Bothy Life

-WOMAN:

-Walking towards a bothy

when there's smoke coming out of the chimney

makes me really, really happy.

SHE LAUGHS

You've almost got this instant friendship

as soon as somebody walks in the door, ken?

I really think they're an amazing system, the way they work

and the way they're so remote and unique.

-MAN:

-When you come to a bothy,

you have to remember it's not like a hotel room that you've booked,

it's an empty building and it's open for anyone.

It's just absolutely beautiful.

It's amazing to come to a bothy.

Bothy Life goes to the most wild

and beautiful corners of Scotland to celebrate the spirit of adventure

and friendship amongst folk who step out into the hills.

For 50 years, the Mountain Bothies Association have provided shelter

to thousands of people.

It's not that great a ride in.

SHE LAUGHS

It's really hard when you're fully loaded

and there's loads of drainage ditches.

But it's really nice coming into the area.

You don't have to book a bothy. You don't need to join the MBA.

And they're absolutely free.

It really takes you back

and you kind of get away from the clutter that is your own home,

and living in Inverness, and it's busy and, yeah, you've just got

so much stuff everywhere.

And you come out here and it's empty and you've got the basics,

you know, you've got shelter, you can make a fire, hopefully.

-You might meet some nice people...

-Yeah.

Yeah, it's a real good getaway.

Pete has ridden out to join Jenny and Jim for a big bike ride tomorrow.

-Aye aye! How're you doing?

-Hey!

-Hey!

-Good cycle in?

-Aye, cracking.

Tarred single-track.

I always forget how good it is.

BAGPIPE PLAYS

It's beautiful, isn't it?

Beautiful views, lovely weather,

nice warm deep pools to swim in.

If the Highlands aren't about freedom,

and make your own decisions and get out

and live the life you want to live in the space you inhabit...

then, you know, what are they?

You know, you can go up in the mountains and stay in a tent

and you can survive, but...

..you can go and stay in a bothy...

..it's the difference between...

..existing in the mountain space...

..and really making yourself at home.

ALARM BEEPS

It's seven in the morning.

Time to wake up and smell the bothy!

-So we've come up here and we're staying in the bothy there.

-Mm-hm.

And there's meant to be some sweet little snaking

single-track around this loch.

And then we're going to charge over the Bealach

and Jim is going to show us that famous backflip

-off the stepping stones.

-JENNY CHUCKLES

Would it be an idea to go all the way down, drop down here,

and then come back round so we could leave our bags at the bothy?

In some of the guidebooks, that is the recommended route.

It's pretty midgy out here today, actually.

There's not very much wind and they're just biting away at us.

So just using a bit of spray to keep them off.

The remoteness is one of the appeals.

You know, you come out here

and there's a good chance you're not going to come across anyone else

and you've kind of got the place to yourself. It's pretty special.

You have to be pretty proficient at sort of bunny-hopping your bike.

Or at least unweighting the back wheel.

If not, you can be prone to punctures.

So the ride in is lovely, but you have to be quite skilful.

Each MBA bothy has a maintenance organiser

who is responsible for looking after it.

They're all unpaid volunteers.

There is absolutely no road here. Nothing.

It's just carry it or... it doesn't get here.

I thought it was about time to get some new chairs,

so instead of getting something brand-new,

I got something in an old house clearance.

An old gent in Kinlochbervie had died and I got hold of some chairs

and I thought they'd be just the job for this place.

So I tied them onto a pack frame and walked them out here.

And hopefully we'll be sitting on them tonight having a dram.

It's in the middle of a vast moor surrounded by mountains.

And it's very, very remote.

And eventually, you see just a tiny little red chimneypot

sticking above this vast moor, and that's Strathchailleach.

This bothy was built in Victorian times for estate workers to live in.

People tend to stop here who are walking on their way to Cape Wrath,

because Cape Wrath is only about 10km up that way.

There aren't that many people come here.

And you get strange folks coming...

Well, not strange, but adventurous folks.

Like, last night,

there were two guys appeared over there carrying surfboards,

would you believe? And they'd been surfing down at Sandwood Bay.

I said, "Well, why bring your surfboards?

"Why not just leave them down there? Nobody would pinch them."

"Oh, we're going on to Cape Wrath

"and we're going to surf at Kervaig beach."

