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Rockets Galore
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Hardcover
First published January 1, 1957
46 people want to read
About the author
Compton Mackenzie
216 books84 followersCompton Mackenzie was born into a theatrical family. His father, Edward Compton, was an actor and theatre company manager; his sister, Fay Compton, starred in many of James M. Barrie's plays, including Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. He was educated at St Paul's School and Magdalen College, Oxford where he obtained a degree in Modern History.
Mackenzie was married three times and aside from his writing also worked as an actor, political activist, and broadcaster. He served with British Intelligence in the Eastern Mediterranean during World War I, later publishing four books on his experiences. Compton Mackenzie was from 1920–1923 Tenant of Herm and Jethou and he shares many similarities to the central character in D.H. Lawrence's short story The Man Who Loved Islands, despite Lawrence saying "the man is no more he than I am." Mackenzie at first asked Secker, who published both authors, not to print the story and it was left out of one collection.
Mackenzie was married three times and aside from his writing also worked as an actor, political activist, and broadcaster. He served with British Intelligence in the Eastern Mediterranean during World War I, later publishing four books on his experiences. Compton Mackenzie was from 1920–1923 Tenant of Herm and Jethou and he shares many similarities to the central character in D.H. Lawrence's short story The Man Who Loved Islands, despite Lawrence saying "the man is no more he than I am." Mackenzie at first asked Secker, who published both authors, not to print the story and it was left out of one collection.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 27, 2022
A romp, cashing in on the earlier success of ‘Whisky Galore’, and set once again on the fictional islands of Great and Little Todday , and featuring many of the same characters.
The characters who are new are so as a result of the story about the government’s intentions to establish, through the preposterously-named Ministry of Protection, a rocket research base on the Toddays. This is an essential part of the government’s strategic plan to counter the threat from Soviet Russia and to preserve Anglo-American relations.
Of course, there are those on the Toddays who support the move. They stand to benefit financially from it. And there are those, led by the Catholic priest of Little Todday, Father Macalister, who oppose it because they will not stand to lose their landscape, way of life and heritage.
A serious enough topic, but given a pretty mild satirical rub by Compton Mackenzie. He describes, in his Author’s Note, ‘Whisky Galore’ as a ‘gentle farce’, and ‘Rockets Galore’ as a ‘bitter’ one which it is, sort-of.
The story unfolds by incorporating a delightful pastoral romance between an MP’s aspiring Private Secretary, Hugh MacInnes, and a young Irish singer, Jane Kinsella, collecting Gaelic folk songs from the Hebrides, with the ordinary shenanigans of government and the military going about their daily business of getting done the things that they want to do rather than the things that those who elected them want them to do.
There’s a fine range of ridiculous individuals belonging to that latter group. Chief among them, reprising his jumped up role in ‘Whisky Galore’, is Paul Waggett who has not given up his belief that if only the islanders decided to adopt the ways of the English, island life would be so much better. He is joined in his role of important non-entity by characters with easily pillorized names such as Dr Emil Hamburger, a rocket boffin (rocketeer); Air Chief Marshall Sir William Windermere; Air Commodore Watchorn; Colonel Bullingham commanding the 1st Ballistic Regiment, and Group Captain Oakenbotham.
Naturally, the good folk of Little Todday, who stand to have their island landscape radically changed by the requirements of a rocket-testing site and themselves to be deported to hastily-built accommodation on the mainland, foil the attempts of the government’s men to achieve their ends. But it is down to Hugh MacInnes to perpetrate a natural history con that finally turns the tide of events as well as, one supposes, taking the mildest of rips out of ornithologists and twitchers.
I imagine ‘Rockets Galore’ had topical buzz at the time it was published (1957) when Russia was flexing its military rocket power, and there are contemporary references made occasionally to events such as the crisis in Cyprus. Fans of Mackenzie will doubtless enjoy his mentioning James Robertson Justice who played the islands’ doctor in the film of ‘Whisky Galore’. But it misses its chance to take a serious political issue by the throat, and succeeds merely as a very enjoyable piece of historical froth.
