Dundrennan's Tony Bonning shares his fascinating tale in Galloway People

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Chatting to Tony Bonning in his renovated cottage near Dundrennan, it’s hard to imagine a more stunning backdrop. Through the French windows, frost-rimmed fields roll down to the Solway glistening under the low winter sun, England’s mountains looming dark behind.

It’s a beautiful setting, not greatly dissimilar, given its rurality, to Tony’s native Crosshill in south Ayrshire. Born at the smiddy “at the Maybole end” of the village, Tony – one of Scotland’s finest storytellers and author of a half-library of children’s books – certainly has his own wonderful tale to tell.

His mother Barbara McQuater, whose name he took as a boy, he tells me, was from a well-known local family while his father Charles Bonning was an engineer from Ayr. ”Barbara was always working in the farms,” Tony begins, his listener half expecting to be asked if he’s sitting comfortably. “McQuater Bros had a big thrashing mill they used to pull around the country to all the farms behind a steam traction engine. “It was all corn (oats) and tumshies (turnips) that was grown in those days. “The worst job as a boy was shawing the tumshies – I’ve been standing in a blizzard doing it – the training was tough! “Your pay was 10 shillings for two days work over the weekend. “It would be November time and freezing cold. “But the first job I remember doing was hooking the big grain sacks on the back of the mill. “I mind working with a man, Hugh Linden, who was built like a cybie (spring onion) but could put a fork in a bale of hay and throw it up as if it weighed nothing. “To me he was a hero. “His son was killed in the war. “I did a paper round as a boy too – anything to earn a bit of money. “Crosshill was a tight knit little community. “Everybo