EDITORIAL It is a great pleasure to publish, as the leading article in this issue, Mr. Douglas Johnston's account of the emigrant McGill family. Mr. Johnston is himself a great-great grandson or Andrew McGill and Jane McNiven, and was a dairy farmer in New South Wales until he retired a few years ago.

Still on emigration, but concerning Canada, I was recently looking through Spirit of Place, a lavishly-illustrated book on the author or Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and her native Prince Edward Island. Her parents' names, Hugh Montgomery and Clara Macneill, struck me as having a decidedly Kintyre ring to them, on top of which Lucy had an Uncle John and Aunt Annie Campbell and corresponded for some 40 years with a George Boyd MacMillan 'of Scotland'. Can any reader put flesh on these imaginary Kintyre bones?

Andrew McGill was born at Amod in Barr Glen on 22 September 1797, the eighth child and second son to Neil McGill and Barbara Stewart. The McGills are traditionally said to have been based in Kilcalmonell Parish, but they were well-established in Killean and Kilchenzie in the 18th century.

Neil McGill's grandfather, also Neil McGill, was a tenant in Amod of sufficient standing in his community to be appointed by the Commission of Supply on 22 June 1749 as one of the three overseers of the work on the 'road leading from Barrbridge towards Ronadil in Carradil'. It is not known for how long before then the McGills had been in Amod, but they had a long association with it.

The first Neil's son, Archibald, married Jane Smylie of Barr. The Smylies were one of the Lowland families introduced to Kintyre in the 17th century and, like other such families living in the north of Kintyre, they had been absorbed into the Gaelic culture. Archibald and Jane's son Neil followed in his forebears' footsteps as a tenant in Amod. He married Barbara Stewart of Park, and their family of 14 children were all born at Amod. Perhaps to make room for Neil and his family, Archibald moved to neighbouring Arnicle.

Andrew grew up in a large family and in a tightly-knit community. He went to school at Barr, a tramp of several miles each way, and learned to read and write in English, gaining a working knowledge of mathematics with perhaps a smattering of other subjects. And each day the knowledge of the changing weather patterns of earth and sky and of their seasonal cycle, of the plants and animal life in the glen, and of his ancestral background and culture was becoming part of his very being.

A Changing World

The world into which he was born was one of change. We sometimes think of change as a modern phenomenon, but all through history change, or 'progress', has inexorably destroyed the lifestyle that preceded it. Change may have been slower then but no less certain. In Kintyre the old way of farming was giving place to a new, with enclosures which would lead to better farming practice and the need for less labour; thus the death knell to the old way or lire in the: heavily populated rural areas of Kintyre. Emigration would be a way out for those whose labour was no longer needed, and the reduced population would lead to a weakening of the old tics when so many families worked each farm, sharing life together in their little communities, with church on Sunday and the occasional fair day the only variations.

In 1821 Andrew married Jean McNiven of South Muasdale. Like the McGills in Arnod, the McNivens had a long connection with Muasdale. Jean's great-grandfather is listed as a tenant there in 1729 in the earliest record of the Duke of Argyll's leases. Jean's father James and his brother Angus were tenants there. James McNiven and Mary McSporran had a family of 10 daughters, but Jean also had a large number of relatives in Muasdale - Taylors, Curries and Armours as well as McNivens.

Andrew and Jean set up home in Amod with Andrew working for his father. The next year was a dramatic one for the McGills in Amod - after long years and several generations the family left forever. Perhaps he was outbid for the lease, but whatever the reason Neil McGill moved south to Kilwhipnach where he took up a 19-year lease from the Duke of Argyll for £75 per annum. Neil, Barbara and the younger members of the family moved there. Several of the daughters were married and eldest son Archibald had also married and moved to Killean where he was at one time the miller. Third son Alexander went to Kilwhipnach to work the farm with his father, while Andrew and Jean and infant son went to Muasdale. At some stage, Andrew took over the tenancy of the 100-acre farm of Mid Muasdale, Jean's cousin Donald McNiven being the tenant on South Muasdale.

From his later life in Australia, we know that Andrew had a talent for stockbreeding, so he would have embraced the changes taking place - the Ayrshire cattle, the black-faced sheep and the great Clydesdale horses which led to the extinction of the black cattle, the white-faced sheep and the native horses - and practised his skills in breeding improved types. His family was increasing at intervals of 18 months or so, and he would have been looking for opportunities for improving their lot. A tenant farmer had a reasonable lifestyle, well above the hand-to-mouth existence of the labourers, but where would one find tenancies for all the sons?

