There's Always The Hills E-Book

Cameron McNeish

• Herausgeber: Sandstone Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

'A wonderful, personal book.' -Sam Heughan, star of OutlanderFrom his home in the Cairngorms of Scotland, Cameron McNeish reflects on a life dedicated to the outdoors.A prolific author, McNeish has led treks in the Himalayas and Syria, edited The Great Outdoors Magazine, establishing it as Britain's premier walking publication, created new long-distance walks and made television series, contributed a monthly column to Scots Magazine, campaigned for Scottish independence and raised a family with his wife, Gina.In this long-awaited autobiography, he candidly recalls the ups and downs of a full life, much of it in the public eye, much of it until now unseen.

Leseprobe

Also by Cameron McNeish

Highland Ways, (KSA)

The Spurbook of Youth Hostelling (Spurbooks)

The Spur Master Guide to Snow Camping (Spurbooks)

Backpacker’s Scotland (Robert Hale)

The Backpacker’s Manual (Nordbok)

Ski the Nordic Way (Cicerone Press)

Classic Walks in Scotland, with Roger Smith (Oxford Illustrated Press)

The Munro Almanac (NWP)

The Corbett Almanac (NWP)

The Best Hillwalking in Scotland (The In Pinn)

The Wilderness World of Cameron McNeish (The In Pinn)

The Munros, Scotland’s Highest Mountains (Lomond Books)

Scotland’s 100 Best Walks (Lomond Books)

The Edge – One Hundred Years of Scottish Mountaineering,with Richard Else (BBC)

Wilderness Walks, with Richard Else (BBC)

More Wilderness Walks, with Richard Else (BBC)

The Sutherland Trail, with Richard Else (Mountain Media)

The Skye Trail, with Richard Else (Mountain Media)

Scotland End to End, with Richard Else (Mountain Media)

First published in Great Britain by

Sandstone Press Ltd

Dochcarty Road

Dingwall

Ross-shire

IV15 9UG

Scotland

www.sandstonepress.com

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored or transmitted in any form without the express

written permission of the publisher.

Copyright © Cameron McNeish 2018

Editor: Robert Davidson

All images as ascribed.

The moral right of Cameron McNeish to be recognised as the

author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988.

The publisher acknowledges subsidy from Creative Scotland

towards publication of this volume.

ISBN: 978-1-910985-95-3

ISBNe: 978-1-910985-96-0

Jacket design by Raspberry Creative Type, Edinburgh

Ebook compilation by Iolaire Typography Ltd, Newtonmore

For Charlotte and Grace

Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Foreword

Introduction

1. Govan to Goat Fell

2. Running and Leaping

3. May the Fire Be Always Lit

4. Aberdeen Angus Years

5. Cairngorm Characters

6. Darkness and Light

7. Kincraig Explorations

8. Weir’s Ways

9. Accidents and Rescues

10. Job Swap

11. Overseas Climbs and Trails

12. On the Edge

13. Wilderness Walks

14. Wilderness and Walks

15. Trails for Television

16. The Scottish National Trail

17. Boots and Bikes

Acknowledgements

Looking back over my forty-year career I realise that a number of individuals have been responsible for introducing various strands to my life, elements that have morphed together to create this journey of mine.

My parents initially allowed me the freedom to discover horizons that were beyond the immediate boundary of family and home and my track and field coach, John Anderson, taught me the essential foundations of commitment, hard work and perseverance. Peter Lumley, Roger Smith and the late Clive Sandground presented me with early writing opportunities and Duncan Kirk, Mike Ure and Darren Bruce have been supportive and encouraging magazine publishers.

For radio and television opportunities I’m indebted to the late Murdoch McPherson, Christopher Lowell and David Harron, and Richard Else and Margaret Wicks continually encourage and inspire my television work as well as being close friends and neighbours in Badenoch.

Many thanks also to Robert Wight and Garry Fraser of the Scots Magazine for giving me permission to plunder and re-work some features that have appeared in their magazine and a heartfelt thanks to those wonderful colleagues who loyally assisted me on the various magazines I edited over the years, in particular Tom Prentice, John Manning and Emily Rodway.