I have, however, learned that ‘galore’ is derived from the Gaelic.
The characters who are new are so as a result of the story about the government’s intentions to establish, through the preposterously-named Ministry of Protection, a rocket research base on the Toddays. This is an essential part of the government’s strategic plan to counter the threat from Soviet Russia and to preserve Anglo-American relations.
Of course, there are those on the Toddays who support the move. They stand to benefit financially from it. And there are those, led by the Catholic priest of Little Todday, Father Macalister, who oppose it because they will not stand to lose their landscape, way of life and heritage.
A serious enough topic, but given a pretty mild satirical rub by Compton Mackenzie. He describes, in his Author’s Note, ‘Whisky Galore’ as a ‘gentle farce’, and ‘Rockets Galore’ as a ‘bitter’ one which it is, sort-of.
The story unfolds by incorporating a delightful pastoral romance between an MP’s aspiring Private Secretary, Hugh MacInnes, and a young Irish singer, Jane Kinsella, collecting Gaelic folk songs from the Hebrides, with the ordinary shenanigans of government and the military going about their daily business of getting done the things that they want to do rather than the things that those who elected them want them to do.
There’s a fine range of ridiculous individuals belonging to that latter group. Chief among them, reprising his jumped up role in ‘Whisky Galore’, is Paul Waggett who has not given up his belief that if only the islanders decided to adopt the ways of the English, island life would be so much better. He is joined in his role of important non-entity by characters with easily pillorized names such as Dr Emil Hamburger, a rocket boffin (rocketeer); Air Chief Marshall Sir William Windermere; Air Commodore Watchorn; Colonel Bullingham commanding the 1st Ballistic Regiment, and Group Captain Oakenbotham.
Naturally, the good folk of Little Todday, who stand to have their island landscape radically changed by the requirements of a rocket-testing site and themselves to be deported to hastily-built accommodation on the mainland, foil the attempts of the government’s men to achieve their ends. But it is down to Hugh MacInnes to perpetrate a natural history con that finally turns the tide of events as well as, one supposes, taking the mildest of rips out of ornithologists and twitchers.
I imagine ‘Rockets Galore’ had topical buzz at the time it was published (1957) when Russia was flexing its military rocket power, and there are contemporary references made occasionally to events such as the crisis in Cyprus. Fans of Mackenzie will doubtless enjoy his mentioning James Robertson Justice who played the islands’ doctor in the film of ‘Whisky Galore’. But it misses its chance to take a serious political issue by the throat, and succeeds merely as a very enjoyable piece of historical froth.
I have, however, learned that ‘galore’ is derived from the Gaelic.
October 12, 2024
I’d loved the charm, quirkiness and subversion of “Whisky Galore” so was thrilled to come across its sequel, “Rockets Galore”. And it’s still guerrilla war between the wily, whisky-soaked, islanders of the Outer Hebrides and the forces of Officialdom …
But while “Whisky Galore” involves Officialdom in the form of Customs & Excise and the Home Guard, the Authorities in “Rockets Galore” take the form of bungling politicians and the heartless, scheming bureaucrats of Whitehall who are planning to turn the ocean-swept little island into a missile base.
Needless to say, the islanders have other ideas about this and they launch a tireless campaign of pranks and mischief to wear down the Authorities. In the end they succeed by “discovering” a rare new breed of, erm, pink seagull on the island which the general public agrees must be saved at all cost, even the cost of global defence.
I should admit here to being a bit of a Compton Mackenzie nut. I’ve even visited his grave in his adopted home of Barra, a small island in the Outer Hebrides - tiny Barra, where Ealing Studios filmed “Whisky Galore”, with its single road running round the island and a cockleshell beach that doubles as the airport runway.
