The winners of this year's MCofS Mountain Literacy Competition have been announced, with the judges stating that the standard was high with entries including a variety of stories, styles and settings, ranging from romantic and adventurous to quietly informative.
Second place in the prose compeition went to James Cassidy’s piece Acceptance. An “autobiographical account of a hillwalker’s carreer in the mountains and some of the reasons why he goes there“. A “beautifully written, wistful, retrospective and evocative” piece. James was praised for writing a “Good story about a life’s companionships and the transition to the present is gracefully done.”
In first place, and this year’s Mountain Article prose category winner, was Tommy McManmon’s story about the People of these Glens, “A perfectly paced story about our relationship with the wilderness.” It was described as a “Welcoming imaginative piece”, which was “A pleasingly off-centre approach to this familiar theme.” with “reflections on wilderness from someone who sees it as a romantic escape and another for whom it is home”.
Second place in the poetry entries was A Mountainside on an Autumn Evening by Juliet Wilson. A “Minimalist epic in the style of Haiku “, a “Sense of quiet but imbued with suspense”. It was praised by the judges about its “simplicity” and termed “A winner”!
However, this year’s winner of the poetry competition was A hell of a walk in by Laura Alexander. “I imagine the joy of ditching 5 kilograms of coal!” “There’s the high price of getting there and then the reward: insulated by piles of bog and heather from the outside world” A poem where “every word counts, the utter ‘rightness’ of every detail in the narrative, and certainly the humour.” .The judges praised it because it was “So inviting to join in to all the sentiments” and “very evocative of personal experiences”.
The winning articles in the prose and poetry competitions can be read below. Entries are now open for the 2013 competition, the deadline is 31 August.
People of these Glens
By Tommy McManmon
(Stirling Sentimentalists Mountaineering Club)
So. I am 83 years old, and the father of Famous Author Jim McEachan. I say this because it is all people are interested in, wherever they meet me. Even in this desolate place, the young ranger looks at me with undisguised interest, purely because of those two facts.
“I have been walking at approximately one-point-five kilometres per hour for the past four hours,” I tell him.
He nods slowly, and smiles, taking in my bent frame, scrutinizing my grizzled chin emerging from under a tattered balaclava.
I continue, “This is slower than my intended pace, mainly because of the ice underfoot. I have food supplies for ten days, and an equivalent amount of cooking gas. All is going to plan.”
“Apart from your pace.”
“Yes. Apart from my pace.”
The smile slowly disappears, to be replaced by a worried frown. It looks deliberate. I am reminded of nurses who feel a duty to look concerned.
I can smell last night’s whisky on his breath. He coughs, and spits amber-coloured phlegm into the snow. “They’re talking about it being the coldest night for a decade.”
I reply with an itemised list of my equipment, including the age and cost of the modern items. This is followed by a detailed explanation of my vast expedition experience.
It works. He leaves me alone, and in the gathering gloaming I move slowly, too slowly, towards the lee of a roofless ruin by the loch.
* * *
Now. The gas is fizzing slightly. A skin of ice has formed on the cartridge, and glutinous orange soup pops and bubbles. The routine of an expedition campsite is comforting. I enjoy the smell of the canvas, the grotty discoveries of mints, five-pences, and train tickets that appear every time the tent is erected. I like the delicious dry warmth of fresh socks, and slipping into a five-season down sleeping bag. I love the feeling of lying on the ground with only a couple of centimetres of closed-cell plastic between me and the great, welcoming earth of the west highlands.
* * *
Did I fall asleep? Strange, because the tent-flap is still open for cooking duties, revealing a moonlit snow bank and the shadow of the ruin. Tiredness must be hitting me hard.
It is now that I do something very unusual.
I decide to leave the tent.
Other people leave their tents in the night as a matter of course, I am sure. For a pee, to look at the stars, to exult in the darkness of a sodium-free night. Not I. My large pee-bottle has never been filled in one go. I treat my tent as a nest to curl up in away from the blackness, hibernating until morning’s welcome glow awakes me.
I slot feet into waiting boots, pick up a walking-pole, and lever myself out of the entrance. Crunching through frozen snow, I move in front of the ruin. The brightness of the moon is startling, and reflects off the frozen surface of the loch below in a muted manner. The air feels sharp. I am breathing ice crystals, the pure coldness sliding in and out of lungs with a smoothness that I must have experienced when younger, but never appreciated at the time. The shadowed, snow-plastered mountains before me have an ethereal air of menace about them, which is strangely non-threatening.
It is as I am making a mental note to mention this unusual thought to my son, the Author, that I spot the figure at the far end of the ruin, not ten feet away. For some reason, it is hard to tell what he is wearing, despite the moonshine. He has longish curly hair, not unlike the ranger, and he is looking sideways, directly at me.
I should feel alarmed. There shouldn’t be another person within ten miles of here. I saw no tracks in the snow, and there is no other obvious way up the glen.
I don’t feel alarmed.
He gestures to a hitherto unnoticed child, a boy, aged ten or eleven, and they walk over, slowly, quietly. A hand is extended and I take it, feeling roughness and dry warmth. The boy grins up.
The man rests his hand on the boy’s head, and speaks in a clear, friendly tone. “So, your business?”
I explain about the plan, to experience wilderness in Britain, to escape the city, noise, people. This takes a while, I think, although it is hard to tell, as he is listening with obvious interest. The boy, too, is attentive.
A silence. A reply. “So, you come here to get away from folks. I hope you don’t object to our presence.”
I don’t get a chance to reply, to say no, of course not, it is a pleasure to meet them both.
He continues. “I have met your kind before. You curl up in your little houses, and move on again next morning, like traders. But you are not here to buy or sell. You are here to look at what surrounds us. I like this. It is good to appreciate the hard slope of a hill, to drink from a quenching spring. It is good that you have the time, the desire…the ability to walk, sit and sleep here.”
I wonder if this is a reference to my age.
He points to the ruin. “But think of the builders of this fine house. Look at the cornerstones, the lintel.”
His voice raises slightly. “What do you think about the people here, in your wilderness? The laughing voices as water is collected, the arguments, the shouting, the pain of birth and death, the sweet soft pleasure of love-making in a cosy home heated by the steam of cattle?”
The boy looks vaguely embarrassed.
I realise that silence has once again arrived, and that I should talk. But I can think of nothing to say.
He slowly cocks his head, and in the strange light I can see smiling eyes. “It was good meeting you, my friend. Go well.”
And the two of them drift away.
* * *
I write all this down, like I write everything down. I don’t know what kind of experience it was. I worry slightly that the care home will be hinted at again on return to that busy city.
As I look out of my tent this bitter bright morning, at the dull-frozen loch surrounded by more ruins than you would think possible, I think of those people who didn’t see this as a wild place, but as home.
Perhaps the best way to remember them is to sit, and stare, and imagine all that messy humanity here in these glens, contrasting with the far-off bark of deer and crack of ice. Perhaps we should accept that wildness is a human concept, and that the lack of humans in a place is both sad and beautiful.
Perhaps I should think about brewing tea, and preparing for a slow walk through glens which have more stories to tell than my son could ever write.
A hell of a walk in…
By laura Alexander
“That bothy, in November, it’s a hell of a walk in on a Friday night!”
The rain trickles down my spine,
Distracting me from the dragging weight of my sodden sack.
In single file we plod across the moor, weaving through peat hags.
I imagine the joy of ditching 5 kilos of coal. Whose idea was this?
Think longingly back to the warm bright chippy,
Golden fish lying curled on its vinegary bed.
Burning my fingers as I tear into it greedily
Cold Irn Bru degreasing my mouth as effectively as any drain cleaner
Then on through the dark, cars low on their springs,
Laden with people, kit and 3 sacks of coal.
At the station, the usual faff, repacking, debating,
Coal decanted into Tesco bags and added to already bulging sacs
The train is another world, busy people heading home
Looking askance as we stand awkwardly in the aisle;
Obstructing the bemused conductor and refreshment trolley.
Brakes squeal, we step out of their lives and into the darkness.
Once again we peer at the map, rehearse the arguments
Rain has started to fall, soft, permeating, West Highland rain.
“Eight miles, first three along the railway line to avoid the bog?”
“That was the last train for tonight, why not?”
We set off, sleepers awkwardly shorter than a natural stride.
The sacks bite into our shoulders, we settle into harness.
Don’t think about the distance, just walk.
No sound but our feet on the ballast, no lights but our headtorches
Then, an intrusion from the world we’ve left behind,
A flurry of sound and light, an unexpected train.
We hurl ourselves from the track, find we are on a viaduct,
Luckily not too high. Plod on amid recriminations
Eventually we leave the railway, head directly for the bothy.
Five more miles. An air of grim determination prevails.
Peat hags, bog treacherously seeded with roots of long dead trees,
The rain insinuating its way into every weakness
A succession of burns to cross, more bog;
Headlight batteries failing, sac compressing my spine.
It must come soon, we have been walking for ever
Through the dark and rain; nothing but more nothing.
Finally trees, still living, and something else, more solid,
Gradually gaining shape. The gable of the bothy.
The door opens smoothly. Silence, deserted; all ours.
Dry musty smell of old fires and dusty wooden floors
We take possession, tip out the much cursed coal and light both fires
Faces lit by flames, hip flasks unearthed, tea brewing.
Insulated by miles of bog and heather from the outside world.
A hell of a walk in… but worth it.
The other winning entries and details of how to enter this year’s competition can be found on the MCofS website.