Hardback by Birlinn, £14.99
It’s almost impossible to believe, but Para Handy first sailed into the hearts of Scottish folk 115 years ago. Stories about him, his boat the Vital Spark and his crew first appeared in the pages of the Glasgow Evening News in 1905. Our love affair with the kind-hearted skipper and his motley crew, is still going strong.
This book brings together all three collections of Para Handy stories published in Neil Munro’s lifetime and stories which hadn’t yet been published at the time of his death as well as a long-lost story found as recently as 2001.
It’s a book you can pick up again and again and dipping in and out of the pages is sheer joy. Para Handy’s world of puffers and steamers may be long gone, but Neil Munro’s comedy is timeless and there’s many a story that will have you laughing out loud at the antics of the wilie Highlander.
The book also has a nice selection of old black and white photographs which, for those of us born more recently, help the scene while there’s a good biography on Munro as well as a look at what life was like in Glasgow and beyond at the time when Para Handy was busy trying to pull the wool over the eye of harbour masters and the Vital Spark’s owners.
A must for any fan of Para Handy and a book that deserves to find it’s way into lots of stockings this Christmas.
