. The book ends on a melancholy note as Farre returns to the croft five years later and finds it no better than a ruin.
Farre died relatively young, aged 57 in 1979. Alas, an afterword by Maurice Fleming introduces an element of doubt about the writer and the strict veracity of her memoir. For one thing, Rowena Farre wasn’t her real name. “Piecing Daphne Lois Macready’s life together is like laying out a jigsaw from which some bits are missing and others faded,” Fleming writes. We know she was born in India to an Army officer and the family moved around the Far East for a number of years. However, Farre does not account for her formal schooling, and no evidence of the croft has ever been found. In other words, we don’t know how much is true.
Does this matter? It doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of this lively animal-themed memoir (after all, Herriot also did plenty of fictionalizing), but it does make me wonder whether some of Lora’s feats might be made up. Are seals really as intelligent and personable as she makes them out to be? I was left feeling slightly uneasy, and wanting to do more research about both Farre and seals to figure out what’s what. Still, this is a wonderfully cozy read to pick up by a fire this autumn or winter.
With thanks to the publisher, Birlinn, for the free copy.
(Originally published with images at my blog, Bookish Beck.)
April 28, 2021
"A book of real and rare enchantment".
"Escapism at its best".
Rowena Farre lived with her aunt as a child. They were in Scotland and it was the 1950's. They found a very out-of-way cottage there. The home was called a croft. Their nearest neighbor was 3 miles away. A loch (lake) was much closer.
Their were many animals living at the croft: Rodney, a rat; Hansel and Gretel, a female and male otter; Sara and Cuthbert, a female and a male squirrel. And then, of course, was Lora, a female Common Seal. Adopted as a pup, she soon became the center of the croft's attention.
Lora was the smartest of the bunch. Eventually she learned and responded to 46 words. The rest of the menagerie knew no more than half that number. As the book progresses, we learn of many of the experiences of all of the animals and discover many of these animals' traits.
In a fascinating afterward, Maurice Fleming discusses the few known facts about the Highland years and later life of Rowena Farre, a mysterious figure who shunned publicity and remained elusive to the end.
The book is not available on kindle. I have a beautiful paperback copy with an engaging picture of a Common Seal on the cover. I will treasure it always.
Thank you, Goodreads friend, Leila, for recommending this book to me. I did enjoy this book so much.
4 stars
"Escapism at its best".
Rowena Farre lived with her aunt as a child. They were in Scotland and it was the 1950's. They found a very out-of-way cottage there. The home was called a croft. Their nearest neighbor was 3 miles away. A loch (lake) was much closer.
Their were many animals living at the croft: Rodney, a rat; Hansel and Gretel, a female and male otter; Sara and Cuthbert, a female and a male squirrel. And then, of course, was Lora, a female Common Seal. Adopted as a pup, she soon became the center of the croft's attention.
Lora was the smartest of the bunch. Eventually she learned and responded to 46 words. The rest of the menagerie knew no more than half that number. As the book progresses, we learn of many of the experiences of all of the animals and discover many of these animals' traits.
In a fascinating afterward, Maurice Fleming discusses the few known facts about the Highland years and later life of Rowena Farre, a mysterious figure who shunned publicity and remained elusive to the end.
The book is not available on kindle. I have a beautiful paperback copy with an engaging picture of a Common Seal on the cover. I will treasure it always.
Thank you, Goodreads friend, Leila, for recommending this book to me. I did enjoy this book so much.
4 stars
December 1, 2014
Back in 1985 or so, I saw the "Wonderworks" film version of this story, a memoir about raising a pet seal, on TV, and was utterly enchanted (I suspect I would do well to leave my pleasant memories intact and not seek it out on DVD).
A couple years later, when I was starting college and visited for the first time the used bookstore which was to become my favorite used bookstore of all time (alas, it no longer exists), I found a well worn vintage mass market of the book, on which I pounced and quickly devoured. It was more exciting to find things like that back then, at a time when it was not even remotely possible to envision a day when one could look for used copies of books online. I don't think I'd even known that a book version existed.
I found that the film makers had taken drastic liberties with the story, and the original memoir was much less romantic in tone. However, I still loved the book because of the portrayal of Lora, the seal, who comes across as delightful and exasperating, and just somehow very real. I was very taken with her love of music -- she is given a toy xylophone, and the account of her cheerfully, semi-randomly, whacking out tunes until the people around her are driven mad by them is rather funny.
