Nancy Smith's bunkhouse at Fersit

[Poocini]

Hello All,

Was just curious if anyone has any recollections of the place that Nancy Smith used to have at Fersit? I've got a very,very vague recollection of staying there as a wee boy with my dad, but I'm struggling to recall anything about it, beyond that it felt a bit 'Little House on the Prairie'...or, at least, it did to my young sensibilities!
There seems to be very little about it on the Internet, other than a photo or two of the outside. I think my parents may have gone back there at some point in the 90's, although if it was it, I recall they said that it was just her son that was there then.

Any details greatly received!

Thanks.

Stuart.

[Cairngormwanderer]

Was only ever there once. It was indeed a little house on the prairie. No electric and basically two rooms: a living room with a log-burning stove and a sleeping room with wooden bunks - not all of them in one piece by the time I was there. I can't remember about a kitchen or about the toilet facilities. There was a door in the livingroom which led through to Nancy's own part of the building.
The time I was there she had just come back from a trekking trip to Morocco (she must have been at least in her 70s by this time). We chatted to her about her lifestyle there at Fersit. She didn't miss not having a telly; she said she had a radio - although she seldom listened to it. She didn't drive and there was no bus service there, but once a week she got a lift from a neighbour who took her into Fort William, where she got her messages and then hung about for the day until her friend was going home, when she'd get a lift again.
Struck me as a remarkable woman, but not a lifestyle I think I'd have opted for.

[Robinho08]

Before my time, but Peter Kemp talks about Nancy's a lot in his book: Buy Of Big Hills and Wee Men.

[Poocini]

Before my time, but Peter Kemp talks about Nancy's a lot in his book: Buy Of Big Hills and Wee Men.

Thanks. I'll see if I can track down a copy.

Was only ever there once. It was indeed a little house on the prairie. No electric and basically two rooms: a living room with a log-burning stove and a sleeping room with wooden bunks - not all of them in one piece by the time I was there. I can't remember about a kitchen or about the toilet facilities. There was a door in the livingroom which led through to Nancy's own part of the building.
The time I was there she had just come back from a trekking trip to Morocco (she must have been at least in her 70s by this time). We chatted to her about her lifestyle there at Fersit. She didn't miss not having a telly; she said she had a radio - although she seldom listened to it. She didn't drive and there was no bus service there, but once a week she got a lift from a neighbour who took her into Fort William, where she got her messages and then hung about for the day until her friend was going home, when she'd get a lift again.
Struck me as a remarkable woman, but not a lifestyle I think I'd have opted for.

Is it just me, or was there a lot more characters like that a decades ago? Or are they still there, but they're just hidden in plain view because there's a lot more people on the hills now, albeit certain hills?

The reason I ask is because I spent *a lot* of my early childhood in the Campsies, especially camping around the cairn area in the Finn Glen, you always saw a few people out and about, and most of them were (and I use this term affectionately!) oddballs. My brother and I were up there a few years back, once as reccy and once to spread my dad's ashes, and we didn't see another soul on either occasion. Is it a dearth, or is it that everyone (including the oddballs!) have moved to sexier areas due to ease of transport now?

[Dave Hewitt]

Fasgadh - meaning shelter, I think - was a fantastic place, much missed. There's probably no close comparison in terms of current options when staying in the Highlands. It tended to be styled as an independent hostel, but was more like a bothy with facilities. I stayed there quite a few times from the mid-80s to the early 90s, and always enjoyed it. There was a main building but also a rather ramshackle collection of sheds and caravans with bunks fitted - I'm not sure how many it slept in all, but it felt like quite a lot. The main building had a communal room with an open fire, and of course there were cooking facilities too.

Perhaps the most striking thing was simply that it was always open, even if - as was quite often the case - Nancy wasn't there. You were trusted to behave yourself and to leave the fee in a box next to the visitors' book, and the money box wasn't chained up or anything - everything was on trust, good oldfashioned hospitality. The obvious comparison for those active in the hills at the time was with Gerry Howkins' hostel at Craig (happily still in existence and now run by his son after Gerry's death in 2015), and there were indeed considerable similarities although the main difference, as far as I and a fair few others were concerned, was that Nancy wasn't difficult in the way that Gerry could be. I know of several people - including regulars - who stopped going to Gerry's because it felt a bit too random in terms of his behaviour, but I don't know of anyone who stopped going to Nancy's. Both places were tremendous ports in a storm however, and both were well used.

I'm not exactly sure when Nancy died and Fasgadh closed, but I think she died around 1994 or 1995 and although the place struggled on for a wee while courtesy of family members it fairly soon closed and now very little sign of it remains - the actual house is there but the outbuildings have gone and it's no longer a hostel. These were pre-internet days of course, and also - certainly back in the mid-1980s - pre-guidebook days in terms of the Munros. People who stayed at Fasgadh tended to be quietly competent and much more capable of planning their own routes and hill outings than often now seems to be the case, and (in the rosy glow of happy retrospection) the hill world felt better for it.