The reason for taking up the lease on Braids, then owned by Captain Malcolm McNeill of Gallochoilly, is not known, but Andrew, brother Archibald, and Donald McLean, Jean's sister Mary's husband, were co-tenants in 1831. Perhaps it was to help one of the others, as he did not live there himself. The financial return was disappointing, and concern for his family's future must have led him to think of migration. Ever since the 18th century, when Kintyre migrants had gone to North Carolina, there had been a steady trickle of migration to the Americas. Andrew now resolved to take his family to Canada and give up the lease.

There was consternation when news of McGill's impending departure reached the trustee of the Gallochoilly estate. He claimed that McGill was planning to flee the country without paying his due debts and petitioned the Sheriff of Argyll to arrest him, which was done on 24 April 1835. And so to McGill's surprise he found himself incarcerated in the Campbeltown tolbooth, there to stay until he found security not only for current arrears of rent but also for the 15 years of the lease yet to run. He spent 49 days in gaol before his lawyer had him freed on 12 June on a bill of suspension and liberation. Now he sought to repair the damage to his good name, as well as his physical suffering, by taking an action for damages for 'illegal and wrongous imprisonment'.

Litigation

When the case came for trial, evidence was given that although McGill and his partners were in arrears with the rent, they had offered to leave their stock on the farm as security. The sticking point was the demand for security for the 15 years lease. Further evidence showed that the trustee had refused an offer to lease the farm, and subsequently had accepted a further offer. Lord Justice Clark agreed it would be absurd to pay rent for 15 years that you had not used, and the jury decided in favour of McGill, setting damages at £200, a goodly sum in those days. Charles Ferrier, the Edinburgh accountant who was trustee for McNeill, appealed against the verdict and the case was set for re-trial.

The second trial was held before four judges and the case became deadlocked, two judges deciding on technical points that the previous verdict was wrong and submitting a claim for a new trial, the other two deciding in favour of McGill. The case was placed before seven other judges for their opinion, but, when court resumed, the judges retained their original opinions. An interesting point is that Ferrier claimed that if the tenant could get rid of the contract under his lease by leaving the country, the doctrine would have serious consequences throughout the West Highlands where emigration was prevalent.

This was probably the nub of the whole affair. Crofters and cottars at that time were being forcibly evicted from their homes throughout the Highlands as money could not be made from them, but could be from sheep; on the other hand, tenants, from whom money could he made, had to be compelled to stay or pay the last farthing.

Andrew McGill now had the option of a third trial, hut he had had enough. The costs were ruinous and the prospect of vindication receding. Three long years of litigation and worry had passed and he was determined to leave. (A postscript of the case was on 16 May, 1839, when, because Andrew McGill, late tenant on Midmuasdale in the Parish of Killean, 'did not proceed to trial and [because] of his failure to insist on the cause for more than a year and a day since the Judgment of the Court on the tenth day of March 1838', he was ordered to pay £260.14.3 to Ferrier for his expenses.)

The goal now was Australia. Why Australia, when Canada and the United States had always been the destination of choice for migrants from Kintyre? The answer probably lies with Dr John Dunmore Lang, 'that fiery Presbyterian cleric' who, from when he arrived in Australia in 1824, vigorously espoused any cause he felt would lead to progress: the division of the colonies into smaller units, land reform, education and immigration, among others. In 1837 he was back in Scotland recruiting migrants for Australia from the Highlands. With so many Highlanders being forced off their land, this was an opportunity to transplant a way of life to a new land.

Lang had an ally in Dr Norman MacLeod, past minister of Campbeltown. He too saw emigration as an opportunity to break the poverty trap and the dispossession of the Highlanders. Both men urged migration to Australia not only as a material benefit to the people, but also as a spiritual and moral obligation to maintain their race and culture in a new land. Neil McGill had sat under Dr MacLeod's ministry in CampbeItown's Highland Parish Church after moving to Kilwhipnach, so there was undoubtedly a strong influence there. The following year, the New South Wales government had its own agents in Scotland to organise a shipload of migrants, particularly those with rural skills. The old convict colony was looking for free settlers who would give a great impetus to its development.

