This book presents a record of rural childhood in highland and lowland Scotland before World War II. Based upon interviews with sons and daughters of crofters, farmers and farm workers in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland, this book lets people who were young then speak for themselves. In their own words, the children of Western Isles crofters tell their stories alongside those of more prosperous Lowland and North East farmers. Education, social mobility and the vagaries of fate all played a part in directing their lives and Country Bairns how these factors influenced their adulthood. The authors give historical background to the interviews and a commentary on the social and economic forces limiting and propelling the lives of these country bairns.