This book is like Dad’s Army (I love that programme) but instead of the south of England setting we find ourselves on the Scottish islands of Great Todday and Little Todday. The islanders are fierce rivals and even have different religious affiliations with Great Todday being staunchly Protestant and Little Todday Catholic. In earlier days they spent their time stealing each other’s sheep.

World War 2 has broken out and the islanders are living in fear of a German invasion, although some of them think that if Hitler invades then they will be able to improve him with their hospitality in the shape of whisky, which everyone seems to quaff at an amazing rate, ‘just a sensation’ is the usual offer, but a sensation is a very big dram indeed!

This is an amusing read and for me it came to an end too abruptly. I couldn’t find anything about a sequel to this one which was first published in 1943. But amazingly I was browsing in a local bookshop (Burntisland) when I came across Rockets Galore which was first published in 1957 it has the same setting and I now realise that his famous book Whisky Galore was published in 1947 and as that is set on the islands too I should be reading that one next. Whisky Galore was of course made into a very popular film and the TV series Monarch of the Glen was based on one of Compton Mackenzie’s books too.

This is the first book by Meckenzie which I have read but some of his earlier books are available free from Project Gutenberg.