Individuals like Tom Weir, Bill Murray, Hamish Brown, Jim Perrin, Chris Townsend, Chris Brasher, Jim Crumley, Dick Balharry, Dave Morris and Hamish Telfer here in the UK and Ray and Jenny Jardine and Annie and Dave Getchell in the US have all given freely of their knowledge and experience to make my time in the wild places so much more meaningful and I owe a real debt of thanks to Glenn Rowley, Tim Greening and Rex Munro of KE Adventure Travel for giving me the chance to travel extensively to the Greater Ranges and beyond.

And a very special thanks to my publisher and editor Robert Davidson of Sandstone Press for his support and encouragement and giving me the benefit of his considerable experience and wisdom.

Sincere thanks also to fellow hill goer and actor Sam Heughan for taking time out from a very hectic filming schedule to read my book and write a foreword to it. I’m looking forward to many more hill days in Scotland with Sam showing him some of the wild places that his alter ego, Outlander’s Jamie Fraser, may not have been familiar with.

Finally, my own family have been constantly supportive and have given me hope for the future. My two sons are frequent companions on various adventures and my wife Gina continues to be the love of my life after forty-five years of marriage. I’m delighted that in the autumn of our years we can still enjoy the hills and wild places together and more importantly, simply enjoy each other’s company. We look forward, in the near future, to introducing our two granddaughters to the joys of the outdoors. This book is dedicated to them.

List of Illustrations

Section 1

With my Grandfather, Grandmother and parentsOn an early summer holiday at Dunbar, birthplace of John Muir, although I didn’t know it at the time.King’s Park Secondary School photo, c1963, Cameron in the back row, third from the left.My first love, long jumping. I became Scottish Junior Champion in 1968.Learning to shot put with John Anderson.A very special day over 45 years ago. Cutting the cake with Gina.Lomond Mountaineering Club, c1975. I’m at the back, fifth from the left.During a wonderful Cairngorm to Ben Nevis backpacking trip in 1975.Cameron the Youth Hostel warden at Aviemore SYHA.Gina with Gordon and Gregor cross country skiing. They’re never too young to learn.Seventies climbing pal Jeff Faulkner near the summit of A’Mhaighdean.Long time friend and colleague, Roger Smith, leaving Ben Macdui with Braeriach in the background.On the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail in France with old pal Peter Lumley.My good friend, mountain guide John Lyall, as we climbed January Jigsaw on the Buachaille Etive Mor.A favourite shot of Gina at Carnmore below A’Mhaidghean.On the Matterhorn summit as part of the celebrations of the 125th anniversary of the first ascent by Edward Whymper.Family outing to Yosemite in 1997.Gina, Gregor and me on the summit of Mount Whitney, at the end of the 221 mile John Muir Trail in California.Getting all nostalgic in a favourite howff in Glen Coe, a place I often frequented in my rock climbing days.Of all the great mountaineers and naturalists I have met, none was more encouraging than my old friend, Tom Weir (with thanks to D.C. Thomson Ltd).The redoubtable Chris Brasher, athlete, journalist, mountaineer, and one of the greatest characters I’ve ever met (Richard Else with permission).With Chris Townsend after we had completed the GR20 over the mountains of Corsica.