And as you see, it's quite windy today,

and they'd got their wetsuits with them and their surfboards.

And they were going to hike over that vast moor

all the way just so they could surf.

WAVES CRASH

# Oh, the wanderlust is on me

# And tonight I strike the trail

# And the morning sun will find me

# In the lovely Lomond Vale. #

Post-war, better public transport and a sense of adventure brought

more folk out of the big cities and into the mountains.

# Highland glens and bracken bens

# To greet the isles we love the best. #

-MAN:

-In the '50s there were just a handful of people

going out to the hills,

and we would all start off in Bon Accord Square, in Aberdeen,

where the buses started off.

We would all be standing around the buses with rucksacks

and we would go from group to group

trying to decide where we would want to go that weekend.

I had a white anorak, which was for snow troops during the war.

But it was hopeless in rain.

It was very basic stuff, mostly ex-army.

Skis, too, you could buy for £2.50.

That was almost two weeks' wages, I seem to remember.

But these were for ski troops during the war, and that's what we used.

The Mountain Bothies Association was founded in 1965 by Bernard Heath,

a keen cyclist, and Betty, who ended up marrying him.

Well, we met at the original, the inaugural meeting

of the Mountain Bothies Association.

You were secretary then.

-Oh, yes.

-And it was held in an unlikely place...

-Dalmellington.

It was the Scout Hut at Dalmellington Village, in Ayrshire.

And...45 people, I couldn't believe it.

We decided we didn't really want any publicity,

it was to be very secretive.

There wasn't to be a handbook.

People were to look at their maps

and if there was a dot on the map, it was suggested that

if they were interested, they went to see it and took a tent,

just in case it wasn't habitable.

But we didn't know after all whether it was ruinous or not!

So that's how it kind of got going.

And people explored various places that they were interested in

on the map and they came back and reported on them.

And that's when we had to start going round landowners

and finding how they felt about it.

Some were a definite no, others were a perhaps

and some actually said yes!

Which was very heartening.

Today, the Mountain Bothies Association

looks after 81 Scottish bothies.

Maintaining so many buildings scattered across the remotest areas

of Scotland is very challenging.

Very few of these bothies are accessible by road,

so most of the building materials have to be carried in by foot.

Or, if you're lucky, by boat.

The NBA sets up work parties,

where volunteers spend a couple of days living in and fixing up a bothy.

I'm moving the fire pit because it's too close to the bothy.

And we don't want a... we don't want a fire!

If the wind changes direction. So... Because they make them quite big.

And it also lets the ground regenerate a wee bit.

We do have a problem with people cutting live timber here.

When there's plenty of wood comes in from the ocean,

and even just if you walk up to the forest up there,

there's loads of wood a ten-minute walk away.

They're a habit of burning the furniture as well,

which is really annoying.

Um...

A bit frustrating, but...

99.9% of bothy users are very responsible individuals.

SHE CHUCKLES

But, um...it's a bit of a pain.

OVERLAPPING CHATTER

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Where's MY bag? Who's got my bag on?

We come sea kayaking about once a year.

We've been coming for the last ten years to the west coast.

We kind of plan trips in bad weather around bothies,

because even if they're full, you can camp outside

and use the shelter to cook and hang out. So they're great.

A lot of people lived in Ardneish until the turn of the century.

By that, I mean 1900.

Over 150 people lived here.

My grandfather was born in this house in 1898.

So in a kind of way, I'm kind of from here.

A long way back, but we are, we have a connection,

on my father's side of the family, to the peninsula.

Very rudimentary, but we do, so...

it's interesting to come back and...

Every time I come here it's...

I'm grateful I can come here and see from where they came.

I think that's why I wanted to look after Peanmeanach.

It's a special place...

when you come here.

There would have been plenty food.

The odd, um...liberated deer.

And they would have grown crops down the front of Peanmeanach.

You can see where they grew crops.

And they would have had cattle behind them, grazing.

There would have been seafood and fish.

They would have been pretty well-fed.

I'm scraping the beards off, which is the little bit that attaches

the mussel to the rock, that sticks out once you've pulled it off.

David Holt walked into Peanmeanach this evening.

It was just perfect. No midges,

sunny, calm, cuckoo calling...

Everything was magic.

