Now, one day I will return to my roots, and explore the story of our family in the east Highlands.
I suspect it will be difficult because like many Scots they made their way across Scotland, moving ever southwards until grandfather crossed the border around the beginning of the last century.
That very early part of the family history was and still is shrouuded in mystery, although my uncles always embraced the romanticism of the Jacobite Rebellions, but said nothing of whether we were part of the Highland Clearnces, which is the subject of this In Our Time programme.
"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how and why Highlanders and Islanders were cleared from their homes in waves in C18th and C19th, following the break up of the Clans after the Battle of Culloden. Initially, landlords tried to keep people on their estates for money-making schemes, but the end of the Napoleonic Wars brought convulsive changes.
Some of the evictions were notorious, with the sudden and fatal burning of townships, to make way for sheep and deer farming. For many, migration brought a new start elsewhere in Britain or in the British colonies, while for some it meant death from disease while in transit. After more than a century of upheaval, the Clearances left an indelible mark on the people and landscape of the Highlands and Western Isles.
With Sir Tom Devine, Professor Emeritus of Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh, Marjory Harper, Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen and Visiting Professor at the University of the Highlands and Islands, and Murray Pittock, Bradley Professor of English Literature and Pro Vice Principal at the University of Glasgow
Producer: Simon Tillotson".
Picture; detail from The Battle of Culloden, David Morier, 1746
*The Highland Clearances, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09tc4tm
That very early part of the family history was and still is shrouuded in mystery, although my uncles always embraced the romanticism of the Jacobite Rebellions, but said nothing of whether we were part of the Highland Clearnces, which is the subject of this In Our Time programme.
"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how and why Highlanders and Islanders were cleared from their homes in waves in C18th and C19th, following the break up of the Clans after the Battle of Culloden. Initially, landlords tried to keep people on their estates for money-making schemes, but the end of the Napoleonic Wars brought convulsive changes.
Some of the evictions were notorious, with the sudden and fatal burning of townships, to make way for sheep and deer farming. For many, migration brought a new start elsewhere in Britain or in the British colonies, while for some it meant death from disease while in transit. After more than a century of upheaval, the Clearances left an indelible mark on the people and landscape of the Highlands and Western Isles.
With Sir Tom Devine, Professor Emeritus of Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh, Marjory Harper, Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen and Visiting Professor at the University of the Highlands and Islands, and Murray Pittock, Bradley Professor of English Literature and Pro Vice Principal at the University of Glasgow
Producer: Simon Tillotson".
Picture; detail from The Battle of Culloden, David Morier, 1746
*The Highland Clearances, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09tc4tm
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