Will That Ever Be Folk?

Many grandchildren today are too preoccupied with their plastic friends on iPhones to engage with their grandparents. I hope that one day, one of mine will take the time to read about Jane's journey through thirteen schools in wartorn Scotland from 1934 to 1956. Jane was the second, and accidental, daughter of a dairy farmer from Lanarkshire. Her father's wealth stemmed from the living children he had-five, along with three who died young and one lost in the Great War. He left school at the age of nine to help on the farm, enduring the relentless grind of a nineteenth-century dairy operation. When he first laid eyes on his baby Jane, his reaction was filled with disbelief and disdain, reflecting the sentiments captured in the title. Well, Daddy, I have now lived thirty-two years longer than you, without the cows and the farm, because you left us too soon.