The Bagpiping People by Douglas Dunn review – stories of amiable Scots melancholy

The poet Douglas Dunn also writes wonderful short stories, some of which are collected together here. The “bagpiping people” of the title story are a Scottish Traveller and his family who make money from playing the pipes to a captive audience waiting for the ferry across the Clyde, but of course the name also refers, a little ironically, to the Scots who are the subject of all the stories. Dunn writes beautifully about the self-awareness of the Scots, having to perform their ethnicity for tourists. In “The Canoes” a group of friends act out the expected “courtesy, our soft-spoken and excellent good manners and clear speech” for a young couple, in the hope of funding an evening in the pub. These are quiet stories of “amiably melancholic” men and women who push against expectations of conformity in their disapproving village communities, finding more exciting relationships in Glasgow and beyond. A recurring motif is the neglected garden that signifies “a demoralised resident within”. These tales of disturbed or merely ruffled lives consistently engage and entertain the reader.

• The Bagpiping People: Selected Short Stories is published by Turnpike.