Click to order 'Shadowed Valley'
 Shadowed Valley
 

by John J. Graham

An historical novel set during the Shetland clearances of the nineteenth century.
First Published by Shetland Publishing Company 1987.
New Edition 1994.  ISBN 0 906736 18 8
Paperback, 199 pages. Price £9.95  Click to order 'Shadowed Valley'


Whaar'll I in Winter dwell?
Whaar'll I in Voar dwell?
Whaar'll I in Simmer fare?
Whaar'll I in Hairst shair?



FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR

This novel is based on the Weisdale evictions but does not pretend to give an accurate historical account of these events. While attempting to follow as close as possible the general pattern of what happened, its main purpose is to convey an impression of life in rural Shetland about the middle of the last century and the shattering effect on one community of a policy of clearances.

The removal of almost two hundred people from Upper Weisdale took as long as twenty years to accomplish but that in itself became imprinted in folk memory as a bitter and dramatic blow. To convey something of the force of that blow the events of this story have been compressed into little over a single year.

The characters are fictitious but it would have been perverse to have given other names to such prominent contemporary figures as D. D. Black, Rev. John Turnbull, John Scott, Charles Ogilvy and Charles Duncan. Even so, history has left such sketchy pictures of these personalities that they appear as products of the imagination.

A Glossary of Shetland Words appears at the end.

John J. Graham  



GRAHAM, John J. (1921) Born Lerwick. M.A. of Edinburgh University 1950. Taught English at the Anderson Educational Institute 1950-1966; Headmaster of Lerwick Central Secondary School 1966-1970; then of Anderson High School until retirement in 1982. Co-author of  Grammar and Usage of the Shetland Dialect and  Nordern Lichts  -  an anthology of Shetland poetry and prose for schools. Published  The Shetland Dictionary,  A vehement thirst after knowledge and two historical novels set in Shetland  -   Shadowed Valley and  Strife in the Valley. Co-editor of  The New Shetlander from 1956-1998, and of  
A Shetland Anthology 1998



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