The Honesty Boxes of Scotland

The Kitchen Sisters Present

The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia

Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Some people might think that honesty boxes are from the past, from a different age, a simpler age, a more honest age, but I would say they're a future thing as well.” – Mark Cousins

Throughout the islands and out of way places in Scotland, along the rural roads, at the end of driveways, out on their own with no house nearby, you'll find fresh baked bread, homemade jam, cauliflower, scones, Victoria Sponge Cake, ceramics, you name it. If someone can make it, bake it, grow it or sew it, it may turn up for sale in an “Honesty Box.”

Just a wooden or metal box, sometime with a slot, nailed down so it can’t be nicked, sometimes an open bowl of money, with a price list of the items and the implicit understanding that if you fancy a shortbread, or a dozen eggs, or a pound of sausages, or a home-knitted hat, you’ll leave the money in the Honesty Box. No one is there to watch you. It’s a trust thing. An honor thing. In this era when trust and honor are in such short supply in America

Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) with Mark Buell & George Bull in collaboration with Nathan Dalton & Brandi Howell. Mixed by Jim McKee.

Special Thanks: In Edinburgh: Mark Cousins | On the Isle of Gigha: John Bannatyne, James, Colin Campbell, Dougie, Annie, Donald, the Guy at the Town Store, Isle of Gigha Golf Club | On The Isle of Arran: Nikki & Pete Brown (Clachaig Farm), Ailsa Currie (Bellevue Farm), Sally & Andy Pollock, Charles Colin Macleod Currie, Hamish Bannatyne, Shiskine Golf Course | In Campbeltown: Ellen Mainwood & Mhairi Hendrie at the Campbeltown Picture House (The Wee Picture House), Ardsheil Hotel, Flora Grant & Marion MacKinnon, Scott Eland | Carradale Golf Club: Mack Ezell | On The Isle of Skye: Catherine MacPhee. More Thanks: Frances McDormand & Joel Coen.

Funding for The Kitchen Sisters Present… comes from The National Endowment for the Arts, Every Page Foundation, The Fertel Foundation, The Robert Sillins Family Foundation and Listener Contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions.

The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent podcasts that widen your world.

Transcript

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0:00.0	RadioTopia. Welcome to the Kitchen Sisters present.
0:04.0	From PRX.
0:05.6	We're the Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva.
0:13.3	An Anastry Box is like a little magical thing that sits beside of the road in rural Scotland.
0:19.4	They're quite childlike.
0:20.9	You sort of expect to see animals or something in them or Easter eggs.
0:25.0	And in them, there's stuff to buy and you leave money.
0:28.8	There's nobody going to check you.
0:31.0	It used to be eggs mostly.
0:33.0	Then it just grew and grew.
0:35.1	You get shortbread, traybakes, Scottish tablet,
0:38.0	you know, that super sweet teeth destroying delicious thing.
0:42.6	A lot of knitted things, loads of apples,
0:46.7	anything that can be grown in the west of Scotland,
0:49.6	you're going to get it unlocked in the honesty box.
0:57.8	Throughout the islands and out-of-way places in Scotland,
1:03.7	along the rural roads, at the end of driveways, out on their own with no house nearby,
1:13.6	you'll find fresh-baked bread, homemade jam, cauliflower, scones, Victoria sponge cake, ceramics, you name it. If someone can make it, bake it, grow it, or sew it, it may turn up for sale in an honesty box.
1:21.6	Just a wooden or metal box, sometimes an open bowl of money with a price list of the items and the implicit
1:29.4	understanding that if you fancy a shortbread or a dozen eggs or a pound of sausages or a
1:35.0	home-knitted hat, you'll leave the money in the honesty box. No one is there to watch you.
1:41.7	It's a trust thing, an honor thing.
	...

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