‘In our Day…’: Reminiscenses and Songs from Rural Perthshire
by Margaret Bennett, Doris Rougvie and Friends. Published by Grace Notes Publications

Here is a book I can understand! It tells so many stories, and weaves the lives of different generations of the people of Perthshire together so simply, just as if you are sitting round the kitchen table with a cuppa and hearing them first hand! And it is the tellers voices that shine through clear as the sunlit Tay and sparkle with their precious memories, ordinary everyday memories, playground games, jokes and stories passed from ‘Mouth to Mouth, Eye to Eye and Heart to Heart’.
This is a book that begs you to sit and listen… so go put that kettle on and find a cosy chair…listen to the songs that were born, created, inspired by the people and hills of Perthshire so that when you take a walk through this beautiful land you will be seeing /hearing it with new eyes and ears.
Margaret Bennett and Doris Rougvie have devoted their lives to keeping the Oral Tradition alive and without this collection the stories and songs that connect us with our ancestors and their place in the land would disappear in the twinkling of an eye.
With no one to pass them onto, our stories fade like the summer mist at sunrise, so stories such as those from our very own Aberfeldy residents Wattie Yellowlees and Jimmy and Mary Stewart are pearls worth the searching for.
In the tradition of Scotland’s greatest song collector and song maker, Perthshire man Hamish Henderson, this collection honours and respects the ‘teller and their life’s stories’ and, I hope, will inspire folks young and old to get together and share a much loved song and gather that sense of community through the weaving of our life’s journey tales.
As a storyteller and singer living in Perthshire I want to thank Margaret and Doris for this gem of a book. The oral tradition still lives, continues to have a voice and just waits for any opportunity to weave its spell, enchant us and simply spin a good yarn round the fire on a winter’s night and connect us with one another as human beings and our place in the world.

Claire Hewitt