Section 2

Gina on the Pinchot Pass, John Muir Trail, Cailfornia.With Donnie Munro, former lead singer with Runrig, on his home territory of the Isle of Skye.With writer and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch on the summit of Carrauntoohill, the highest mountain in Ireland.With the legendary Hamish Brown in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco.My dear friend Jim Perrin and me, enjoying a televised pilgrimage in Ireland for our Wilderness Walks series.Ray and Jenny Jardine, lightweight backpacking gurus who taught me about ‘connecting’ with the landscape.The Ordesa Gorge in the Pyrenees with writer and broadcaster Nick Crane.My good friend, film producer and Newtonmore neighbour, Richard Else.With Jimmie MacGregor at the unveiling of the Tom Weir statue.A proud Pappa with Grace and Charlotte.With Hannah and Gordon on Tsergo Ri, Langtang Hilalaya, Nepal.On the summit of Gokyo Ri, with Everest in the background.Looking towards Seanna Bhraigh from Eididh nan Clach Geala.Lifelong pal Hamish Telfer and me arriving at Malin Head after cycling the length of Ireland.Morning light in Rothiemurchus Forest, a magical place among many in Badenoch and Strathspey where I live.With one of my musical heroes, the great fiddler Duncan Chisholm.Gina, our sirdar Dorje with Meg and Richard Else climbing above the holy lakes of Gosainkund in Nepal.Becoming campervanman for television series, RoadsLess Travelled.The McNeish clan, all together for a friend’s wedding.Packrafting on Loch Insh, near Kincraig.Receiving the Oliver Brown Award from Grant Thoms, editor of the ScotsIndependent newspaper.With Sam Heughan at the My Peak Challenge Gala Dinner in 2017.

Foreword

Bodach nam Beann - the man of the hills.

Adorned with woolly bonnet, walking poles and rucksack, Cameron McNeish can be recognised by his silhouette alone. The most highly respected voice now speaking for and from Scotland’s mountains, and their most instantly recognisable figure, his knowledge and expertise derives from his every footstep on every remote Munro and Corbett, and his crossing of each mountain burn. Bodach namBeann could have given me sound advice when I first discovered the hills for myself . . .

The icy surface stretched before me, sloping down across a rock shelf to the cliff edge, a fatal ice slide for the unwary hiker. I could barely see a few metres ahead in the mist, and the snow was beginning to fall again. Behind me a white uneven landscape, covering the rocks and gaps between them, would make my eventual retreat slow and tentative. Only my footprints to this point indicated a safe way back and they were already filling with fresh snow. Sheltering behind a boulder, knowing that the summit cairn of Schiehallion was only metres away, I fingered the small pink stone in my pocket, quartz hard enough to cut glass, picked up an hour or so earlier to add to the summit cairn.

A local taxi had dropped me beside the single track road at Braes of Foss, next to a group of trees that partially hid the mountain. I had practically rolled out of the front seat, my head fuzzy with last night’s birthday celebrations and a long week of filming in the outdoors. In my tweed hip flask was a drop of the smoky whisky I’d been given as a birthday present, a memento from a fellow mountain enthusiast after my first (failed) ascent of a Munro a few months earlier. There had been a few since, and it had become a tradition to take a nip or two after reaching the peak, ‘easing’ the journey down. Now though, the thought of alcohol was not so appealing.

I considered whether an attempt across the icy surface was worth the risk.

In reasonable hiking boots, several base layers and a technical winter jacket, I wasn’t feeling cold, although my hands would turn bright red - then white - if I took them out of my gloves for too long. I’d been in this situation before when I foolishly tried to climb Ben Lomond in the snow with no crampons. The closest Munro to Glasgow, it is a popular climb in summer but hazardous in winter. Lost somewhere on the mountain’s Ptarmigan+ ridge, its lower peak, I climbed too high before losing my balance and sliding downwards for twenty to thirty metres. Digging my raw and frozen fingers into the snow to break the descent I realised that, displaced only a few metres to the right, I could easily have slipped off the mountain. I had become one of ‘those’ people: foolish, dangerous. The mountains need respect and I resolved to always be not only cautious but also prepared. Then I would enjoy their great heights all the more, and adventure even further into their lesser known world.

Remembering that possible fatal experience, I accepted that this was as far as Schiehallion (and the conditions) would let me go. I took a celebration nip, fumbled for the small rock in my pocket and placed it on the snow drift next to me, a temporary cairn, for this trip.

We had been filming Outlander near Loch Rannoch for a few days, among the magical setting of standing stones that the main character Claire travels through, back to Scotland in 1745. I had spent my 35th birthday on the side of a mountain, filming a ‘picnic’ in the driving rain and fog, and even the bannock we had to eat was soggy. Dreich and damp as we were, it felt momentous, remarkable even, the ever-changing summit of Schiehallion standing like an extinct volcano, cloud continuously masking then briefly revealing her sharp peak, the magical backdrop to our scene.

