Scotch Broth

SCOTCH BROTH, as the name implies, is brimming with good things, some funny, some sad, and all skillfully mixed with Miss Hepple's affectionate wit and seasoned with the heather tang of the Border country. We move into a country cottage with two sisters and share the joys and troubles of "settling in" - of wallpapering that isn't quite straight and a roof that leaks. We hear what they have for supper and even how it is cooked, and experience their trials with a German pressure cooker that looks as preposterous on a Primus stove as an ostrich egg in an egg-cup. Miss Hepple's ruminative, charming writing is as comfortable as the warmth of a fire-lit room, but tragedy as well as comedy are lurking in the shadows. There is the mysterious digging at midnight, the unhappy Sibbet household with a blind son and a mother's sorrow, the superstitions of the Border folk, and a delightful love story too - all the ingredients to make a book as captivating as the rolling Border hills.