The Lomond Hills

Falkland Hill from West Lomond, winter 2015

 

When I thought of doing a blog about an artist in the Scottish Hills I wasn't sure which hills to start with. Then I thought  "start at the beginning", so it had to be the Lomonds of Fife.

 

I have a special affection for the Paps, as they are known locally. It was on these modest hills and the nearby Ochils that I first ventured as a teenager. This was at a time when four young lads from Liverpool were climbing not the hills, but the pop charts.

 

I was a member of Kinghorn Scout troop and four of us were doing the hikers badge. We were now on the second hike, still only ten miles. Now ten miles is hardly a days walk but there was a catch. We had to camp out and cook a hot meal which meant carrying everything on our backs. I had been apprehensive about this hiking lark and didn't know if I'd be able to cope with the heavy load.

When we returned we had to submit individual reports with times, points of interest, map references, list of kit carried, food eaten and hand drawn sketch maps. These short strolls seemed, in fact, quite daunting.

 

I had prepared for this, not by doing press ups and going jogging but by cutting a stout ash staff from my fathers smallholding and giving it a coat of varnish. This, I imagined, was an essential support for a young explorer. We started from sleepy Scotlandwell which lies below Bishop Hill and looks over 

 



The artist as a young hiker.  Bistre ink drawing. 29 x 42 cms.

 

Loch Leven. The mist was hugging the Bishop as we trudged through Kinneswood. Walking on main roads was always a pain but in those days, away from the main routes, traffic was light and slower than it is today.

We were an odd ragbag of ex-army rucksacks, leather shoes and work boots, cycle capes, frying pans, bulging kapok sleeping bags, a moth eaten tent with wooden poles, string vests and odd bits of Scout uniform. We even carried and wore, at night, the essential for a serious explorer, pyjamas. I also had my staff, a great help on steep, rough slopes. 

We turned right at Wester Balgedie and walked along a minor road then took an old track to the ruins of Glenvale farm. The pasture and farmland was below us as we contoured round the rough slopes to the mouth of Glenvale. John Knox's pulpit was a surprise. This is a weathered sandstone outcrop that was reputedly used by preachers in the Reformation days



Glenvale  with John Knox's Pulpit bottom left. West Lomond rises above and
Falkland Hill on the right. The track is new. Photo 2016

We dumped our kit beside a stream and in a second Jimmy was lying on his belly with his sleeves rolled up guddling for trout. The rest of us tried but with little success. Jimmy, however, was an expert and soon had several small trout flapping on the short grass. Someone said,

"Get the frying pan!"
"But there's no wood." 
All eyes turned on my staff.
"Get Dougies stick"

Before I could stop them the stick was unceremoniously broken into short lengths to feed the dry grass and heather that was used as tinder. The fish tasted brilliant but I was aggrieved and secretly mourned my stick.

The meal was meagre but tasty and revelling in this success of living of the land we walked on in high spirits. Then the mist came down. We camped beside a ruin in a place we knew not where and searched for wood. There was little of that and that little, damp. Then the heavens opened and we were engulfed in a downpour. Because of this the tea was tepid, the beans cold and someone,(who refused to confess) sat on and squashed the Scotch pies.

Lessons however, had been learned. Before our next hike Josh produced a large, pint Primus stove.
This was a muckle hunk of brass which he seemed personally quite happy to carry, as well as the tent. Although at first suspicious of this temperamental monster on a full tank it would roar away for hours. I found that smaller versions were available. I saved up pocket money and from Frank's ex army in Kirkcaldy bought a shiny, new, half pint Optimus stove. This fitted neatly in an old tea tin my mother gave me and in the side pocket of my rucksack. The other pocket carried a green, ex- army pint paraffin tin. The problem of cooking in the treeless Scottish uplands had been solved.

Another problem, however, had not. A month later we started on a two night, twenty mile hike from Milnathort. I remember unloading large rucksacks from a crowded bus into the narrow street which was choked with crawling traffic and diesel fumes. The new Forth Road bridge was under construction but the main route north to Perth still lay through the narrow and congested choke points of Kinross and Milnathort. 