I looked towards where I knew our crew would be working, at least a kilometre down, in the valley. The wind was getting stronger but the snow had eased. As if in answer, the cloud briefly parted allowing me to see down the long sweep of the valley to a silver-grey loch in the distance. I could make out the circle of trees that marked the location of the standing stones, the cherry picker cranes carrying the enormous lights that pretend to be a dim Scottish sun. I even spotted a few black figures, unrecognisable in wet weather gear, moving slowly around. The crew would be cold and wet and only halfway through their day and I felt so fortunate to have the time off. As quickly as they had parted, the clouds closed again and I was alone. It was time to get down, in case the weather got worse and I lost my way.

Schiehallion - fairy hill of the Caledonians. Castail Abhail - castle of the fork. Beinn Alligin - the jewelled mountain. Càrn Mòr Dearg - the big red cairn. These were the names that conjured the history, and mythology, that drew me first to their wild peaks, challenging me to be brave enough, daring me to uncover their secrets. Even the rivers, burns, woods, towns and meeting places have a complex history, each hidden meaning bringing new insight to the story and character of the land. The list is endless!

Returning to Scotland to shoot our TV series I fell in love again with my home country: the history and culture, the mix of language and tradition. Gaelic, as we spoke it in the show, was our main focus, but I soon realised that many names come from the Picts, the Welsh, Scots and even the Norse. The mountains to me have always felt like places to escape to, places of freedom, to discover and reach new perspectives when looking back on the journey. Climbing in rain, sun or snow (often all in one day!), one can find a new perspective on life below. It is a way to journey through time.

Walkers, film-crews and historic moments may come and go but the mountains always remain. Each of us will have a personal relationship with them, but not all go equally deep. Cameron McNeish is very much the Oracle, an t-allaban mór - the great wanderer, wise man of the Scottish hills. Someone who has not only knowledge of the Thieves Road* and crossed The Stream of the Boundary** but who has watched the sun rise above Kingussie from the summit of The Old Woman (A’ Chailleach).

Knowing this and having admired him from afar, having been obsessed with any Outdoor and Adventure related subjects, it was a dream come true when Cameron asked me to appear on the Adventure Show on TV with him. I had followed him on social media as I was becoming more active on Twitter and Instagram, great resources for information and an access to many of my idols and their achievements. Surprisingly to me, Cameron not only followed back but also sent a direct message. Hearing of my passion for the hills, he suggested that we meet for an interview to be followed by an article.

I had created My Peak Challenge the year before, now nearing 10,000 subscribers, it is a healthy lifestyle and activity charity fundraiser. The idea came from wanting to share my love of the Outdoors, challenging oneself to reach new peaks and discover new horizons. Our community, or ‘Peakers’ have accomplished so much, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity, formed new friendships, lost weight, gained mobility, discovered new skills and increased confidence. It’s a global movement, with scalable programs to suit everyone, with members from every walk of life, including: Olympic athletes, expectant mothers, those with mobility issues and some very active tenacious pensioners. I want to share what is special to me about the mountains and the solace they give.

Throughout Cameron’s life the mountains have also been a constant presence, his sanctuary and retreat. They were and are a proving ground, providing an anchor, source of adventure and discovery. Yet there is much more to his life, of course: his enduring marriage to Gina, their children and grandchildren, a deep connection with earlier writers such as WH Murray and Tom Weir, a video record of the highlands - that will surely be a treasured archive to future historians. Cameron has written many books and magazine articles sharing his great knowledge, his vocal commitment to Scottish independence, athletics and leadership. This book is an insight to the driving force, the man, behind all this productivity. Yet at the heart of it and the centre of him, there is always the hills . . .

In this book, his keenly anticipated autobiography, we get a glimpse of his journey, his indelible marriage to the mountains - a distant ridge of snow covered peaks, revealed briefly through the clouds.

