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A Childhood in Scotland
In this perceptive but unpretentious autobiography, Christian Miller recalls her privileged yet simultaneously deprived 1920s upper-class childhood in a castle in the Scottish highlands, giving readers an insight into the last relics of feudal life. A Childhood in Scotland describes a youth in a world where shooting came second only to religion, where questions were frowned upon, and reading seen as a waste of time.
112 pages, Paperback
First published April 28, 1982
About the author
Christian Miller
24 books1 followerChristian Miller, the youngest of a family of six, was born in 1920. Brought up on her father’s estate in the Scottish Highlands, she was educated by governesses. After the death of her father, the estate was inherited by her elder brother, and the rest of the family moved to London, where - at eighteen - she became a debutante. During WWII, having started as an aircraft fitter working on heavy bombers, she became a technical adviser in the Ministry of Production.
She married during the war and had two daughters, and it was not until the 1960s that she started writing, beginning with short stories, which were widely translated. Her first novel, The Champagne Sandwich, was published in 1969, and was followed in 1980 by Daisy Daisy, which told the story of a bicycle ride across America which she did on her own when she was 58. A Childhood in Scotland first appeared in The New Yorker, and received a Scottish Arts Council Book Award in 1982.
She married during the war and had two daughters, and it was not until the 1960s that she started writing, beginning with short stories, which were widely translated. Her first novel, The Champagne Sandwich, was published in 1969, and was followed in 1980 by Daisy Daisy, which told the story of a bicycle ride across America which she did on her own when she was 58. A Childhood in Scotland first appeared in The New Yorker, and received a Scottish Arts Council Book Award in 1982.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
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February 3, 2016My original review of 2010 appears below. I just finished another re-read (2016), and the book is just as wonderful as ever. For anyone reading this review who's a fan of Code Name Verity: this book was one of my inspirations for Verity's unusual upbringing in a Scottish castle. If you want to get an idea of what her childhood might have been like, go read this book. (It's happily back in print now.)
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this is quite possibly one of my favorite books EVER. I was sent a copy of the original New Yorker article on which it's based and became obsessed with the wonderful woman who wrote this book, and whose childhood in Scotland was SO DIFFERENT from that of my own children, growing up nearly a century later and about 100 miles further south.
It's a short, quirky, beautifully written portrait of a vanished age (the author was born in 1920). It took me quite some time to realize that the narrator was in fact the local laird's daughter, born into nobility and wealth, and not the child of a crofter--SO NEGLECTED, starved and wild were these children.
I'm sure I've read this 5 times since I discovered it, and I'll read it again and enjoy it. The author has written 2 other books: Daisy Daisy: A Journey Across America on a Bicycle and The Champagne Sandwich. The latter is a novel, and I haven't managed to get hold of it. The former is a travelogue about the author's BICYCLE TREK ACROSS THE UNITED STATES AT THE AGE OF 59.
A remarkable woman.
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this is quite possibly one of my favorite books EVER. I was sent a copy of the original New Yorker article on which it's based and became obsessed with the wonderful woman who wrote this book, and whose childhood in Scotland was SO DIFFERENT from that of my own children, growing up nearly a century later and about 100 miles further south.
It's a short, quirky, beautifully written portrait of a vanished age (the author was born in 1920). It took me quite some time to realize that the narrator was in fact the local laird's daughter, born into nobility and wealth, and not the child of a crofter--SO NEGLECTED, starved and wild were these children.
I'm sure I've read this 5 times since I discovered it, and I'll read it again and enjoy it. The author has written 2 other books: Daisy Daisy: A Journey Across America on a Bicycle and The Champagne Sandwich. The latter is a novel, and I haven't managed to get hold of it. The former is a travelogue about the author's BICYCLE TREK ACROSS THE UNITED STATES AT THE AGE OF 59.
A remarkable woman.
