CHILDREN OF THE DEAD END (BIRLINN)

A new edition of the remarkable autobiographical novel, first published in 1914, which helped to change attitudes to poverty and destitution in Scotland and Ireland. Based on personal memories of his life in Ireland and Scotland in the early 1900s, it tells the story of Dermod Flynn who earns a meagre living as an itinerant farm hand before coming to Scotland with a potato-picking squad. After living on the road, labouring and navvying, he finds work on the hydro-electric scheme at Kinlochleven – an extraordinarily brutal and unforgiving environment where hundreds died on one of the biggest engineering projects of its time.