Half a life-time later, I read it aloud to my 11 year-old boy (most of it -- parts are very dry, and I edited freely as I read) who likes animal stories. He also fell for Lora's charms. But oh that internet, half blessing, and half-curse, as usual. Without it I would never have known that the book is almost certainly all fabrication. Sigh. I didn't pass this information along to the boy however. I never tried hard to keep his belief in Santa alive, but somehow it seems important for him to believe in Lora.
A couple years later, when I was starting college and visited for the first time the used bookstore which was to become my favorite used bookstore of all time (alas, it no longer exists), I found a well worn vintage mass market of the book, on which I pounced and quickly devoured. It was more exciting to find things like that back then, at a time when it was not even remotely possible to envision a day when one could look for used copies of books online. I don't think I'd even known that a book version existed.
I found that the film makers had taken drastic liberties with the story, and the original memoir was much less romantic in tone. However, I still loved the book because of the portrayal of Lora, the seal, who comes across as delightful and exasperating, and just somehow very real. I was very taken with her love of music -- she is given a toy xylophone, and the account of her cheerfully, semi-randomly, whacking out tunes until the people around her are driven mad by them is rather funny.
Half a life-time later, I read it aloud to my 11 year-old boy (most of it -- parts are very dry, and I edited freely as I read) who likes animal stories. He also fell for Lora's charms. But oh that internet, half blessing, and half-curse, as usual. Without it I would never have known that the book is almost certainly all fabrication. Sigh. I didn't pass this information along to the boy however. I never tried hard to keep his belief in Santa alive, but somehow it seems important for him to believe in Lora.
September 11, 2022
4* if it's fiction: the controverse and mystery are worth an extra star
3* for this story from the fifties about living off-grid in the Scottish highlands and befriending animals. Perfect reading material during a stay in the Highlands!
5* for the lovely bookstore Carmen Gadelica on the Isle of Skye where I bought my copy of the book
3* for this story from the fifties about living off-grid in the Scottish highlands and befriending animals. Perfect reading material during a stay in the Highlands!
5* for the lovely bookstore Carmen Gadelica on the Isle of Skye where I bought my copy of the book
March 8, 2015
Charming, highly romanticized memoir of remote life in Sunderland County, Scotland during the 1920s/30s. As a young of girl of 10, the author leaves England with her aunt to live a crofting life (i.e. a subsistence life) in Sunderland along the northernmost coasts of Scotland. They take with them a few pets and acquire more, wild and domestic, during the seven years there including Lora, a Common Seal, Hansel and Gretel the otters and a half-dozen or so more. There life with the animals as well as the remote life of self-sufficiency form the basis of the narrative. Although the title implies an emphasis on the namesake, the book is more a recollection and description in which the seal and others play a part. Animal kindness, simplicity of lifestyle and appreciation of the natural world are themes in what I might consider a bit of proto-YA reading of growth and loss.
Though presented as non-fiction, some of the details presented of the author's preternatural skill with animals leaves me skeptical that there is not a high degree of fictionalization at work. There is a whiff of "nature faking" writing a la E. Thomas Seton or William J. Long in this short work (168pp) that I can't ignore or perhaps it is just an imitation of Ricard Jefferies "Bevin", which the author could have likely read.
This doubt aside, the natural descriptions, particularly of setting, are nicely done and the prose expertly handled. If there is yet no mature lyricism, the writing does not draw annoying attention to itself. Its escapist appeal on its 1957 publication is understandable in a world then that was deeply worried about nuclear war, the beginning of space exploration on a shrinking, fracturing world in combination with a growing understanding and concern for environmental issues. It's an honorable member of that sub-genre of writing that, if not quite scientific enough for a Rachel Carson work, whets some of the public appetite for works like Ring of Bright Water, Born Free or the works of authors like Jean George.
Though presented as non-fiction, some of the details presented of the author's preternatural skill with animals leaves me skeptical that there is not a high degree of fictionalization at work. There is a whiff of "nature faking" writing a la E. Thomas Seton or William J. Long in this short work (168pp) that I can't ignore or perhaps it is just an imitation of Ricard Jefferies "Bevin", which the author could have likely read.
This doubt aside, the natural descriptions, particularly of setting, are nicely done and the prose expertly handled. If there is yet no mature lyricism, the writing does not draw annoying attention to itself. Its escapist appeal on its 1957 publication is understandable in a world then that was deeply worried about nuclear war, the beginning of space exploration on a shrinking, fracturing world in combination with a growing understanding and concern for environmental issues. It's an honorable member of that sub-genre of writing that, if not quite scientific enough for a Rachel Carson work, whets some of the public appetite for works like Ring of Bright Water, Born Free or the works of authors like Jean George.
