I guess it’s not uncommon for those of us who live on this side of the Pond to occasionally borrow words from our transatlantic cousins, a trend that appears to have grown considerably since the Second World War when many American military troops were stationed in the UK. And more recently we adopted the word ‘backpacking’ from the US, a term that describes the activity of walking for a period of time, usually several days or weeks or even months, whilst carrying everything you need to survive carried in a pack on your back. I seem to recall the word…

Cameron McNeish laments the loss of our traditional mountaineering hostelries. I was initially surprised by the amount of criticism directed at the development plans for the historic Kings House hotel on the edge of the Rannoch Moor. Mountaineering Scotland, the John Muir Trust and the National Trust for Scotland have objected to the latest revisions made to the original proposals while social media has seen a fair amount of comment ranging from “why interfere with an historic droving inn” to “refurb this Scottish treasure and bring it back to its former glory, albeit the wonky fireplace and walls.” I’m not…

FILM-maker Richard Else and I have worked together for the best part of a quarter of a century. In that time he has endured the idiosyncratic nature of this curmudgeonly outdoor writer with patience and good humour, and has persevered with fortitude on those occasions when some of my own hare-brained schemes were clearly impractical. But Richard endured a tough apprenticeship before he began working with me – he was the television producer who coaxed the reclusive and cantankerous Lake District guidebook writer Alfred Wainwright onto our television screens and worked closely with him for several years. At one point…

Cameron McNeish discovers that a head knock had much more serious consequences than he first thought. IT all seemed fairly innocuous. The gutters on our house needed clearing and I figured it would be an easy job to stand on a ladder with a hosepipe and get the job done. I cleared the gutters and was about to descend the ladder when whatever happened next happened. I had fallen off the ladder (the ladder had actually slipped and I came down with it) and on the way down I banged my head off the harled wall, which tore the skin…