So great was the success in Scotland of the Colonial Emigration Agent, Dr. Charles Boyter, that it led to the complaint by Munro of Dingwall: 'If Boyter were ridding the country of its scum, we should be obliged to him, but he is depriving us of the very flower of the land. I don't know one bad man he has taken from this country.'

Emigration

On 20 June 1838, the St George, a 600-ton full-rigged ship, weighed anchor at Greenock and set sail for Oban 'to take in Highland emigrants for Sydney'. The McGill family gathered their belongings and set out on the road for Oban. An exciting time for the children, but what thoughts may have passed through their parents' minds? Especially, if on a sunny summer's day, they took their last look from the Muasdale hills, out on to the blue Atlantic, with the familiar view of sky and sea, and the islands of Cara and Gigha, with Islay and Jura behind. And, as the St George left Oban on 4 July, and slowly Scotland disappeared from view, there would be the realisation that there would be no going home. The mother in particular would have thought of little Rodger lying in Killean graveyard beside his uncle of the same name.

Most of the migrants came from other parts of Argyll and from Inverness-shire and from further north, with only three families from Kintyre represented. John Beaton was evicted from North Beachmore for refusing to pay higher rent and the family planned to migrate. John died before the St George sailed, but his widow, their seven sons, three daughters and daughter-in-law were on board. John McQuilkan was there too - in Australia he was known as 'Jock McQuilter'. A family story has Jock arriving at the pier with all his worldly goods in a small bag over his shoulder. To Andrew McGill's query as to what brought him there, he replied: 'I'm corning with you to see that none of those wild blacks don't kill Jeannie McNiven.'

Four months on a sailing ship would be no holiday, with seasickness, cramped conditions and uninviting smells, the food salted meat and weevily biscuit for the most part; but folks then accepted that what cannot be cured must be endured - except for the 10 who died, including a child just 14 days old. Captain Weakner and his crew, and Surgeon Superintendent McLean, were probably as relieved as the migrants when they arrived at Cape Town to take on fresh water and provisions. In this the passengers were fortunate, as the majority of later migrant ships made the run non-stop.

And so to sea again, and finally to Port Jackson on 15 November 1838, when 321 migrants disembarked to begin a new life. The immigration authorities duly recorded the arrival of Andrew McGill and Jane McNiven (always referred to as Jane in Australia) and their nine children. They noted that both parents could read and write, and that their 'state of health, strength and probable usefulness' was very good, and that they had no complaints about the voyage.

Their new home was to be south from Sydney in the Illawarra district. Most of the heavily timbered country there had been given as grants either for services rendered or to those with the substance to accept the entailed obligations, such as taking on one convict for every hundred acres. This relieved the government both or the upkeep or the convicts and the cost of developing new country. For some years the estates were used for little more than harvesting timber, but in time the owners came to see that the land was very fertile and could be used for farming. And so the idea of the clearing lease was born - tenants were given areas of from 20 to 40 acres rent-free for terms of five to seven years. They had to clear the land of timber and develop a farm out of the wilderness, hoping that the terms of the lease would give them time to profit from their toil. As one writer said at the time: 'The first year or two they will have to undergo considerable privations which they must make up their minds to bear.'

The McGills arrived in the Illawarra just as this was starting to happen. Andrew McGill and Duncan Beatson (they added the 's' to their name in Australia) became overseers on Terry's Meadows estate owned by John Terry Hughes. The original owner was Hughes's uncle, the one-time convict Samuel Terry, who by sharp dealing and smart business practice had become Australia's wealthiest man. Hughes married his uncle's foster daughter and inherited the estate which, with a grant of his own, comprised over 5000 acres. To this estate he gave the name 'Albion Park', and in time this became the name of the village, later town, that sprang up there.

Cattle-breeding

Andrew McGill's abilities were now given scope to develop as he helped supervise the working of the estate and the change to dairying for which the country was most suited. In 1846 he took up a lease on part of the estate known as Hopping Joe's Meadow, an area of choice river flat country. Now he had a stock of his own, and he set to work to breed a quality herd of dairy cows.

Dairying had not been seriously carried out in the colony before this and the cattle available was a mixed lot of Shorthorn, Longhorn, Devon, Sussex, Lincoln Red and Ayrshire. Certain men gradually built up superior herds. They started with different breeds but bought and sold bulls among themselves and in time there evolved a new breed of dairy cow now known as the Illawarra. Andrew McGill bred his herd from Shorthorn, Ayrshire and Devon stock and his herd was soon noted for its excellence. He later acknowledged the generosity of his landlord and neighbouring estate owners in giving him access to their imported stock.

