Children of the Dead End
Written by / Introduction by Patrick Baker
£4.99
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Fiction
Reviews
An evocative read about working class life.. should be on every school’s reading list
Scottish Field
A superb account of its times
Irish Times
Raw, lyrical, angry, Children of the Dead End still retains its affecting power
The List
This beautifully written book is a rare and important work
Dundee Courier
About the Book
Based on personal memories of his life in Ireland and Scotland in the early 1900s, this was Patrick MacGill’s first novel. It tells the story of Dermod Flynn an independent and feisty youth who earns a meagre living as an itinerant farm hand in Donegal and County Tyrone before coming to Scotland with a potato-picking squad. After living on the road, labouring and navvying, Dermod finds work on the hydro-electric scheme at Kinlochleven –an extraordinarily brutal and unforgiving environment where hundreds died on one of the biggest engineering projects of its time.
Against this background, Dermod reads voraciously, begins to discover his talent as a writer and is eventually lured to Fleet Street, where he briefly becomes a journalist.
Peopled with extraordinary characters, Children of the Dead End is a gritty and uncompromising expose of the near slavery endured by the poor in Scotland and Ireland at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The Author
Patrick Baker
Patrick Baker worked in the publishing industry for many years and is currently a commercial writer and content producer. He is a keen outdoor enthusiast and has walked and climbed throughout Scotland and Europe, serving several years as a non-executive director for Mountain Training Scotland. He is the author of The Cairngorms: A Secret History.
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