May 11, 2019
If the title of this book was "Seal Mourning" instead of Seal Morning, that would have been ideal for a sadistic fictional novel. But this story is neither sadistic nor fictional. It's the life story of the author who moved into a rural and isolated part of Scotland when she was a child, living with her aunt and a bunch of amazing animals. This book reminds me of Laura Wilder stories. But Laura you meet in this book is a baby seal. The story is mind calming. It makes you feel the difference between loneliness and being lonely. Being lonely in a place like this could be beautiful and has its own merits..
September 26, 2011
Published in the 1950s, this is the enchanting story of a retired school teacher who takes her young niece and a menagerie of animals to live in a croft in a remote part of the Scottish highlands. Several hours walk from their nearest neighbour, they had no electricity and no means of communication apart from a pony trap to collect fortnightly supplies in summer. In spite of this, their life was healthy and deeply fulfilling. Sprinkled throughout the book are exquisite charcoal drawings of the animals. A very satisfying read.
February 26, 2019
I bought this book through Scholastic (I think) when I was in elementary school and loved it then. I've kept it all these 55 years since then and just finished it for the second time. I loved it just as much all over again. The writing style is understated and engaging, and the premise--a girl and her aunt and various tamed pets living alone in the wilds of Northwest Scotland--is one into which I sank down and got lost. This is one of those books I'm sorry to turn last page of.
June 9, 2016
Read this probably 55 years ago, thought of it again when entering Ring of Bright Water as a favorite. Both are disturbed idylls in the Western Islands. Those who love ROBW might like this a lot. As I recall it is meant for a younger readership, has more to do with children than Gavin Maxwell's very eremitic life.
December 6, 2009
This book is for any animal lover. I was both entertained and educated. You wouldn't think you'd get chuckles out of a life out in the wilds of Scotland, but I laughed out loud a few times. A brilliant book! No child should grow up without reading it. That goes for adults too :)
October 4, 2011
A gem of a book. Warm hearted. Escapist. And an insight into the old ways of the Scottish crofters.
September 30, 2007
The author at the age of 10 went with her aunt (in a very British fashion her father lived in India and so she went to live with her aunt in the UK) to live on a croft in very rural Scotland. They were an unusual family because of their love for pets. They had two squirrels, a rat, two otters, a Common Seal, two goats, a pony, a dog and the list goes on. This book details all of their pets and the seven years they spent living the middle of nowhere with them. Three of their pets (which are for the most part wild animals they raise from youth in an attempt to tame them) are unfortunately killed due to ignorance which really angers me, but the book goes on endlessly listing incidents and experiences with nature and the people they met those seven years. It finishes with the ol' can't go back at least I have the memories conclusion.
December 28, 2012
I found this book difficult to assess as I could not really decide which parts were real and which were Rowena's flights of fancy. I found the descriptions of the landscape and the crofting life wonderful but was troubled by the narrative concerning the animals, which I was very uneasy and disbelieving about. Ultimately I was left feeling somewhat dissatisfied and troubled, though the style of her writing was lovely; it just sat too uncomfortably with my morals in a way that, strangely, Durrell's book My Family and Other Animals did not.
January 22, 2016
Loneliness. Wilderness. A seal. Otters. A pet dog that saved her from the fog, then went rogue that had to be put down. Flights of fantasy? Or was it real? Hardly matters. What does matter is that even today, there are places on our planet where similar events could happen. Does that make it timeless? I don't know. But when I was born in the place where I was born, no phone, no tv, not even the concept of internet and and plenty of misguided adults trying to ruin my life. Holy mackerel, it was hell on earth! Which must be what makes it impossible for me to identify with the protagonist.
February 10, 2010
This is not exactly Literature- however, it is immensely interesting and beguiling in the manner of Robinson Crusoe. Because it is true and very unusual- a period of time spent in a landscape (Sutherland) far from human comforts and in the company of many small animals. It tells of daily resourcefulness, and patient observation. Life lived close to wilderness- a great lesson in the value of nature as it educates us to a greater degree of keen awareness & humility, perhaps.
January 31, 2012
A charming story of a couple of plucky women (the author and her aunt) who chose to live the crofter's life for several years in the 1950s, far from anyone, in the wilds of Scotland. Their relationship with their animals was quite remarkable and the description of their encounters with wildlife equally amazing. This book deserves a place on the bookshelf next to Gavin Maxwell's "Ring Of Bright Water".
