Of Bens, Glens and Rambling Auld Men

Book excerpt: This starts with the early post WWII years when Robert and Gordon, as young men, were first attracted to the outdoors. They hiked and climbed in the mountains of the Scottish Highlands and often slept in caves, barns, bothies and tents in both summer and winter. They made friends and climbed with many of the emerging group of mainly working class rock climbers who were pioneering ascents of the cliffs and gullies in Glencoe and Ben Nevis at that time. Their week-end adventures had them ranging across the wild moors, glens and mountains in all seasons and in all weathers. As the years passed, their lives changed. One became a youth hostel warden in N.W. Scotland, later becoming a gamekeeper and ghillie on an estate in Assynt. The other went overseas as a teacher, first to Algeria then to Saudi Arabia and finally Brunei S.E. Asia, where he stayed for nearly thirty years. The two men lost touch with each other for over forty years. At that point they met again and, while re-calling their youthful ramblings and catching up on one another’s later adventures, came to realise the uniqueness of their lives. From these two kinds of rambling comes this fascinating book.