Born yesterday

This autobiography is a memoir of a childhood spent in Scotland almost 70 years ago. It is a story of contrasts: the freedom of an upbringing running wild in the countryside and the disciplines of a boarding school education. Douglas Sutherland remembers his very earliest years spent on a remote island in the Orkneys, set amidst some of the stormiest seas in the world. He was 6 years old before he saw a tree or pressed a light switch, so untouched by "progress" were the islands. In contrast are the descriptions of the author's school days, first at a small eccentric preparatory school on the…