May 16, 2019
A clear, beautiful and sometimes hard look at the experiences of rural Scotland in the 50's. The illustrations accentuated the reading nicely. The chapters were well organised. I still have no idea what a byre is, but I think I love this book. It it simplistic without treating the reader like an idiot, and charming without being soppy.
June 29, 2008
Enthralling even after all these years - the tale of a young girl and her aunt living in a croft out in the middle of nowhere, and the animals in their life. Again, it was good to reread this book after so long.
July 23, 2009
A most wonderful book about life in the Highlands of Scotland living at one with nature.
Loved it!
Loved it!
August 6, 2013
This is a fictionalised and idealised life of a childhood spent in pre-war Sutherland. A beautiful book to read
Want to read
August 28, 2013Seen in the movie Ondine.
November 30, 2013
Wonderful book, will make you happy, sometimes sad and will make you laugh. I read it in two days, couldn't put it down.
February 14, 2014
My great uncle's sister gave me this book back in 1961. I loved it then and I love it now.
August 12, 2015
Interesting story based upon the authors memories about her life between the ages of 10 and 17.
August 14, 2017
Beautiful short story. Rowena writing is enchanting.
June 13, 2019
Quotable:
Squalor seemed to spring up around these people.
[F]or no purpose whatsoever should a bird or animal be caged except for the briefest periods.
Squalor seemed to spring up around these people.
[F]or no purpose whatsoever should a bird or animal be caged except for the briefest periods.
December 30, 2021
I discovered this book in the library and put it on my "wish to read" list where it remained for many years. When I finally got around to it I discovered the most ready copy was in a Large Print edition (Storstilsbiblioteket, 1974 / översättning: Stina Hergin). I can warmly recommend Large Print editions! Particularly if you enjoy reading books in bits sitting at the table eating, which I do. Certain books are better read a bit at a time and this is one of them.
I learned a good deal about different things; Sutherland, for example, which is south of nothing but the Orkneys, and about living cut off from the modern world where the nearest shop – or doctor – is a days' travel away – when the roads are open. We read about the strange people who live there. Rowena's aunt provides her only adult supervision and her education. There is one old crofter, McNairn, who turns out to have travelled widely and has no time for the superstition of the Highlands; another, Fraser, believes firmly in the spirit world and indeed practices magic and claims to have second sight.
Above all we read about the animals that Rowena comes to know and care for; the squirrels Cuthbert and Sara, the rat Rodney; the otters Hansel and Gretel, the deer Sith, the goats, the dog Ben, and above all, Lorna.
"In June of the following year I left to spend a holiday with friends on the isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. The weather throughout my stay was very rough. Walking along the beach one morning to collect pieces of driftwood, I saw a fisherman coming towards me carrying an oddly shaped creature in his arms. He told me it was a young seal which had probably got washed off its rock during the night by the gale and separated from its mother. Many young seals are lost in this manner. What was a little unusual was the fact that it was a Common Seal, a species more often found on the East Coast, the Hebrides being the breeding ground of the larger, less intelligent Atlantic Seal. Although my knowledge of seal upbringing was of the scantiest, I promptly asked the fisherman if I might have it, and, greatly to my joy, he placed the seal in my arms. A bottle was presented to me by a kindly woman and I was instructed how to fill it with warmed milk mixed with a little oil. Seals' milk is very rich, containing almost ten times more fat than cows' milk. Lora, as I named her, took to the bottle without fuss and showed every prospect of thriving. She became very tame almost from the start and enjoyed being handled and stroked." (p. 12)
There are also many wild animals about; hares and birds in abundance, deer, foxes, weasels and wild cats.
"There is something exhilarating in being out when one of these gales is sweeping over the hills. And I so I set out one day when the snow was lying only on the tops of the higher hills, ostensibly for the pine wood but in fact not really considering getting beyond the first two low hillocks, the force of the wind bing sufficient to knock a person over should he lose balance a little. Clouds unfurled in the silvery sky as they were blown to the south. Walking against the wind, I tucked my chin into my collar and attempted to gain headway. Whenever I reached the shelter of a rock I would rest in the lee a moment in order to gain breath before battling onwards. For several miles the only trees in view were a few scattered birches which bowed and rose at the touch of the wind like swimmers breasting huge waves. These supple trees are seldom much damaged by even the fiercest gales. Except for the boulders, everything was or appeared to be in motion; clouds, birches, even the hills which rolled away to the four horizons did not convey immobility but a smooth movement forwards and outwards. The fascination of this barren scenery I find hard to describe but much of its fascination lies in this very barrenness which impels continuous awareness of the sky as well as the earth. Here one senses a great freedom of the spirit. One does not yearn for a variety of scene where there is space." (p. 152)
This is a book about the far north of Scotland and about some slightly eccentric people, an untamed nature and animals. Some of it resonates with me, as parts of the account above which I find suggestive of the Wyoming prairie where I grew up.
