Marinemum

Sorcha dún Scoti has known her whole life she is different. Now, the future of her clan is in doubt, and Una, their beloved seer, is gone. The youngest dún Scoti inherits Una's keek stane - and with it, the gift of sight. Here, the truth of her birth is revealed. Betrayed by her kinsmen and seeking answers, Sorcha must journey to a remote Island in the Outer Hebrides, where she hopes to reunite with Una. But despite her gift of sight, the truth holds perils Sorcha cannot foresee....

Melvyn Bragg follows his long historical exploration of the Routes of English with ‘Voices of the Powerless’, the BBC Radio 4 series in which he explores the lives of the ordinary working men and women of Britain at critical moments across the last 1,000 years. The Norman Conquest is his starting point, a time when William the Conqueror’s ‘harrying of the North’ affected the poor apprentice, the lowly ploughman and the humble shepherd.

Visiting the Hebridean island of Mull today, it's not long before someone mentions the steep decline in population that the Scottish highlands and islands suffered 150 to 200 years ago. And it was a depopulation that the crofters were powerless to do anything about - in a phrase that sounds a knell almost as chilling as today's 'ethnic cleansing', the Highland Clearances are still talked of as one of the most harsh pieces of social manipulation in Britain's history. A long-drawn-out lament mourned in song and poetry ever since.