Sam Heughan

+ The bird after which this ridge is named is described by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds as a plump gamebird, slightly larger than a grey partridge, that breeds in the highest mountains of the Highlands of Scotland on the Arctic like landscape there.

* (Rathad nam Mèirleach)

** (Allt na Crìche - between Strathspey and Deeside)

Introduction

The film producer Samuel Goldwyn once said he didn’t think anyone should write their autobiography until after they were dead. It’s also been claimed that a definition of an autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last instalment missing. So, given that I’m still relatively hale and hearty I might argue against this story of mine being described as a pure autobiography and, as I have done in so many aspects of my life, will happily follow in the footsteps of my old friend Tom Weir who once suggested that his own story was more of an ‘autobiography of sorts’.

More importantly, if you’ll excuse the religious parallels, the following chapters represent more of a book of thanksgiving, my way of saying thanks to the dozens, if not hundreds of individuals who have influenced aspects of my life, a life that has been shaped by so many into a journey that has allowed me to follow my dreams, and none more so than the late Chris Brasher.

From my own days in track and field athletics, I was well aware of Chris’ achievements – a vital pace-maker when Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes; 1956 Olympic champion in the 3000 metres steeplechase; founder of the hugely successful London Marathon; and along with John Disley, the man who was largely responsible for introducing orienteering to the shores of the UK – but Chris Brasher was also an enthusiastic and entrepreneurial mountaineer and hillwalker.

He had been a member of various international climbing expeditions and, during his time as head of outside broadcasts at the BBC, produced and presented the incredibly popular Old Man of Hoy climb in Orkney with a stellar cast of climbers including Dougal Haston, Joe Brown, Chris Bonington, Tom Patey and others.

I first met Chris when the Ministry of Defence tried to buy the Knoydart Peninsula in the early eighties. I was in the early days of my writing career and he quickly enlisted my help in publicising the situation, a state of affairs that became the genesis of the Knoydart Foundation which, in turn, spawned the well-known wild land charity, the John Muir Trust.

In the following years, I came to know Chris very well and we enjoyed plenty of great hill days together in the Lake District and in various parts of Scotland, so he was an obvious choice when I had to choose guests for my first BBC2 television series WildernessWalks in 1996. The idea was that we’d take a multi-day walk in the Cairngorms and discuss how wild landscapes had affected his life and career. Shortly after he arrived in Aviemore to begin the walk Chris asked if we minded if he disappeared for a day during the week. Further to all his other interests he and his wife Shirley owned several race horses and that week one of his horses was due to run at Punchestown near Dublin. He was keen to see it perform.

As you can imagine, this posed considerable problems for our filming schedule, but director Richard Else came up with a plan. He would hire a helicopter to take all of us, the whole five-man crew, across to Dublin for the day. We would film Chris and me going to the races and use it as part of the production. Initially all went well. The helicopter picked us up at Glenmore Lodge near Aviemore, we flew the length of the Kintyre Peninsula and across to Northern Ireland and then along the Irish coast to Dublin and Punchestown. Brasher was in his element, showing off to his horse racing friends. It’s not every day you arrive at a race meeting in a helicopter with a television crew following your every move, not unless you’re the Queen or a very rich Middle-Eastern Sheik.

I put a tenner on Chris’ horse, the first and only horse racing bet I’ve ever made – I had to ask Chris how you went about it – and we wandered to the stand for a better view. All the time I was wondering why Chris hadn’t put money on his own horse. We got into position midway up the stand, with my old friend Duncan McCallum operating the camera and a young Keith Partridge (long before he became a well-known adventure cameraman) recording the sound, and it wasn’t long before the horses were paraded out, lithe, muscled and shining in the afternoon sun. Chris pointed out his own mount, appropriately named Mister Boots, and then they were off.

The least I expected was a decent race after all the effort it had taken to get there, but the gambling gods decided otherwise. Brasher’s horse fell at the very first hurdle.

It was a disaster. With his jockey dismounted, poor old Mister Boots took off and was last seen galloping in the direction of County Kildare. I half expected Chris to be distraught but he simply shrugged his shoulders, gave a wan smile and said, ‘Ah well, there’s always the hills.’

