From Goatfell to Tinto

No, it’s not the latest long distance walk, but both are landmarks on the horizon from the recently denuded slopes of Side Hill.  After gazing longingly on the summit, noting the hard core track that means tramping through the heather and bog is a thing of the past, we finally managed to find a window in the weather and the chores to take a wander in the crisp air on the cusp of spring.

Before the road was out of sight a trio of roe deer bounced across the moor, below the tree line.  They stopped, motionless, only their heads rising above the grasses and the shrubs, unseen if you had missed their movement moments earlier.  Perhaps they had been driven to lower levels with the higher slopes now being shorn of trees, and of shelter.

Pockets of snow remained, and in the drainage ditches the water trickled slowly under and around the remaining ice, as the road meandered through the remaining stand of seriously tall mature timber.  Slowly the undergrowth was recovering from the brutal slashing for the access route.  Reeds evidenced the need for ditches; new shoots were slowly taking the form of the spruce, already layered with a few years of growth.

But the upper slopes were bare, forested only with stumps, and the residue of deforestation.  In the past there have been occasional sightings of adders on these slopes.  Aside from those deer we saw nothing, and heard little.  The return through the trees was accompanied by some birdsong, settling as the sun lowered.

On reaching the higher levels the absence of trees opens new horizons.  We rise far above the granite plug of Loudoun, and its impact on the landscape fades from the familiar, and dominating, views down below, so it is the snow-pocked ridge of Goat Fell that draws the eye.  Then Cairn Table down Muirkirk way catches the sun; and swinging to the south we find Tinto, basking, snowless, despite being the highest by some distance.

To view those horizons though you have are hard pushed to find a line of sight devoid of turbines.  The access to Side Hill, and on to Dungavel, was dictated by the need to site a baker’s dozen; the view to Cairn Table is through and above the Banked turbines.  There are pockets in every direction, near and far.  And along the whole horizon to the north lies Whitelee, where they seem to breed.

Our wander on the hill gave us one distant view of another walker.  As yet the cyclists are absent, probably at Whitelee where they are positively encouraged and have 80km of hard core routes to play on.  From the higher levels I spotted a track up to Mill Rigg, and there is another access route there for the Bankend turbines.  In my 20 years here I have yet to take that path, to wander along to the wreckage of the Spitfire that rots and rusts.  I am minded that I haven’t opened a flask of soup in Dungavel’s cairn since the dawning of the millennium.  But those slopes of Dungavel and of Mill Rigg are still encased in spruce; and I’m beginning to think that returning our hills to the natural is making for a better horizon, even if it is peppered with windmills.

I reckon that Side Hill might just be a regular path for us, chores  and weather permitting of course.

 

John Aitchison is one of these guys we marvel at from time to time; his name appears in the credits on, amongst others, Frozen Planet.  He travels to far flung parts toting a mountain of camera equipment, and a battered old hide.  He films wildlife, brilliantly.

In The Shark And The Albatross we find that he can write beautifully too, as he takes us with him to those distant parts.  The front cover is a stunning shot, captured in the lens after endless patience, waiting, watching.

But it is the stories behind those shots, of being in those places, watching nothing much at all, that make this such a grand read.  There are hot places too, as we follow the Yellowstone wolves, or ride elephants in the Bandhavgarh jungle looking for the remaining tigers.

The cold takes us to the far north, and to the deep south.  In Svalbard the bears contend with the disappearing ice.  In the isles around Antarctica we watch colonies of different penguins deal with the same issue.  Then we head to the frozen continent itself, to the ice shelf, and the emperors.

Aitchison sets tough targets.  He doesn’t want to see the beasts themselves.  He wants to catch them hunting, being hunted; that first flight.  He is at his best when there is nothing to see, when he listens, for hours on end, unable to move.

It is a business that means vast amounts of time away from the family, from those milestones we have with our children, and our elderly in their final years.  One of the finest photos in the book was taken by son Rowan, and the story of how he got it is as inspiring as anything Rowan’s father achieved, as Scottish otters take their place with the elusive at the ends of the earth.

Here’s a few of Aitchison’s words, just to whet your appetite:

Cloud shadows.  Water-dapple and dancing light.  A strip of sans, blindingly white: an island made entirely of broken coral and shells, at my feet, the sea.  This sea, the colour of glass, stacked layer upon layer: a clear and vivid green, like the eyes of a cat.  There are seven squat bushes on the island, moulded by the salt wind and decorated, like low Christmas trees, with birds called noddies.  They are terns, chocolate-coloured, evenly spaced, all facing the wind: the ever present wind.

It really is a wonderful read, and goes straight to the top of my 2016 list, where it may well remain.  Now I need to find a space in the favoured bookcases, in the front room, rather than consign it to the nature shelf. It’s that good, and some of you know the quality of my nature shelf.

Something’s Fishy

Age, as one may know, has some impact on the memory.  I had thought I had written before on both the Guga and the Nairn fishwife, but perhaps not.  Both came to mind of late.  And a favourite tie came out of the closet.

Donald S Murray, a Stornoway man, wrote  his tribute to the Men of Ness and their annual sojourn to Sula Sgeir in The Guga Hunters.  I have yet to sample that delicacy, the young gannet from the cliffs of a distant isle.  In his latest work, Herring Tales, Murray surpasses the odours of the guga, both in the harvesting and in the cooking, with the odd recipe around the heritage of the herring.

