High Tide at Noon by Elisabeth Ogilvie was first published in 1944. It’s one of the many books which Peggy brought from America for me to read. The setting is Maine, an island called Bennett Island where the inhabitants earn a living from lobster fishing. It’s a harsh environment with the wild winter weather meaning that often no fishing can be done for ages.

It can be a hand to mouth existence but Joanna Bennett loves the island and can’t ever imagine living anywhere else. She’s the only girl in the Bennett family and with five brothers she’s a bit of a tomboy, so she’s not happy when her father decides that the time has come for her to stop hanging around the harbour with the boys. The islanders live for gossip, like most small insular communities.

I started reading this book at bedtime and it seemed to me that within about the first ten pages or so something like 30 characters were thrown at me. I must have been tired because ma heid was fairly birlin’ but I stuck with it as I knew that Peggy had loved this book, and I came to love it too.

The setting felt very much like that of a Scottish island, the same problems, similar scenery and her descriptive writing is so reminiscent of Scottish authors, where the location becomes as important a character as the people inhabiting it. If Ogilvie hadn’t had a Scottish surname I would still have guessed that she was of Scottish descent anyway.

I’ll keep this book for you Peggy!