Got down here and there's two guys, Dan and Chris, in the bothy.

Got a log fire going.

And as I walked in I thought, "I could murder a beer."

And there were two cans of lager sent by God.

Actually, sent by some art students who'd left them there yesterday.

So my happiness was complete.

-Well, that was great. Well done, Alex.

-LAUGHTER

-You're welcome.

-Here's to the cook!

-Excellent nosh. Isn't she good?

-ALL: Yes, indeed!

-Chilli con carne.

-Cheers!

-You're very welcome.

I could mention good health, but after those mussels, I don't know!

-Here's to the mussels!

-Aye, the mussels!

-Yes! Well done, yes!

Yes, yes. And the deer... The deer are now coming down.

Yeah, here they come.

They're heading this way.

They'll come over!

I've been to a few of these.

Not as many as you lot, obviously,

but certainly I can't wait to bring my kids here.

Cannot wait to bring my kids to this place.

-On a sunny day, it's fantastic.

-Absolutely stunning.

WIND WHISTLES

Bob Scott's, in the Cairngorms, is named after the gamekeeper

who used to run a bothy here back in the '50s and '60s.

I came up here when I was about 14. I think it was my first visit.

And came across Bob

and he had the roughest tongue I've ever come across!

And it frightened me to death.

But we soon discovered, of course, it was just a front.

Once you got behind that roughness, he was a great character

and we all loved him.

He was very intent on establishing his authority. He was a gamekeeper.

And part of the reason I think he had an open bothy

beside his keeper's house was so he could keep an eye on people.

He would stand at the door of the bothy on a Saturday night

and say, "Where are you going tomorrow, lads?"

And we would say, "Well, we're thinking of going up there."

He'd say, "You're bloody well not! You're not going up there.

"I'm shooting hinds up there on Monday

"and if I catch any of you lads up there tomorrow night

"I'll kick your backside all the way down to Braemar!"

So we didn't go up there.

This idea that you go up the mountains, you'd learn

the noble qualities of self-reliance and all this kind of stuff.

The modern thinking about it, you know. I mean, we came to misbehave!

We came to get drunk and chase women, partly.

That was part of the reason. We generally succeeded in the first bit

but we never really succeeded in the second.

Then later on in life, I realised that a bothy wasn't most girls' idea

of a romantic place to go.

Any lassie I managed to take away,

it was only once, and she never came back.

ACCORDION MUSIC PLAYS

You've come to the best bothy in Scotland.

This is the best bothy in Scotland, aye - that's us, that's us.

There are many like it, but they all aspire to be as good as this.

Are you going through, then, Neil, to Aviemore?

No, no, no - I'm just going through to Corrour.

Neil Reid's fanatical about the Cairngorms.

He is a keen mountaineer, but he rarely goes anywhere else.

There's a saying in bothies - "A bothy is never full",

because, especially when the weather is bad,

it doesn't matter how many of you are in here,

if somebody else turns up and needs shelter,

then you let them in.

Even in the most beautiful mountains in the world,

someone has to do the dirty work.

Well, that was another good night in Bob Scott's.

A few of the guys up, the regular guys,

just had a good evening round the fire.

Plenty snoring through the night, and now,

I'm off to Corrour Bothy to change the toilet.

Great weekend(!)

When my old man used to take me up the hills when I was a wee kid,

this is where we always stopped for a wee drink of water and biscuit,

and we'd just sit against this tree for a wee five or ten minutes

and it's a spot that very often these days,

I walk straight by, because my legs are a bit longer,

but it was always when I was a wee kid,

this was always one of the spots I looked forward to reaching.

Corrour is at the foot of two major Munros -

the Devil's Point and Cairn Toul -

and it's halfway down the Lairig Ghru long-distance walk

across the Cairngorms.

This was the first bothy I was ever in,

when I was ten years old, so to be allowed to look after this,

to me, is, you know...

The bairn finally inherits the sweetie shop.

It's one of the MBA's most popular bothies -

and it's the only one with a bog.

Right...

This is, uh...human excrement and toilet paper.

For those with Smell-o-Vision, there's a fairly rich aroma in here.

It's not actually as bad as you think it's going to be,

although the cameraman may disagree, I'm not sure.

You'll be delighted to know we don't save the suits.

Single use.

So, that's it. One more bog change.

# Well, a wandering man is what I choose to be

# I've squared all my debts and my conscience is free

# There's so much in this world that I'd like to see

# It's a wandering life for me

# So I'll head down this road My guitar on my back

# And I don't own hee-haw so I've hee-haw to pack

# And I'll listen for parties to join in the craic

# It's a wandering life for me

# Well, nobody can stop me I'll go where I choose

# With no landlord to tell me the rent's overdue

# And I'll never again suffer nine to five blues

# It's a wandering life for me

# Through the glens I will travel with bothies as hame

# Or sleep under the stars To me, it's the same

# There's nobody to fight with Point fingers or blame

# It's a wandering life for me. #

Just after the war, a lot of people came back

who...suffered mentally from the effects of the war

and they started to wander around these places.

I think it was that he found peace there,

after the sights and sounds of the war,

because there still are a lot of people from Afghanistan

who can't fit into Civvy Street and can't take up a job now,

and they will become wanderers.

Strathchallaich is very unusual.

When the Mountain Bothies Association took over its maintenance in 1970,

there was someone living here.

Sandy was in the Army and he was in Germany

when his wife died in a terrible car crash and...

Maybe it was after that

that he decided to escape from the rest of the world

and he ended up here, which is about as far as you can go.

I think he saw this as a place of shelter.

That's my interpretation of it.

Sandy's paintings still cover the walls of the bothy.

It's very easy to see symbolism in things.

But were they symbolic, or did he just like painting horses?

Who knows?

I mean, Sandy maybe just copied them out of a magazine

or something like that, but I don't believe that.

Out there, cold, black, horrible winter.

In here, nice, warm fire, spring, contentment,

and that sort of cosy feeling you get

when you shut the world out.

The MBA patched up the gable end to keep the building standing

and in return, Sandy was supposed to let people stay the night.

It wasn't a success,

because Sandy was at the door with an axe

saying, "This isn't the bothy.

"The bothy is Strathan, you'll have to go back there."

-To some people, yes.

-Yes, he sent them away.

He said, "It's a private house, it's not a bothy!"

So he reneged on his part of the bargain.

Those he liked, he would let in.

And he decided whether he liked them or not.

I've been mistaken for Sandy, and I'm not Sandy!

I'm a retired teacher who looks after this place.

I might look a bit old and scruffy, but I'm not Sandy McRory.

But, on the other hand, one of the reasons I'm looking after this place

is that I like to be on my own and...

..when you lot have all gone, right, I shall light the fire

and get that nice, cosy little feeling that

here I am in my own little world, stuck in the middle of a vast moor.

So, yes, I am a bit like Sandy in that.

You like to do the same for me, Ian?

-Sure.

-Stick it on.

This work party are fixing the roof at Craig Bothy.

They are making a weekend of it.

-Yes!

-Hooray!

We started off about...probably about three or four years ago,

using scaffolding for work parties, but we discovered it was so heavy,

we were having to carry it into places or get it helicoptered in,

so we thought about rope restraint as a possibility,

because we didn't want to use scaffolding everywhere,

for simple jobs like putting new slates on roofs

that might only take 20 minutes.

To carry scaffolding in is just overkill.

So, this system is much simpler, much lighter

and quite a lot of people have got a knowledge of the equipment,

because it is the equipment that climbers use.

I'm not very popular up the top, there.

I had a little bit too much to drink and I nodded off.

But long before bedtime.

Some kind soul brought a sleeping bag down for me,

so I didn't have to climb the stairs and hug myself.

But I think it might be more to do with the fact

that I'd been snoring loudly and they'd get a better night's sleep,

so whichever it was - I think the latter.

But they didn't get a good night's sleep, unfortunately,

cos when I woke up eventually, I thought I'd do a favour

by lighting the fire so that the kettle would be ready

for a nice, piping hot cup of tea in the morning,

but I forgot about the flue thing at the back

and the fire went on, sure enough, it lit no bother,

but the room started to fill with smoke.

But...I didn't see that as a big disadvantage, because my clothes

are so stinking by now, it's quite good to get them smoked, you know?

You smell like herring, smoked herring,

you're a wee bit more pleasant than a hill walker.

But, unfortunately, they've installed smoke alarms

in all the bothies now, so the bloody smoke alarm went off...