Hailing, as I do, from a long line of Ag-Labs and assorted ne’er-do-wells from the East Neuk of Fife there is occasion where a fishwife may appear in the family tree, historically of course I should add.  I had also thought I had presented a picture of the Fishwife Statue from Nairn harbour, but that too is not to be found.

In his herring quest Murray visited many of Scotland’s harbours, and plenty further afield too, for the industry covered pretty much all of the North Sea, and beyond to Iceland and the Baltic, from Netherlands to Norway.  And much of the industry mirrored the heritage of our own shores, right up until the time the klondikers anchored in the Minch and notices in cyrillic appeared on Ullapool shop fronts treating the Russians then as we treat our school-children yet – no more than two at any one time.

Much has been written of the humble herring over the years, and sung, and painted.  Murray takes us to museums and festivals.  We dip into Eyemouth, and the traditions of the Herring Queen.  And there I am minded too of another quest, long forgotten.

Legend has it that we lost family in the Eyemouth Disaster.  My attempts on the family tree some years ago, when I unearthed those doughty folk of Cellardyke and beyond, failed to find a link to the kin perishing at Eyemouth.  October of this year marks the 135th anniversary of that day when the fleet took to the waves and failed to return.  Maybe by then I will have found a trail of fishermen following the herring from one port to another, or of those fishwives taking their hardened skills down the coast, and roots being formed.

It might be one for The Genealogist, or perhaps not.  If only I could find the notes I once wrote of those that perished at Eyemouth.  Peter Aitchison’s Children of the Sea is the place to start, a book to read again.  Since I last read that I have added Daniel McIver’s An Old Time Fishing Town – Eyemouth to the collection, the original source of much of Aitchison’s researches.  There might be more there for the family quest.

Donald S Murray, in his latest work, brings all this to the fore.  He writes of times that only began to wane with the arrival of the fridge and the freezer in every household, the demise of barrels and the salt, before the herring stocks diminished.  I’ve never been partial to a bit of roll-mop, or even oatmeal coating, but it is clear that we were not alone in relying on those silver darlings in times past.

So I might read some more, Neil Gunn perhaps, I might eat some more, and I might drink some more.  If ever someone offers to open for you a can of surstromming, proclaiming it a rare treat to rival the guga, then run, very far and very fast.  Or better still, just read Murray’s description.  And the tie?  Ah well, that is where the dram comes in, produced as it is by the makers of the Maritime Malt, those good folks of Old Pulteney.  Cheers, mine’s a 10 year old.

 

One is very happy

A parcel just arrived; the result of a lengthy quest.  The regular reader may recall the delights I encountered in discovering the whimsical world of Richard Halliburton, who died tragically young when the Chinese Junk he had made failed to appear in San Francisco after setting out from Hong Kong, lost somewhere in the Pacific.

A few years ago those good folks at Tauris Parke Paperbacks re-published Halliburton’s The Flying Carpet, his tale of the exploits he and pilot Moye Stephens had in traipsing the world in a bi-plane.  Marvellous, marvellous stuff.

That led me on to reading just about everything Halliburton had written, and to sourcing the original volumes in addition to the recently published versions.  I found a biography from Gerry Max and learnt more of our intrepid traveller, including what was known of that final voyage.

But one part of his life continued to elude me.  When The Flying Carpet arrived at Timbuktu Halliburton heard of a young German flyer, a female flying solo, who had departed just ahead of him.  But he met up with Elly Beinhorn as they hopped across Persia and India and onwards to Australia.  His St Louis Blues was exchanged for her Falling In Love Again.  Adventures were had.

Elly Beinhorn wrote about her adventures, and I discovered that there had been an English translation of Alleinflug, published by Geoffrey Bles in 1935.  The Halliburton collection demanded that I track it down, besides I really wanted to read the tales of her flight round the world, as well as her thoughts on the bold Richard.

And so a quest began.  The dealers at the book fair in York shrugged; even a German dealer who made the trip had not heard of his compatriot, heroine of the skies between the wars.  Periodically, my favoured second-hand book search facilities chugged into life, but the name of Elly Beinhorn produced only nein, when tagged with English.  EBay could offer lots of photographs, or volumes in German.  Hopes rose when I posted a request and a few months later a link appeared.

But it was ex-libris, and thus plastered with all the usual stickers and stamps that confirmed a life in the library, and thus well and truly thumbed rather than cherished.  Besides the price sought reflected that someone was looking for it, and not something I would pay for a volume soiled by library use, or even a pristine copy.

Today the postie brought a parcel, and at long last that sought-after volume can take a place on the shelf beside young Elly’s fellow flyer.  According to Halliburton she mended motors as neatly as socks.  I’ll get round to reading it one day soon, and might just tell you what she had to say.  But for now I’m thrilled just to have Flying Girl in my hands, and to make a space on the shelf.

I had been passing a few idle hours on line the other night when I dipped into various book resources.  On a whim I had a look at Oxfam Books, and there, to my astonishment, the name of Elly Beinhorn produced a response, donated, the English translation, and at a very acceptable price given the rarity of this book and my long search to find it.  The Grasshopper grins, goofy, and with thanks to whoever passed it on to the charity.

Now Moye Stephens, there’s a book somewhere of his life in the cockpit…