Scotch on the Rocks

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About the Book: 

On the night of 4 February 1941, the SS Politician founders off the coast of South Uist. The salvage – nearly a quarter of a million bottles of duty-free whisky and hard currency worth, today, ninety million pounds.

And to islanders across the Hebrides, it’s theirs for the taking, hiding, drinking or selling.

This is the true story behind Sir Compton Mackenzie’s Whisky Galore. Arthur Swinson’s careful research casts an honest light on the events leading up to – and following – this tremendous bounty. Awash with contraband, the communities nearby faced unexpected problems: from the government; the police; customs inspectors; and, not least, each other.

‘…faced with these extraordinary circumstances, the rash became rasher, the drunken more drunken, the avaricious more avaricious, the convivial more convivial, the generous more generous, the treacherous more treacherous, the selfish more selfish and the commercial more commercial’.

Reviews: 

Vastly entertaining. THE LONDON EVENING STANDARD

The greatest party in the history of the Hebrides. THE SCOTSMAN

An absorbing tale. SIR COMPTON MACKENZIE

About the Author:

ARTHUR SWINSON was born in 1916 in St Albans, Hertfordshire. He attended St Albans School and later trained as an army officer cadet at Sandhurst Military College, before joining the Worcestershire Regiment. During the Second World War he served in the infantry and the Indian army, seeing action in India, Assam, Burma and Malaya.

After the war he joined the BBC to become a senior producer of documentaries. He left the BBC in 1961 to pursue a career as a full time freelance writer, with 300 plays for television, radio and theatre, and over 30 books of fiction and non-fiction to his name. Writing for Television is a standard work on the subject. Other works range from The Great Air Race to The Orchid King, a biography of the leading orchid hunter Frederick Sander. Swinson became a well known military historian, and his book Kohima, an account of the battle in which he took part, is widely regarded as one of the best works on the Second World War.

He died in 1970, leaving a widow and three children.