A Skinful of Scotch
Published:
1965 London, Hutchinson
1965 Boston, Houghton Mifflin
Comments:“A scandalous book…which is too true to be wicked.”
Wall Street Journal
“Those who have been waiting, with understandable impatience, for Mr. Hanley to return to the form of Dancing in the Streets will find it here. There is much the same sparkle, the same wealth of stories superbly told, and there is more than a passing preoccupation with drink.” Chaim Bermant, The Observer “As usual uproariously irreverent: no sacred cow is left unkicked, and no pompous attitude unpricked. Yet Scotland is put in her place without a trace of malice.” Glasgow Herald “A high-quality assortment, written with feeling, chosen with skill and mingled with glee.” Albert Morris, The Scotsman “A completely delightful book…very, very funny.” Bookmarks
“Those who have been waiting, with understandable impatience, for Mr. Hanley to return to the form of Dancing in the Streets will find it here. There is much the same sparkle, the same wealth of stories superbly told, and there is more than a passing preoccupation with drink.” Chaim Bermant, The Observer “As usual uproariously irreverent: no sacred cow is left unkicked, and no pompous attitude unpricked. Yet Scotland is put in her place without a trace of malice.” Glasgow Herald “A high-quality assortment, written with feeling, chosen with skill and mingled with glee.” Albert Morris, The Scotsman “A completely delightful book…very, very funny.” Bookmarks
Clifford Hanley did not set out to write a Boozer's Guide to Bonnie Scotland. Nor is A Skinful of Scotch exactly that. Perhaps he was a wee bit intimidated by being asked to write a sort of rag-bag book on Scotland to appear in the same series as Brendan Behan's Ireland. He need not have been worried, for he has written the one guide book on Scotland that remained to be written: the guide book that guides you to nothing -- except what the Scot is really like.
Here are the funniest stories you will have heard about Scotland and you will not have heard them before -- unless you have the privilege of knowing Mr. Hanley personally. Here are irreverent stories of Billy Butlin's John O'Groats walk, the Edinburgh Festival, Burns's songs, ceilidhs in the Highlands, Glencoe, McGonagall. Here in short, is Clifford Hanley, the aurhor of that uproarious autobiography, Dancing in the Streets, leaning on the bar and talking directly to you about the love of his life, Scotland. And how hilariously and lucidly he does it.
This is the first book Hartley Ramsay has illustrated. To produce more than sixty drawings of Ross-shire crofts, fisherhmen at Portree, the market in Inverness, an Orange Walk in Glasgow, Balloch boats, Deacon Brodie's pub in Edinburgh, Clude ship-building, the Forth Road Bridge, and dozens of other subjects in a fresh and direct style which complements so perfectly the text, is no mean achievement. Mr. Ramsay is no mean artist.
Even if you love Scotland so much that you are fed up reading all the books about it, A Skinful of Scotch is a nip you cannot miss. If you don't know Scotland, and want to have the insider's view of what is really what, this is still your book.
Copyright 2025 The Estate of Clifford Hanley