Compton Mackenzie was truly an astonishing man of many parts. He’s mostly remembered now for “Whisky Galore” and for the televised version of his 1941 “Monarch of the Glen” (which ran as a series in the early 2000s and become cult viewing for Americans rediscovering their Highland heritage).
But Mackenzie didn’t just do tartan comedies. Though the last decades of his life were spent living like a Scottish Laird – a lifestyle he sends up so deliciously in his Highland novels – he began his literary career, after English public school and Oxford, as a serious-minded young novelist praised by the likes of Henry James and F Scott Fitzgerald for his early, heavy-weight novels with dubious titles like “Sinister Street” and “The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett”.
During the First World War Mackenzie worked for the intelligence services and had the kind of adventures as a secret agent that John Buchan could only dream up. He was then entangled for years in high profile, legal action with the government over the intelligence secrets that he did or didn’t reveal in a series of autobiographies.
He was a literary critic for the Daily Mail, a radio broadcaster, an early supporter of gay rights, rector of Glasgow University and a political activist co-founding the National Party of Scotland.
And what did Mackenzie do to fill any spare time he might have had? Well, apparently he was also a snooker fan, a pedigree cat fancier, founder of the music magazine, “Gramophone”, a convert to Roman Catholicism and a renowned classical scholar specialising in Ancient Greek battles.
How on earth did he find the time and energy for all this? Just what sacrifices and commitment does it take to become what I think used to be called a “polymath”? I’m obviously spending far too much time just reading books …
But while “Whisky Galore” involves Officialdom in the form of Customs & Excise and the Home Guard, the Authorities in “Rockets Galore” take the form of bungling politicians and the heartless, scheming bureaucrats of Whitehall who are planning to turn the ocean-swept little island into a missile base.
Needless to say, the islanders have other ideas about this and they launch a tireless campaign of pranks and mischief to wear down the Authorities. In the end they succeed by “discovering” a rare new breed of, erm, pink seagull on the island which the general public agrees must be saved at all cost, even the cost of global defence.
I should admit here to being a bit of a Compton Mackenzie nut. I’ve even visited his grave in his adopted home of Barra, a small island in the Outer Hebrides - tiny Barra, where Ealing Studios filmed “Whisky Galore”, with its single road running round the island and a cockleshell beach that doubles as the airport runway.
Compton Mackenzie was truly an astonishing man of many parts. He’s mostly remembered now for “Whisky Galore” and for the televised version of his 1941 “Monarch of the Glen” (which ran as a series in the early 2000s and become cult viewing for Americans rediscovering their Highland heritage).
But Mackenzie didn’t just do tartan comedies. Though the last decades of his life were spent living like a Scottish Laird – a lifestyle he sends up so deliciously in his Highland novels – he began his literary career, after English public school and Oxford, as a serious-minded young novelist praised by the likes of Henry James and F Scott Fitzgerald for his early, heavy-weight novels with dubious titles like “Sinister Street” and “The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett”.
During the First World War Mackenzie worked for the intelligence services and had the kind of adventures as a secret agent that John Buchan could only dream up. He was then entangled for years in high profile, legal action with the government over the intelligence secrets that he did or didn’t reveal in a series of autobiographies.
He was a literary critic for the Daily Mail, a radio broadcaster, an early supporter of gay rights, rector of Glasgow University and a political activist co-founding the National Party of Scotland.
And what did Mackenzie do to fill any spare time he might have had? Well, apparently he was also a snooker fan, a pedigree cat fancier, founder of the music magazine, “Gramophone”, a convert to Roman Catholicism and a renowned classical scholar specialising in Ancient Greek battles.
How on earth did he find the time and energy for all this? Just what sacrifices and commitment does it take to become what I think used to be called a “polymath”? I’m obviously spending far too much time just reading books …
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April 11, 2010Rockets galore by Compton Mackenzie (1972)
December 16, 2016
Not as good as 'Whiskey Galore' (Nor was the film for that mater!) but a jolly romp nonetheless.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews