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Review
'... will delight readers old and new' - Scots Magazine 'A fine collection from Birlinn... really well-presented, introduced and edited... light-hearted but exemplary in scholarship... a delightful large volume' - Douglas Gifford, Books in Scotland
Product Description
Para Handy has been sailing his way into the affections of generations of Scots since he first weighed anchor in the pages of the Glasgow Evening News nearly a hundred years ago. The Master Mariner and his crew - Dougie the Mate, Macphail the Engineer, Sunny Jim and The Tar - all play their part in evoking the irresistible atmosphere of a bygone age when puffers sailed between West Highland ports and the great city of Glasgow. This definitive edition contains all three collections published in the author's lifetime, as well as a new story never previously published. Extensive notes accompany each story, providing fascinating insights into colloquialisms, place-names and historical events. This volume also includes a wealth of contemporary photographs, depicting the harbours, steamers and puffers from the age of the Vital Spark. This edition includes one further story, which was discovered in 2001.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I don't know if you have to be Scottish to get this. I am Scottish and I have always got it.
What you have here is a collection of short stories written early in the 20th Century about the crew of a "Clyde Puffer" - a small coastal boat plying its trade from the Clyde and out into the Western Isles of Scotland.
For me there are parrallels with Damon Runyon, but the humour is gentler and the setting rural.
There are comic situations but most of all there is comedy of character. These are brilliantly observed people.
A lot of the action is topical to the time of writing. The stories first appeared in a newspaper after all.
Its sad to think that the author was not particularly proud of these stories, and considered them as junk. He tried really hard to make it as a serious historical novelist - in vain.
But ironically his name lives on in Scotland and beyond for these daft wee sketches of men conniving gently against each other.
If Dougie was here he would tell you himself.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a very nice edition of the Para handy tales, the West of Scotland dialect is lovely, the humour gentle, each story is a treasure. This edition comes with some explanatory text and pictures of the similar boats and some of the harbours. A map would have been nice, but a lovely book all the same.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Captain Peter Macfarlane (aka Para Handy) and his ship SS Vital Spark (smertest ship in the tred) have been making Scots laugh for almost a hundred years, and it's about time the rest of us caught on. Shrewdly observed character humour (leavened with topical gags that may need footnotes nowadays) are the staple of these classic short stories by Neil Munro. They evoke the long-gone world of the Clyde steamers and the men who sailed them. The humour is wry rather than laugh out loud, but the cumulative effect is most enjoyable. "We put into Greenock for marmalade, and did we no stay three days?"
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Old time humor
I enjoyed all the television programmes first with Duncan MacRae then Roddy MacMillan and after reading the book I feel I should have stuck with the memories of the television... Read more
Published 11 months ago by sandycam
Para Handy
I WAS RELLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS BOOK AND I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED TO FIND I CANNOT NOT GET THE HANG OF THE WRITTED SCOTTISH DIALECT. I HAVE ABANDONED AFTER TWO CHAPTERS
Published 15 months ago by avid reader
Para Handy
Having worked on the Ferries between Stranraer and Larne for many years and being able to understand the "Scots" language was a great help. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Capt.Bob
Chust sublime
A magnificent, comprehensive edition of all Neil Munro's Para Handy's. Loved it, and spent a few days on Loch Fyne whilst reading it just to get the flavour... Read more
Published 21 months ago by DandySheephorn
Needs notes in the text, or footnotes
This is a more difficult book to read than it need be, because there are (a few, but quite short) notes to pretty much every story, and they're all in the back of the book, which... Read more
Published on 26 April 2010 by R. Court
Tales of Para Handy
I first read this book many years ago. this edition with the additiuonal tales and the insight to the author only enhances it. Read more
Published on 27 Nov 2009 by Mr. A. Durward
Para Handy (& the Vital Spark)
The collected Para Handy stories an extremely entertaining, and colourful reminder of the days of steam puffers on the Clyde.
A great read, even for non-puffer enthusiasts!
A great read, even for non-puffer enthusiasts!
Published on 26 Aug 2009 by M. A. Grigg
A gem of a book- warms the cockles of your heart
Para Handy and his motley crew sail their little cargo ship along the West Coast of Scotland (sometime early 1900's I think). Read more
Published on 26 July 2009 by Mc Adams
Delightful
This edition would appear to be the only one with every single Para Handy story, including 18 that had never appeared in any collection since they were first published in the... Read more
Published on 29 April 2008 by Odysseas
Handy man
You can understand why some people would be sensitive about Para Handy as an ambassador for the Highlands. Read more
Published on 22 Aug 2006 by Gille Liath
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