It’s a simple notion, pure escapism if you like, but I sense there’s something deeper than mere escapism in the idea of returning to the comforting bosom of Mother Nature. For as long as I can remember, that has been my panacea for times of disappointment or grief. The hills have always been my salvation.

As a young international long-jumper, I was very disappointed not to make the team for the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1970. I took myself away from the sports stadium to the summit of Arthur’s Seat, that wonderful old volcano that dominates our capital city, and gazed across the Firth of Forth to Fife and the Highland hills beyond. Up there, with the skylarks singing, life felt less dark and gloomy.

I remember climbing a hill called Beinn Fhionnlaidh a few days after my mother’s funeral. As with many people when a parent passes away I was overcome by a sense of guilt – I should have done more for her, I should have visited her more often, I wasn’t as good a son to her as I could have been – a guilt list that I guess was largely unjustified, created by grief, sadness and a profound sense of loss. In considerable mental turmoil, I took to the hills and chose a rather isolated Munro. Beinn Fhionnlaidh lies between the great sea lochs of Loch Creran and Loch Etive and is a long whaleback of a mountain that rises fairly gently from the wooded flatlands at the head of Loch Creran to a steep blunt nose overlooking the densely forested slopes of Glen Etive. I knew from previous experience that the hill’s summit not only felt appreciably shy and retiring, as the old guidebooks would have it, but was positively misanthropic.

I made my way past some old shielings and onto the lower bracken-covered slopes of this north-north-east ridge where an argocat track gave me a line to follow, all the way up the ridge to a high corrie below the steep rocky slopes of Fhionnlaidh’s north-west top. Some steep scrambling took me through a band of crags to the stony summit ridge and over a couple of rises to the summit itself, with its small cairn. My arrival at the cairn coincided with a rain shower so it was no place to linger, but as the shower abated on my descent the long views began to appear, out the length of Loch Creran to Loch Linnhe and the Sound of Mull. I could see the Paps of Jura and Ben More on Mull and, closer at hand, the Corbett of Fraochaidh and the twin tops of Beinn a’ Bheithir dominating the forested pass that runs from Elleric to Ballachulish.

Moments like these are special. It’s when you tend to feel most insignificant, especially when compared to the lasting reality of wide open skies, mountains and forests. It’s when you realise that our human lifespans are a mere flicker in the geological sense of time. As I looked out across that dimming horizon I felt a growing sense of peace, an awareness of my own destiny and a realisation that my dear mother was now free from pain and turmoil. It was a cathartic moment.

There have been lots of these liberating moments in my life. When I was in my forties a hill-running accident (I tripped and fell down a crag) left me with a broken wrist, a broken ankle and forty stitches in my head. During my period of convalescence, I was aware that I was becoming depressed. I wasn’t sleeping well, I had become short tempered and comparatively slight setbacks cast me into a slough of despond. I wasn’t a very nice person to live with. While I was thankful to be alive, it wasn’t until I was well enough to limp out into the forest on crutches that I began to feel a mental improvement. I recognised almost immediately the healing nature of this kind of exposure to the natural world and those short excursions into the forest quickly became a crucial element in my recuperation.

In these early years of the twenty-first century, political events sometimes move so fast, and often in the strangest ways, that it’s very easy to feel alienated and ultimately stressed. We become aware that other people govern and control large portions of our lives, and some of these people (usually remote politicians) make decisions that directly affect us, whether we like it or not. Many of the daily schedules that we adhere to are not of our own making but are imposed on us by others. In our capitalist society we are urged, and sometimes compelled, to work harder and harder, not for our own personal satisfaction but to satisfy the unquenchable thirst for profitability of those faceless folk we call shareholders. We live in a technological world that appears to be moving faster and faster and, if we can’t keep up with the pace, society will find a robot to do our job for us. It’s scary and it’s no small wonder more and more of us want to cry out, ‘Stop and let me get off!’

In distant times people lived their lives in fear of invoking the wrath of the gods. Today we live in fear of upsetting shareholders, or the handful of individuals who keep a tight rein on our media outlets.