March 12, 2021
A very good memoir that's mainly description, but it's first-rate description. The author grew up in a Scottish castle in the 1920s, but her life sounds more like something out of the Victorian era crossed with a dose of the medieval. Her father was a brute, and her mother distant and neglectful, and she experienced a strange mixture of luxury and deprivation. The only book I can think of that resembles this one is Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake, although it's true the latter is much more baroque. In sum, I enjoyed reading Miller's book quite a lot.
Available at Open Library:
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL52326...
Available at Open Library:
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL52326...
July 12, 2012
With one of the first paragraphs starting:
"I can never get them to understand that the ghosts won't hurt them. If only they'd just ask the poor things what they want."
Such an evocative beginning wouldn't pass me by-a short read at less than 100 pages, but it sounds good:indeed it surpassed all expectations. Now admittedly it bore no resemblance to my Scottish childhood-nor that enjoyed by friends and family. But I love graphic tales set in spooky houses, with a fair degree of hardship thrown in for good measure. The narrator excelled at bringing her world alive-a sad and somewhat lonely life, where the parents referred to their children as "the boys", "the girls", and "the children"-which covers most eventualities....
The countryside and the estate were well depicted, giving us a fascinating insight into tartan socks and liberty bodices........ay, I remember those well. The former with pride, the latter with loathing! The large draughty castle leaves much to be desired-both in it's occupants and it's lack of basic comforts. I was glad that an occasional nanny came along to show the children some love.
The ending was abrupt-and quite surprised me. As nearly everyone else commented:
"Wish it had been longer."
"I can never get them to understand that the ghosts won't hurt them. If only they'd just ask the poor things what they want."
Such an evocative beginning wouldn't pass me by-a short read at less than 100 pages, but it sounds good:indeed it surpassed all expectations. Now admittedly it bore no resemblance to my Scottish childhood-nor that enjoyed by friends and family. But I love graphic tales set in spooky houses, with a fair degree of hardship thrown in for good measure. The narrator excelled at bringing her world alive-a sad and somewhat lonely life, where the parents referred to their children as "the boys", "the girls", and "the children"-which covers most eventualities....
The countryside and the estate were well depicted, giving us a fascinating insight into tartan socks and liberty bodices........ay, I remember those well. The former with pride, the latter with loathing! The large draughty castle leaves much to be desired-both in it's occupants and it's lack of basic comforts. I was glad that an occasional nanny came along to show the children some love.
The ending was abrupt-and quite surprised me. As nearly everyone else commented:
"Wish it had been longer."
April 15, 2016
In this astonishingly beautiful little novel, which captures the sights, sounds and smells of 20th century Scotland, Christian Miller captures her lonely childhood growing up in a Castle in Scotland, a wealthy but at the same time deprived childhood.
Having a cruel father, and a distant mother, and being the youngest child, Christian recounts in picturesque detail, the castle and the surrounding countryside in Scotland, her phenomenal experience of nature, her friendship with the ghosts that lived in the castle, and fear of the demons.
A poignant portrait of a lonely child who used her imagination to try to make her young life whole, a deprived childhood in a wealthy household, Christian recounts how she was beaten while waiting for scraps of food outside the castle dining room.
She makes several wry observations such as that the lessons given by her stern governess could have been made more interesting if when learning about the Napoleonic Wars, the children had been taught that Napoleon had surrendered to her great grandfather on her mother's side, and that Shakespeare may not have bored them had they known that they were descended on their father's side form Macbeth's victim , King Duncan .
Beautifully written for adults and young readers aged 12 and up.
Having a cruel father, and a distant mother, and being the youngest child, Christian recounts in picturesque detail, the castle and the surrounding countryside in Scotland, her phenomenal experience of nature, her friendship with the ghosts that lived in the castle, and fear of the demons.
A poignant portrait of a lonely child who used her imagination to try to make her young life whole, a deprived childhood in a wealthy household, Christian recounts how she was beaten while waiting for scraps of food outside the castle dining room.