"Beep-beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep-beep!"

Like this, I thought, "Oh, sh...!"

So when my wife does that, she just gets a tea towel and goes,

"Phoo-phoo-phoo," and it stops instantly.

So I got my tea towel - "Phew-phew-phew."

"Beep-beep-beep-beep!" "Ah, f..."

"Phoo-phoo-phoo!" It went on like that,

I couldn't get the thing switched off,

and eventually, I just rammed it with my finger

and it went off straight away.

So, by that time it was five in the morning and I'd set the alarm off,

so it was light outside.

Some of them are very understanding.

There are some of them giving me death glares.

HE LAUGHS

Venture Scotland works with young people with all kinds of problems -

problems like drugs, alcohol,

offending behaviour or difficulties with their families.

See where that really bright green piece of grass is

-on the right of the river?

-Yeah.

-It's about there.

The path is a bit tricky going down from this point.

Oh! Chilly up here!

Shall we keep moving? Let's keep moving.

They are walking out to spend the weekend in their bothy,

with no electricity, no mobile signal -

a challenge for any teenager.

The Venture Scotland bothy isn't open to the public,

but it is introducing these kids to life in the hills.

-Well done, everybody.

-Well done. All right.

-Oh...!

-That was a great achievement, well done, guys.

-How are you feeling?

-I'm good.

-All done?

-I'm good.

-Just dirty.

-Well done, pal.

-Patrick?

Well done.

And welcome to our bothy.

That one any good for you?

Yes, that's good.

We all take turns of making everybody's tea and coffee.

We take turns of cooking and cleaning,

so we've got our own wee chores.

Me and Louise are cooking tonight, so...spaghetti Bolognese.

It's a bit hard this time, because the mince is still frozen,

but we'll get there.

We'll have a lovely dinner tonight.

YELLING AND LAUGHTER

They've helped me tremendously - just...

Even when they do the silly wee games and stuff,

you don't realise how much they help...

There is actually methods to the games,

but you don't really get that when you're actually playing them.

No, they do, they feel silly,

but they're not - they're actually there for a purpose, you know?

It's to help with confidence and to help us on in later life.

It's helped me tremendously.

Och, come on!

LAUGHTER

Now that I've been to our bothy, I'd recommend it to anyone.

It's just waking up in the morning, you're going out the bothy door

and seeing what's round about you,

you just don't see that where we're from, know what I mean?

Yet it's only, like, a couple of hours away.

It's absolutely brilliant.

Kearvaig is the MBA's most northerly bothy,

at the tip of the Highlands.

It's incredibly remote.

Cap Wrath is used for the military for training

and it's the only live ammunition range in Europe.

They come here and they do exercises on their own with the soldiers

and also, they use it for ship-to-shore firing.

And they also have the aircraft that fly over

and they bomb Garvie Island as well,

which is an island just at the right-hand side of the cliffs.

If you go down to the shore, you just see the plane flying over,

and two seconds later, you hear the big bomb.

But no, I don't find it scary,

because I just know they are doing it over there,

and it's the British that are bombing, so I trust them.

In the winter of 2002,

Margaret Davies was found starving in this bothy.

She died two days later in hospital.

She was an artist and an experienced hiker.

No-one can say exactly what went wrong,

but it is thought she fell ill, ran out of food,

and just didn't have the strength to walk herself out of trouble.

I've found, in the last two to three years,

I'm meeting a lot more women who are walking on their own.

We met a lady who was walking from London

and it was her second trip to Scotland.

And she says, "Before I come, for a week, I'm as nervous as can be,"

and I asked, "Why do you still do it?"

She says, "Once I'm on Scottish soil

"and I'm walking, the people I meet are so helpful and friendly,"

she says, "so therefore, all the worries and fears just go away

"and I go back to my work a lot better than I've been."

I was on my own with three children and money was tight

and so I used to take my children to bothies

and hill walking on my own myself.

My holidays were limited cos I was working full-time,

so that's mainly the cheap aspect, and the shelter,

that's why we did it. We did camping as well,

but it's extra gear to carry when you've got three kids,

cos I've got to carry their stuff as well as mine

when they were young, so the bothies let me...

It was a lot lighter and easier.