Over the years I’ve slowly become more and more aware that the foundation of my love for Scotland has become a blend of Scotland’s glorious landscapes, our history and culture and the rich diversity of people who live here.

Nationalism and patriotism are complex issues and I don’t really want to get into that argument here, but the truth of the matter is that my connection with Scotland, especially wild Scotland, will always remain beyond and above politics.

The first time I experienced this sense of connection was on a youthful three-day trip on the Isle of Skye. Having reached the jagged crest of our toughest hills, the Cuillin, I experienced such a combination of ecstasy and relief that I could exalt in the wild surroundings in a way that could only be described as euphoric. In that heightened state it became clear to me that for the first time in my life I felt at one with the mountain. I wasn’t simply a visitor casually climbing some scree and rock – I felt I was part and parcel of the fabric of the mountain, the rock, air, water and light. For the first time I experienced a sense of kinship with that wild and inhospitable landscape. I had connected with the mountain and, in a sense, transcended my own being. It’s all to do with belonging and kinship, a sense of home and familiarity, like sitting down in an old armchair by your fireside and feeling at ease with the world. It’s not a bad place to escape to from time to time.

Today I rejoice in the fact that I can escape the constant barrage of negative news and ease myself into that comfortable chair, dram in hand, and enjoy those things that are wholly Scottish and mean a lot to me – listening to the haunting songs and fiddle music of friends like Julie Fowlis or Duncan Chisholm, reading or re-reading some of the old Scots classics like Sunset Song or George Mackay Brown’s Greenvoe, or I can take to the hills and connect with their timelessness, immerse myself in their beauty and majesty and wonder again at the contrasting insignificance of man.

The Harvard sociobiologist E. O. Wilson once wrote, ‘Wilderness settles peace on the soul because it needs no help. It is beyond human contrivance.’ Beyond human contrivance. I like that, and I’ve discovered throughout the years that there is something fundamentally satisfying in those things that have not been manufactured or created by man: the song of a blackbird, the scoldings of a red squirrel in the pines above you, the magnificence of the Aurora Borealis. These are things that have always been, things of eternal value.

This book is essentially about a journey, a long and winding route from the backstreets of the South Side of Glasgow to the wild places and hills of Scotland and some of the mountains of the world where I’ve been fortunate enough to live out a dream. I’ve been living that dream for over forty years.

There have been many signposts along that route, often pointing in different directions, but the one element that has kept me to the true path is simply this – no matter what life throws at me, there’s always the hills.

Go and enjoy them while you can, before age and infirmity rob you. Love them and respect them and they will be kind to you, offering far more than you can give. Inhale deeply and allow the purity of the mountain air to bless you: run the rivers and explore the forests. Hug a tree or two. Contemplate the longevity of these wild places and compare it with our own brief flicker. Sit still and hear the silence or strike a rhythm to the music in a mountain stream and above all consider yourself a part of it all. You are not a stranger here and you are not an outsider. You belong here. And when you are living life in that other world to which you also belong, if things should appear dark, or gloomy, or sad or when plans go awry, just remember  . . .there’s always the hills.

1

Govan to Goat Fell

Winter arrived overnight with a flurry of mischievous wind, suddenly turning the ochres and russets of autumn into a world of pallid white. At a stroke, the fields and lanes around the village turned curiously unfamiliar and a deep hush fell over the woods. On the outskirts of the village, where ordered gardens give way to moorland scrub and grassy hollows, the white blanket had silenced the chatter of the streams and the only sound to be heard was that of a surprised blackbird, grumbling at the sudden loss of food and water. It was cold but the rising sun brought an illusion of warmth as it cast a golden glow across the delicate whorls and ripples of the snow surface, each tiny, unique snow crystal reflecting the light in a way that both twinkled and dazzled. The patterns of wind-blown snow ebbed and flowed, sometimes in great curves of drift, at other times in straight corrugated lines. Each fence post was topped by a white powder puff and drystone walls stood black and defiant against the white shroud.