Thistle Soup

This is an idiosyncratic story of Scottish farming life. It tells of episodes with drunken ghosts, bullocks in the bedrooms, obscure customs and country superstitions.

Scottish legend has it that an early country remedy for the ailments of a life well-spent and heartily lived came from the pulp of the sow thistle. To author Peter Kerr, this so-called "thistle soup" is emblematic of the life he believes to be most sustaining. To him, this life is found in the fields of East Lothian.
East Lothian is "The Garden of Scotland" and the setting of this delightfully idiosyncratic story of country life. Often hilarious, always heartfelt, and at times sad, here unfold the ups and downs of four generations of one farming family from the northerly Orkney Isles, who move to the little farm of Cuddy Neuk in the south of Scotland just before the outbreak of World War II.
A young Peter, the peedie boy who sets his heart on filling his somewhat eccentric grandfather's straw-lined Wellington boots, grows up to run the family farm and become a farmer father to his own sons, putting his ability to see the funny side of things to good use, as adversities crop up with an intriguing regularity.
"'Peedie" is the Orkney word for 'small,' so it followed that my grandfather should call me 'peedie boy'. He'd always done so, and I was used to it. The youngest of a line of three living Peters, I was also used to being called - originally to avoid confusion when we were all together - Wee Pete, Pedro, Young Pate (Pate is Scots for Pete), Paitrick, Pat and even Paderooski (pronounced as spelled). In fact, it was reaching the stage when I would automatically answer to just about any name beginning with the letter 'P.'"