But this is also the story of Rowena who comes to Sutherland at the age of 10 and stays until she is an adult. According to Wikipedia this account must be read as an autobiographical novel rather than an autobiography, Rowena Farre is a pen name. How much else of it is made up – the musical ability of Lora, for example, or Fraser's prophecies – is uncertain. I, for my part, believe every word!
Internet Archive: London: Arrow, 1985. (first published in 1957)
I learned a good deal about different things; Sutherland, for example, which is south of nothing but the Orkneys, and about living cut off from the modern world where the nearest shop – or doctor – is a days' travel away – when the roads are open. We read about the strange people who live there. Rowena's aunt provides her only adult supervision and her education. There is one old crofter, McNairn, who turns out to have travelled widely and has no time for the superstition of the Highlands; another, Fraser, believes firmly in the spirit world and indeed practices magic and claims to have second sight.
Above all we read about the animals that Rowena comes to know and care for; the squirrels Cuthbert and Sara, the rat Rodney; the otters Hansel and Gretel, the deer Sith, the goats, the dog Ben, and above all, Lorna.
"In June of the following year I left to spend a holiday with friends on the isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. The weather throughout my stay was very rough. Walking along the beach one morning to collect pieces of driftwood, I saw a fisherman coming towards me carrying an oddly shaped creature in his arms. He told me it was a young seal which had probably got washed off its rock during the night by the gale and separated from its mother. Many young seals are lost in this manner. What was a little unusual was the fact that it was a Common Seal, a species more often found on the East Coast, the Hebrides being the breeding ground of the larger, less intelligent Atlantic Seal. Although my knowledge of seal upbringing was of the scantiest, I promptly asked the fisherman if I might have it, and, greatly to my joy, he placed the seal in my arms. A bottle was presented to me by a kindly woman and I was instructed how to fill it with warmed milk mixed with a little oil. Seals' milk is very rich, containing almost ten times more fat than cows' milk. Lora, as I named her, took to the bottle without fuss and showed every prospect of thriving. She became very tame almost from the start and enjoyed being handled and stroked." (p. 12)
There are also many wild animals about; hares and birds in abundance, deer, foxes, weasels and wild cats.
"There is something exhilarating in being out when one of these gales is sweeping over the hills. And I so I set out one day when the snow was lying only on the tops of the higher hills, ostensibly for the pine wood but in fact not really considering getting beyond the first two low hillocks, the force of the wind bing sufficient to knock a person over should he lose balance a little. Clouds unfurled in the silvery sky as they were blown to the south. Walking against the wind, I tucked my chin into my collar and attempted to gain headway. Whenever I reached the shelter of a rock I would rest in the lee a moment in order to gain breath before battling onwards. For several miles the only trees in view were a few scattered birches which bowed and rose at the touch of the wind like swimmers breasting huge waves. These supple trees are seldom much damaged by even the fiercest gales. Except for the boulders, everything was or appeared to be in motion; clouds, birches, even the hills which rolled away to the four horizons did not convey immobility but a smooth movement forwards and outwards. The fascination of this barren scenery I find hard to describe but much of its fascination lies in this very barrenness which impels continuous awareness of the sky as well as the earth. Here one senses a great freedom of the spirit. One does not yearn for a variety of scene where there is space." (p. 152)
This is a book about the far north of Scotland and about some slightly eccentric people, an untamed nature and animals. Some of it resonates with me, as parts of the account above which I find suggestive of the Wyoming prairie where I grew up.
But this is also the story of Rowena who comes to Sutherland at the age of 10 and stays until she is an adult. According to Wikipedia this account must be read as an autobiographical novel rather than an autobiography, Rowena Farre is a pen name. How much else of it is made up – the musical ability of Lora, for example, or Fraser's prophecies – is uncertain. I, for my part, believe every word!
Internet Archive: London: Arrow, 1985. (first published in 1957)
January 31, 2021
Sweet biography of a childhood spent caring for wild animals in the Scottish highlands.
Aptly, my copy of this book was gnawed around the edges by my rabbit.
Aptly, my copy of this book was gnawed around the edges by my rabbit.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews