William Mackenzie was born in 1851 in Melness, Sutherland though moved to Skye at an early age. He began teaching in Uig and in 1879 was appointed headmaster of Valtos in Staffin. He became active in the crofter agitation of the 1880s and was one of the crofters' representatives at the Napier Commission of 1884. He retired in 1915 and began to write his reminiscences, which were published in two books in 1930 and 1934. The present volume is an edited compilation of these two works.
Alasdair Maclean left school at fourteen to work in the Clydeside shipyards. National Service in the Merchant Marine followed and then service in the British and Indian Armies. He returned to Scotland to read English at Edinburgh University before returning home to Sanna in Ardnamurchan. A poet of some repute, this is his only book of non-fiction.
