John Buchan was the author of some of the most successful “rattling good yarns” ever published. But, as his granddaughter recalls, both the man and his stories are marked by moral seriousness and purpose

“I devoured John Buchan’s novels as a teenager but I haven’t read them since.” Whenever I reveal to a friend that I am writing my grandfather’s biography, it is a fair bet I will get this reaction. I always give the same reply: “Why not try them again now? You might be surprised what you find that did not strike you in your youth. In particular, there is a serious purpose underlying all those ‘rattling good yarns’, which is probably why schoolteachers and parents were so keen to press The Thirty-Nine Steps or The Path of the King into your hands”.

The surprising truth is that all Buchan’s 30 novels are moral books, and sometimes overtly Christian, not only stressing the importance of virtues such as loyalty, courage, fortitude and self-forgetfulness but reminding his readers that ultimately we are in the hands of God, or of “Providence” as Buchan often expressed it.

The reason for this is not hard to seek. John Buchan (1875-1940) was the eldest son of a Scottish “Free Kirk” minister, who was “called” to congregations first in Perth, then in an industrial area of Fife, and finally to the Gorbals in Glasgow. Although his home life was happy and secure, Buchan was not shielded by his parents from the problems engendered by poverty, disease, neglect and criminality, decades before the foundation of the Welfare State.