A great impetus for improving the breed of cattle was the show ring, where stockbreeders not only competed among themselves for the prize ribbons, but also, as in shows today, submitted their stock to the critical appraisal of their fellow-farmers gathered around the ringside. Andrew McGill's stock were soon carrying off the major prizes in the shows which sprang up in various small localities. They were eagerly sought by other farmers, and their reputation and the McGill name ran far and wide. The Illawarra district was the hub of Australia's dairy industry, and from it men moved to other parts of the country to begin dairying, taking with them the Illawarra cow. Even today whenever the history of the breed is discussed or written about, the name of Andrew McGill is still recognised as that of one of the founders of Australia's own breed of dairy cattle. McGill also won a reputation as a successful breeder and exhibitor of thoroughbred and draught horses.

Jock McQuilter continued to work with Andrew McGill, being responsible for rearing all the young stock. He was considered a 'very clever cattleman'. Duncan Beatson also dairied, on his own account, and was held in high regard as a breeder and a judge of dairy cattle.

His Wife's Death

In 1855 Andrew lost his beloved Jane. Five more children had been born in Australia, while the youngest born in Scotland had died. Jane was buried at the coastal cemetery of Shellharbour, and over the years the encroaching sand covered the tombstones. However, before this happened the epitaph caught the eye of one who recorded it and sent it to a Sydney newspaper in 1887. He recorded it, he said, because 'it had a grand old North British ring about it':

In that same year Andrew purchased three portions totaling 313 acres on the Green Mountain. The land on the mountain was not as rich as that on the river, but it was freehold, and he had now done what he could never have done in Kintyre at that time: own his own land. He later divided this land between four of his sons, but kept the leasehold himself. In 1861 he remarried in Sydney, to Mary Breckenridge, who had migrated from Ayrshire. There were two sons born to this marriage.

Had Andrew McGill left no other legacy than his contribution to the development of Australia's own dairy breed, he would still have made a great mark for good in his new country. But he was also an outstanding citizen of the district in which he made his home, taking a prominent role in all things for the public good. When a meeting was held at Albion Park in 1858 to discuss plans to form a municipality he was called to the chair. And in the following year he was elected to the first council for the Municipality of Shellharbour, of which Albion Park was part, serving a three-year term. When moves were made to begin a government school at Albion Park it was again Andrew McGill who was called to chair the meeting. 'A deep and careful student of Scripture' and 'a zealous and consistent member of the Presbyterian Church', he was at the forefront in establishing that church in his locality.

On 28 January 1874 he was the guest of honour at a banquet at which tribute was paid to him for the great service rendered to the stockowners of the district 'by the care and judgement you have bestowed on the breed of cattle, as evidenced by the estimation in which the stock reared by you, or their progeny, are held, and the large number of prizes awarded to them at our local cattle shows'.

When the time came for him to reply he said that, as he could not thank them in his mother tongue, Gaelic, his son James would read his reply. As one who had taken so leading a part in public life, there is no doubt that he was a competent speaker in English - but the old man probably felt that it would be a very emotional experience for him. In the reply he warmly thanked those who had organised the evening's gathering, expressed his gratitude to all who had assisted him in the past, and his pleasure that, though he was now retired, the descendants of the cattle he bred were highly valued by the dairymen. In conclusion he urged his hearers to 'be mindful of your splendid dairy herds; you will always find them a perennial, a never failing mine'.

Tributes

Andrew McGill died on 13 September 1876. At his funeral it was said that many would 'remember his large-hearted and open-handed disposition'. 'Modest and unassuming, kind, generous, earnest, benevolent and true, his name will be transmitted to posterity linked and associated with the chief graces which adorn the Christian character and stamp their possessor as an humble and faithful disciple.' When his eldest daughter died in 1900 it was said that she was of 'the McGill family, the very name of whom, without exception, has been synonymous with unsullied honour, uprightness and goodness throughout Illawarra for fully threescore years'. A tribute indeed.

He was buried in the Presbyterian cemetery at Albion Park, then outside the town. Today the town has long enfolded it and, in its parkland setting, and now known as the Pioneer Cemetery, it is considered 'one of the most important landmarks in the town'. Andrew McGill's headstone and those of many of his family are still prominent today.