I've never been the greatest fan of bothy singalongs late into the night, but my main abiding and happy memory of staying at Nancy's was of a snowy weekend in (I think) the winter of 1990-91 when Dave MacFadzean and Jack Foley were in residence, both very interesting characters, and at some stage after a long hill day Dave MacF sang Shoals of Herring very beautifully.

There were other great visits and great nights too. Everyone I've ever met who spent time there speaks fondly of the place, and of Nancy herself. I believe, for example, that the poster known as Fasgadh on this forum takes his name from similar happy memories of Nancy's hostel.

[Cairngormwanderer]

Is it just me, or was there a lot more characters like that a decades ago? Or are they still there, but they're just hidden in plain view because there's a lot more people on the hills now, albeit certain hills?

The 'real' characters are always in the past. It can be risking a punch in the neb or even a court appearance to call a contemporary an oddball or to tell tales of his/her idiosyncrasies. And some 'characters' are best appreciated in their absence too. I can think of several people of whom great stories are told, but who are not the most cherished company in a bothy or on a hill. And some really aren't that different to you and me, but a couple of stories get told and embellished, they disappear from the scene (death or a change of interest), and gradually they 'become' characters from that mythical past when things were so much more exciting than they are now.
I've been around for so long that I've lived through a good bit of mythical past and it wasn't always as fun and exciting as people think - at least not all the time. The past has had its moments, but when you look back you only recall the greatest hits and forget the album-fillers.
As for the present day? That's only the nascent past, so enjoy it as much as you can, so that in years to come, when someone says "Those were the days" you can nod and smile and say "Damned right they were!"

[walkingpoles]

If you can't spot the oddball, chances are it's you

Stay a night in Craig. If you don't know the father, the son will not disappoint you. I'm looking forward to my next stay.

On my last trip I shared a bothy with a flatearther who looked like a homeless guru preaching karma without stopping (in case it's you, take it as a compliment). Inverie is also good for encountering characters (and as in the good old past, you can see yourself to a bed, if the manager is not in).

[Chris Henshall]

I stayed at Nancy's a number of times during winter climbing trips in the mid-1980s, mainly because it was located halfway between The Ben and Creag Meagaidh. My mind could be playing tricks but I have a vague notion that some of the accommodation was in an old railway carriage? I certainly remember hearing trains rolling past on the adjacent line at odd times in the early hours of the morning. At any rate, the place was always open, anyone else staying there was always very friendly and, as others have observed, the management was less eccentric than at Gerry's!

[Caberfeidh]

I remember going past the house some years ago (nearly twenty years ago now I come to think on it) and it was pointed out to me as Nancy Smith's, which I had read about but never visited. I think we often 'borrow' other people's nostalgia, and forget that we should be building good times now to look back on later in our lives, rather than long for such things as were enjoyed by previous generations. I forsee a chain of Walkhighlands bunkhouses throughout the highlands, where folk will sing old sea shanties into the early hours, before drawing straws to decide who gets devoured by the others...

We used to dream o' livin' in't cardboard box...

[Bothybob]

I stayed in Nancy's many years ago and despite it being rough and ready it had a great atmosphere and character
I purchased a Sherpa hat from Nancy who knitted them and I still have mine
Not many people know that her husband was Dan Smith DFC who was warden at Glen Doll Youth Hostel for many a year, another character

[Sgurr]

Didn't know she was married to Dan Smith, who daughter and I met when we cycled to Glen Doll to see if we could manage cycling across Scotland. I have a vague recollection of some sort of argument ....something to do with tea towels. I know that either English or Scottish YHs expected you to bring your own, so people who had experienced one culture got annoyed in the other. Those who had never brought their own just bagged other peoples assuming these are the ones supplied. And those who were used to bringing their own were also used to hiding them and then got accused of stealing communal property. .

[Sunset tripper]

A bit off topic but was Fersit not the place where a high ranking nazi prisoner of war was kept?

[dt27348]

I believe Rudolph Hess was held at Inverlair which is in the same area. Mentioned in Hamish’s Mountain Walk by Hamish Brown.

[SummitStupid]

This is a fantastic thread, carry on everyone.

[Caberfeidh]

One time I was there Loch Treig had been drained of much of its water to allow maintenance work on the dam. A crannog was revealed, a great heap of rocks and silt with logs sticking out - the logs which had been cut a couple of thousand years ago and had been preserved in the fresh water. Iwandered over the dried loch bed to have a look, it was quite an intricately built structure. I do not believe Rudolph Hess , nor any other nazis, were ever held in the crannog. But I knew a man who had been in the Black Watch in the 1960s and had been a guard at Bauhaus where Hess was kept. And I used to go out with a bonnie lass from Eaglesham where Hess crash-landed his plane.