Ardnish Was Home: A Novel

By Angus MacDonald

Young Donald Peter Gillies, a Lovat scout soldier lies in hospital in Gallipoli in 1916, blinded by the Turks. There he falls in love with his Queen Alexandra Corps nurse, Louise, and she with him.
The story moves back and forth from their time at the field hospital to the west highlands of Scotland where Donald grew up. As they talk in the quiet hours he tells her the stories of the coast and glens, how his family lived and the fascinating life of a century ago: bagpiping, sheep shearing, celidhs, illegal distilling, his mother saving the life of the people of St Kilda, the navvies building the west highland railway and the relationship between the lairds and the people. Louise in turn tells her own story of growing up in the Welsh valley: coal mining, a harsh and unforgiving upbringing.
They get cut off from the allied troops and with another nurse are forced to make their escape through Turkey to Greece, getting rescued by a Coptic priest and ending up in Malta. By this time their love is out in the open, but there is still another tragic twist to their story waiting on the way back to Donald's beloved highland home . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Birlinn
• Release date: Oct 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9780857903358

Angus MacDonald

Angus MacDonald has lived all his life in the west highlands, serving in the local regiment The Queens Own Highlanders before becoming an entrepreneur with businesses in publishing, education and renewable energy. Now largely retired from corporate life he has written the Ardnish trilogy, is the proud owner of The Highland Bookshop and has built The Highland Cinema in the Fort William town square.

Reviews for Ardnish Was Home

[northern_light-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Donald lies injured on the beach after fighting at Gallipoli. There he encounters Louise a nurse looking after the soldiers until they can be evacuated.Through the stories they tell each other we learn of the homes they came from and the war experiences that led them to the beach. They then undergo a hazardous journey together with a fellow nurse.An amazing story which pulls no punches to the horror of WWI. It transposes this with the almost idyllic life Donald had lived at Ardnish that he dreams of returning to. I look forward to reading the other books in the series

[n.w.moors-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Donald Peter Gillies, or DP, is a young Scots soldier stationed at Gallipoli in World War I. He ends up in a field hospital looked after by a young Welsh nurse, Louise, after he is wounded in a sniper incident where he was captured and tortured by the Turks. The story is told in alternating first-person POVs, mostly DP, and goes back and forth with the story of their current plight and reminiscences of home. DP came from the Ardnish peninsula on the West coast of Scotland. It's a lovely rural place where the living is hard and the history is rich. Meanwhile, things go wrong when DP and Louise are being transported to a hospital ship and they end up on a hazardous cross-country trip across Turkey and Greece. All during their trek, DP entertains Louise with his stories of home.This is such a lovely story. It's told very simply in the cadence of the people who are the narrators. The gruesome war narrative in Turkey contrasts sharply with the clean beauty of the Highlands and the stories of DP's life there.I picked this up in a bookstore in Fort William as a backup when my tablet ran out of battery life on a hike up the Great Glen Way. I'm so glad I did. While the story concentrates on the lives of the specific people involved, there is also a lot of history that I knew little about. I heartily recommend this book to lovers of historical fiction.