Andrew McGill and Jane McNiven's descendants down to the seventh generation are numerous and widespread in Australia today. Many have followed their ancestor as farmers. Others in a wide variety of trades and professions, are still making a contribution to Australia. Many have occupied high position in their calling and in public office. The most prominent in recent years would have been a recently retired and well-known Chief Executive Officer of Australia's international airline, QANTAS.

I wish to acknowledge the advice, help and encouragement generously given by Ian MacDonald, formerly of Clachan, Kintyre, and by Margaret Edler of West Pennant Hills, New South Wales.

'Well might the author in search of a subject shout an Eureka when he steps upon Campbeltown pier.' So wrote Edward Bradley, a young English clergyman, who stepped ashore at the Old Quay on a sunny August evening in 1859. He did not know then that he was going to write a large two-volume work inspired by his short visit to Kintyre, but already he was gathering information, simply because he couldn't help himself. For Bradley was both an artist and a writer.

The work for which he is still best known, The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, had just recently been published, tracing the Oxford career of a gullible young undergraduate from his freshman days to his graduation and marriage.

Now Bradley had arrived in Kintyre with his new young wife and couldn't resist sketching what he saw and recording what he read and heard and overheard. The result was the publication in 1861 of Glencreggan or A Highland Home in Cantire, a fat plum pudding of a book full of information, and humour, and insight into our local scene in the middle of the 19th century. Add to that three maps, eight chromo-lithographs, and sixty-one woodcuts, all the work of the author.

Kintyre is very fortunate indeed to have this book. Glencreggan is a record which would be the envy of many other areas of Scotland. I wonder how many Campbeltonians know of it or have read it? There is surely one copy at least in the Campbeltown Library.

It does occasionally appear in antiquarian bookshops and a few years ago I came across a copy at the big antiquarian book sale which coincides with the Edinburgh Festival. The price then was £75 for a well-used but still complete copy. Of course I had to buy it - during several years of working in an antiquarian books department I had never come across a copy - and I have treasured it ever since. The book is credited to Cuthbert Bede, the pen-name chosen by Bradley, possibly as a compliment to his education at University College, Durham.

Bradley had come to Kintyre at the invitation of William Hancocks, Esq., of Blakeshall House, Worcestershire, who was in the habit of leasing Glencreggan, a shooting box near Glenbarr, during the months of August to October. While his fellow-guests went shooting, Bradley preferred to go sketching. Midges could be a problem - he has one little cartoon of himself, swinging his sketch-book around his head in a vain attempt to ward off the attacking hordes.

Another major problem was understanding what the natives were saying. He had already become aware of possible difficulties before he even got to Campbeltown. Watching heavy packages being put on board the Celt at Greenock, he heard 'no small amount of bad language in a foreign tongue.' In Campbeltown he was faced with the challenge of Scots as well as Gaelic.

His luggage having been negotiated up the Main Street by a stalwart bare-legged woman and her indolent (so Edward thinks) Highland husband, the young couple are comfortably settled at the White Hart before leaving next day for the journey north. Their open car out of town is accompanied by out-riders of collie dogs and bare-headed children shouting to them in Gaelic.

'Yon's the big hoose,' their driver tells them, gesturing with his whip as they near journey's end. Bradley interprets this as 'we are now approaching Glenbarr Abbey'. Scots he could make a stab at, but Gaelic was impenetrable. Sketching one day in Glenbarr he sees the butler from the abbey talking to the lady's maid, 'something to my disadvantage, perhaps, for their conversation is in Gaelic' .

An Englishman abroad in the Highlands is always in grave danger of having the mickey taken (read the Para Handy tales for several examples), and Edward Bradley was no exception. The endearing thing about Bradley is that he sees the joke against himself and disarmingly records it.

There's the perspiring engineer on the Campbeltown boat who has come on deck to drink some cold water. Bradley offers him his brandy flask. The engineer informs him that unfortunately he himself has taken the pledge, but promptly disappears below with the brandy to offer it to a colleague who is not so handicapped.

Or there's the shepherd who tells Bradley he need only tell his dog the names of individual sheep for the dog to single them out for him. He proceeds to demonstrate, but are the sheep in fact the ones named? Bradley decides he has no way of telling and, as with the teetotal engineer, suspects he is being 'humbugged'.

It is obvious that he is a likeable, friendly man, who comes to be accepted by the local people. They pose while he sketches them at work, and he is even invited in to record the interior of a typical cottage where the hens and the chickens share space with the bare-foot human inhabitants.

