'Imagine eleven fields grouped around the houses, one hundred and eighty-six gently brae-set acres, sloping away to the south and west. And then imagine woods and fields stretching far and far along the valley into the blue mists of a summer afternoon, until the hills joined hands in one coned summit across the horizon, on the very marches of infinity. In that spare but not unlovely land I of the sixth generation grew up to be a farmer's boy'.

John R. Allan was brought up on a farm in Aberdeenshire at the beginning of the century. Through his child's eye we are allowed a view of the little world called Dungair, with its extended family of colourful characters - among them the Old Man, Uncle Sandy, Captain Blades and Cuddy Manson. We are given a vivid, yet unsentimental account of the boy's explorations of his surroundings, his early schooldays, his first visit to the town and his awareness of the outbreak of the Great War. New material continues John Allan's life story.