Optimus No 96 stove. Still works. 

The plan was to walk west along the Stirling road then turn north at Carnbo, crossing the Ochils over the shoulder of Innerdounnie Hill. This would take us down to a track that followed the Water of May north east to Pathstruie, then back to Milnathort. We had stopped for a lunch break among some trees when the sky grew black. As we plodded up the hill we were engulfed in a fierce, summer storm. Capes were suddenly blown over our heads and kit and clothes soaked. Visibility was reduced to a few yards and Josh tried to navigate with a Bakelite compass, army marching. We all knew how to read maps but none of us knew how to take a map to compass bearing. The truth was that all we had to do was keep going north and this would take us over the ridge and down to the Water of May. Unfortunately by this time we were cold, wet and a little confused. Josh seemed to loose confidence in the compass and he was the oldest and brainiest among us. When I look at the map now it's obvious that he summit of the ridge is a wide, boggy plateau, (now forested) and it was the lack of  land marks that confused us. We expected to be going downhill but now floundered around, wandering one way into the mist then another, arguing and getting annoyed with each other. It was Hoss who noticed the wind had changed, a sure sign that we were going off in the wrong direction. A drystone dyke loomed out of the gloom and like sheep, we followed that. The mist parted once to reveal a dark, steep valley, much steeper the we expected it to be. We peeled off to our left down a safer slope and were soon among pasture and
livestock. A white farmhouse loomed out of the mist. Josh chapped at the door.





Compass, magnetic marching Mk 1
with modern Silva type.

                                                                                
 "Sorry to bother you. We're Scouts on a hike. Could you tell us

   which farm this is please?"

   "Och aye," said the wifie, "This is Braughtie farm."

   "My god! That's impossible."

    "What's wrong?"

    "We've been walking for hours but we're less than a mile from
   
where we started from. We've walked round in a complete circle."

The farm lady pointed out a place we could camp by a burn and some trees. We were much subdued but put up a washing line to dry out our clothes. Next day, after a late start, we climbed over the ridge in bright sunshine and made up for lost time.

After these expeditions I would lie in a bath and soak my sore feet and shoulders. I was still a growing lad and was usually exhausted for a few days afterwards. Slowly my enthusiasm would return. When I had the money I would buy maps, preferably the linen, one inch Ordnance Survey variety. I would study the hill areas closely. I had begun to understand how it feels to climb closely packed contours, the best point to ford a stream or where a good spot to camp might be. I began to plan my own expeditions.

The Devils Burdens. Mixed media on paper. 41 x 59 cms. Falkland Hill is on the left  with the Firth of Forth
and the Bass Rock on the horizon.



The winter that followed was one of the coldest on record. It snowed just before Christmas and the land was gripped by a bitter frost till the beginning of March. By February I was desperate to get out so took a bus to Falkland and climbed Falkland Hill. It was a hard slog up the steep slope, sometimes walking confidently on deep, hard snow then plunging thigh deep in drifts.  It was hot work as the sun beat down with not a breath of wind or a cloud in the sky. The visibility from the summit was poor, however, as the land was smothered by a frost mist. The view was more arctic than the usual lush arable of Fife and Kinross. I was excited by the amount of snow as I had never seen so much in my life before. I was able to walk over dykes and young trees where only the tops of needles poked through. I was unexpectedly stopped in my tracks when I came to the hill road. There was an impressive ditch ten foot deep cut by council roadmen through an enormous drift. It was only one car wide but I declined to jump it and found a longer but safer way round. The reservoirs were completely frozen and covered in deep snow. I crossed the dam and made heavy going till I came to tractor tracks which made for easier walking on my way down to Leslie. 

With these and other little expeditions I became fitter and grew in confidence on the hills. I read everything I could get my hands on of the limited selection of mountaineering books in the local library. I was desperate to get to grips with bigger hills but was constrained by lack of money and transport. I was still at school and hopefully, with time, the opportunities would come.