He is particularly touched by the plight of the women who work in the kelp industry. Once he leaves Kintyre he researches the facts of the industry: twenty-four tons of sea-weed burn down on the beach to only one ton of kelp, which is then sold for £6. A sixth has to be paid to the landowner for permission to cut and gather the sea-weed, and once all the other expenses have been paid there is little more that £1 a ton profit.

The women who gather the sea-weed are naturally at the end of the line for payment. They tell Bradley that they get only 'a very sorry subsistence' for the hard work of harvesting, and often when they return home are too tired to change their wet and dripping clothes. A little wood-cut records the harsh reality of kelp-gathering.

The illustrations are the icing on this plum pudding of a book. Bradley sketches the women washing clothes in the Barr river, the irrepressible children learning to toughen their feet by running along the tops of stone dykes. And many more people and places beside. Still the pudding itself is worth digesting as well, even if sometimes the Victorian need to digress at length on various topics may tempt us to skip pages. To give the flavour of the book, here is how young Mr. Bradley describes his arrival in Campbeltown.

'We steam up between the mountains, and past pretty villas, and detached houses, and fishermen's huts, and rusty-looking nets hung out on high poles, until the houses creep closer together to each other, and form themselves into thin lines, and then into a dense crescent-shaped mass, from among which, to the left, darts a weather-cocked spire, while a pinnacled tower, and other signs and evidence of a well-to-do town, make themselves visible above the confused heap of houses.

'We pass a battery, and the New Quay, and then, plunging in amid a crowd of boats and fishing vessels, and dashing into reeling ripples the quiet reflections of white houses and painted boats, we swing broadside alongside the Old Quay.

'There is a crowd upon the pier, and a nodding of heads, and other telegraphic signals, made by, and to, passengers on board whose arrival has been expected; and there is a mighty bustle, and a throwing out of ropes, and rattling of chains, and gathering together of baggage, and a furious raid upon it by a crowd of semi-savage gentlemen of the hybrid fisherman breed; and we step across the gangway, and for the first time in our lives, set foot in the Highlands.'

The love affair between Bradley and the Scottish Highlands would continue, and he would write more books on Scotland, its history and its legends. But Glencreggan was the first and the freshest. It is fortuitous for us that Edward Bradley decided to accept William Hancock's kind invitation to visit Kintyre and thereby go on to produce such a fascinating illustrated record of our past.

THE CAMPBELTOWN BOOK- Kintyre Civic Society is pleased to announce that it expects to publish its long-awaited volume, The Campbeltown Book, during the summer of 2003. The book, which will fill a major gap in easily available information about the town, is expected to appeal to a wide variety of interests and to become an indispensable handbook for lovers of Campbeltown as well as those new to the area.

The book will consist of 20 chapters, by authors who are either local or very familiar with the area. They cover: the geology and scenery of South Kintyre; the Campbeltown area in prehistory; farming in South Kintyre; the fishing industry; the Middle Ages; the Royal Charter and its implications; Campbeltown in the eighteenth century; churches of Campbeltown; the making of whisky; coal-mining; memoirs of a Campbeltown miner; the artist William McTaggart and Kintyre; the evolution and shaping of Campbeltown, 1600 -2000; Henry Clifford (Campbeltown's architect); the Campbeltown & Machrihanish Light Railway; education and schooling; aspects of social history; the Campbeltown steamers; Campbeltown at war, 1939-'45; and an architectural review of the town.

The authors are: Julian Hill, Graham Ritchie, Rory Colville, Angus Martin, Norman Newton, Murdo MacDonald, Frank Bigwood, the late John Cormack, Ann Glen, Nigel Macmillan, George McMillan, David Scruton, Christine Richards, Katherine McNeil, William Crossan, Jim Grant and Michael Davis.

This will be a substantial and fascinating volume of nearly 400 pages, containing 200 black and white illustrations - many never previously published - together with eight colour plates. Its full cover price will be £19.95, but a pre-publication discount of £2 for non-members will be available up to 30 June 2003 for pre-paid orders. Inland postage will be additional at £4.50, unless collected in person from the Oystercatcher Gallery, Hall Street, Campbeltown.

Further details from the Secretary, Kate Singleton, at Dunara, Lochpark, Carradale, Argyll PA28 6SG, telephone 01583 431245. K. S.

Copyright belongs to the authors unless otherwise stated.