Hi Tricia,
You mentioned Helmsdale, Tricia, so I took the liberty of looking at your profile, which says Highlands but that just makes me more curious as to whether or not you still live in the Helmsdale area.
I find it odd that your post brought such a flood of memories and emotions; ie, My own father's stories of virtually living on Loch Leven in the 30's depression, initially intended to remove one mouth for his mother to feed but which became an essential source of food for the family and the neighbouring elderly and children. He lived on the loch for 2 years before going off to work on the Hydro schemes. Aged 16, the experience marked him as a fighter against hunger, need and inequality for the rest of his life:
A thought that leapt to mind almost simultaneously was someone from up your way, Neill M Gunn, and his novel "Highland River" and the haunting allegory of memory being like a poaching trip where the hunt is more important than the quarry. Understandably so when you consider that his family were victims of the Sutherland's brutality during the clearance of their ancestral homeland, Strathnaver, I believe.
For him, a by-gone, mythical age, although within living memory.
The Foreword to "Highland River", written to his brother in Flanders during WWI,
Dear John,
This can hardly be the description of our Highland River that you anticipated when, lying on our backs in a green strath, we idly talked the idea over. Certainly it is not the description I anticipated myself. Some ancestral instinct, at first glimpse of the river, must have taken control and set me off on a queerer hunt than we have yet tackled. Or am I now trying to cover up the spoor? You will early recognise that though there is no individual biography here, every incident may have had its double. Some of the characters seem to have strayed in from Morning Tide under different names. I cannot explain this odd behaviour - apart from the old desire to be in on the hunt in any disguise. However, if only I could get you to see the hunt as a poaching expedition to the source of delight we got from a northern river, I feel that you might not be altogether disappointed should you come back (as we have so often done in our time) with an empty bag.
With brotherly affection,
Neil.
You've probably read Gunn's work but if not I'd recommend it as a tonic.
A far cry from shooting from a 4X4 or a can of Cymag in the river!
Thanks again Tricia.