She makes several wry observations such as that the lessons given by her stern governess could have been made more interesting if when learning about the Napoleonic Wars, the children had been taught that Napoleon had surrendered to her great grandfather on her mother's side, and that Shakespeare may not have bored them had they known that they were descended on their father's side form Macbeth's victim , King Duncan .
Beautifully written for adults and young readers aged 12 and up.
February 23, 2016
I've been missing Scotland, so I thought I'd read this. Super interesting, and...kind of sad! Christian Miller had a very different childhood than my own, and a childhood that feels a bit like it's out of a novel, with the castle, and the hand-me-downs and distant parents and children-should-not-be-indulged attitudes and the bone-chilling cold and the short, short days...
I spent four years as a child in England, and so in a way this still felt nostalgic to me, because I don't really know anyone else here who went to school in a big country estate with secret passages that they just let us crawl through, and with a rabbit hutch out back, and whose house was built in the 1700s. It's weird looking back on that! Anyway, totally different than what Miller describes in this book, but just as strange in its own way...
I spent four years as a child in England, and so in a way this still felt nostalgic to me, because I don't really know anyone else here who went to school in a big country estate with secret passages that they just let us crawl through, and with a rabbit hutch out back, and whose house was built in the 1700s. It's weird looking back on that! Anyway, totally different than what Miller describes in this book, but just as strange in its own way...
February 27, 2020
Gloomy but compelling. I'll admit that when I saw this was originally in The New Yorker I went and read it in the New Yorker archives.
August 11, 2021
Engaging and beautifully written. The village seemed idyllic and she described it so well, I could easily conjure it up in my mind. Wish I could live there.
April 26, 2012
I was a little disappointed that the back cover implied a story about having ghosts as friends, and truly the ghosts of the castle are only casually mentioned. But the richness of the story and the detailed intricacies of living in a centuries-old castle as part of a centuries-old family is fascinating. It reminded me of the European way of parenting that is getting so much press recently for being superior...in this book that "adults first" attitude is carefully dissected as being alienating and harmful.
May 18, 2012
It's hard to believe that this childhood took place post-WW1, being reminiscent in parts of some dreadful Victorian childhood. Yet the writer manages to impart a magical spell over some of her memories, her descriptions of roaming the countryside and of summers spent sleeping outdoors, of birthdays and Christmas and shopping expeditions with her mother. The book is beautifully written with no sense of self-pity, it's a real gem.
March 7, 2015
An unsentimental but heartfelt account of the author's first ten years, spent in a Scottish castle at a time and place when children were loved only from a distance. She moves from one topic to the next as you might in conversation with a friend, what she wore (ragged hand-me-downs except for parties), what they ate (never enough), or the beauty of the wild landscape. Thank you, Elizabeth Wein, for recommending this!
February 6, 2016
I was recataloging books at library, 92->BIO, and this caught my eye. Sixth and last child of a Scottish baron and his American wife, Christian spent a very lonely, often bleak and cruel,childhood though privileged on on the surface. Told in such an engaging style that it is an impelling look at life in a Scottish castle.
April 19, 2013
Could be one of my favorite books. Written without sentiment it manages to pull at the heart strings, nonetheless. Amazingly evocative of this era and place. I can't read it without a box of Kleenex by my side - and I am not easily moved to tears. A wonderful and under-rated writer.
November 26, 2007
A fascinating memoir of growing up in a castle in Scotland and how a seemingly "privileged life" is really anything but. Funny and touching.
November 30, 2014
Endearing and enchanting. Just wishing that it went on for another 100 pages or so.
June 16, 2012
Only wish it had been longer.
November 12, 2012
This little memoir winds through the author's childhood in a Scottish castle. It is alternately harsh and sterile and rich and lovely. Very interesting.
Early 20th century.
Early 20th century.
July 29, 2014
Fascinating memoir of the first ten years of the author's childhood. Born and raised in a castle in northern Scotland, I found Miller's story fascinating and utterly enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews