Description
‘It was with a happy, friendly feeling that I bade good morning to the land of my birth after an absence of forty-nine years.’
PETER INKSTER emigrated to Western Canada as a young man, returning to his native Shetland Islands just once, in 1948. During that journey, he kept a diary of his post-war observations and childhood memories. Peter’s stories reveal the wonder of returning home and offer a poignant, often humorous glimpse into humble village life at the end of the nineteenth century.
Generations later, a young Karen Inkster Vance stumbled upon her great-grandfather’s diary and determined that one day she would retrace Peter’s footsteps. In 2001 she stood at the ship’s rail for the first time as it sailed into Lerwick, on a quest to uncover her family’s Shetland past. In the decades since, she has discovered so much more. Weaving extensive historical research – interviews, letters, newspaper articles, and archival documents – with her great-grandfather’s narrative, Inkster Vance has painstakingly pieced together the story of an entire community and a way of life gone by.
Both a homecoming memoir and a compelling local history, Voices from the Past tells the true stories of ordinary people from a remote Norse Scottish fishing village. This book will leave you with a deep appreciation for the crofters, knitters, fishermen, and merchant seamen who struggled – and survived – along the edge of the sea.
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