What do Thomas Telford, opium, Duncraig Castle, landowning Scottish MPs, the Stone of Destiny, an evangelical Free Church minister, Sabbatarianism, riots, a shebeen, excisemen, the Wicker Man, Hamish Macbeth, Pavarotti and the Brain of Britain got to do with a remote fishing village in Ross-shire? Bernard O'Connor's 'Plockton in the News' includes over 200 years of articles from Scottish newspapers as far north as John o'Groats, across to Inverness and Aberdeen, and down to Oban, Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as a number of English papers. They tell a story of Scotland's class or caste system, the strength and weakness of the church, nationalism, racism, local and national politics, propaganda, accidents, crime, punishment, war, peace, sexism, satire, education, fishing, forestry, agriculture, transport, sport, births, deaths, marriages, the impact of tourism and attitudes to 'outsiders' and 'incomers.' All of Scottish life is here.