If you go out, enjoy the countryside,

I think it's up to every parent, if they're interested in it,

to pass it on.

Margaret was on her own for ten years before she met Eric.

They've been married for 26.

I found her in an Oxfam shop!

Because I...

I was asked by Oxfam if I would run a raft race for them

in Linlithgow Loch.

Or, at least, that's how it happened,

and I met Margaret at Oxfam.

She used to work for Oxfam and she said she got me as a bargain!

Why don't we sit down here and watch the sunset? Come on.

Boys, I would like to give yous a toast

and thank yous very much for all your hard work you've done today

and the hard work you will be doing tomorrow!

So here's to yous all.

-Slainte!

-Slainte!

And here's to a good night's sleep

and woe betide anyone who snores, OK?

SHEEP BAA

100 years ago, before the car and the quad bike,

many more people lived and worked in the hills.

Before this was a bothy, it was a shepherd's house

and Hamish Campbell lived here.

I came up this track over 60 years ago

when I was at the age of 16 to start my shepherding career up in Strabeg.

In the wintertime, you might listen to the wireless a bit.

If you were knockie, you might make a stick, get the knife out

and carve away at the wood, passed quite a lot of nights, that.

Do a bit of reading and things like that and...

with Compton Mackenzie's books,

which I enjoyed reading in the time I was here.

Many's the time I fell asleep on that couch after a hard day

when I would be on the hill.

SHOUTS INSTRUCTIONS TO SHEEPDOG

Hamish's great-grandfather started working here in 1850.

Come on, lad. Come on, buddy.

Hamish is the fourth generation of his family to herd sheep at Eriboll.

Come on, buddy.

There was over 3,000 sheep on this farm at that time

and there were seven shepherds.

You went off in the morning at daylight and you didn't get back

until it was dark and you were ready for your dinner.

To it, bud.

And in the summertime, you might be out for a 12-hour day, gathering,

and that was the way life was done then.

Although the MBA looks after 83 bothies in Scotland,

it only owns one of them.

Some of the others belong to organisations like the National Trust

and the Forestry Commission, but most belong to private landowners.

Iona and her boyfriend Julian

both work on her father's estate near Ullapool.

The MBA looks after two bothies here.

I remember when I was about, I don't know, tiny,

I came over here fencing with my dad and we came...

we were walking around and I came here

cos I was probably annoying him with his fencing

and I walked in the bothy and there was still school desks in there

and really old-fashioned ones, you know, with the ink and everything.

Children from the surrounding area would walk here

carrying peat to supply the school fire.

In the winter when the river was in spate,

some would cross it on stilts to get to school.

This is Ben and he's a native breed, he's a Highland pony.

He's ten years old...and he's very good at rounding up sheep.

He enjoys it. You put a sheep in front of him and he's awake.

-He's a good boy.

-And what's Ben's, er...?

And in his other life, at the weekends, what does Ben turn into?

A unicorn!

I grew up on this farm and it's been great, growing up here and things,

and I've been travelling and come back to work here

and want to make my life here.

It's a hill farm, takes us three days to get the sheep in

and we don't really have any good fields or anything like that,

so most of the animals live out on the hill around the bothy.

A few times I've had to carry sick lambs home on my pony

and I will bring a lamb

and dump it in the bothy in one of the rooms

and, hopefully, no-one will find it and put it out for me

thinking that they're being kind.

Yeah, he just stays there until I'm ready to take him home again.

Sometimes when we go fishing on the rock,

it's quite late when we stop and that,

we just come in and put the fish on the stove

-and spend the night here.

-I think it's a good thing as well.

It's a nice place to have a break if you're working all day on the hill

and you can still get a sense of history out here.

You can still feel it from having no electricity

or having to get your water from the burn

and it sort of brings you back in time,

which is a really nice feeling.

There's no mobile reception here, there's no modern technology.

You can't see anything from the view out the front, so...

And you just see the hills and that, I would say,

wouldn't have changed much since it was first built.

It's a beautiful, beautiful spot and I'm very lucky.

Not all landowners are as welcoming as that.

Back in the '50s, a group of friends took the law into their own hands

and built a secret bothy without the landowner knowing...

..so they could go mountaineering in the summer and skiing in the winter.

It's another couple of miles or so, Ewan, I think we're almost there.

-Mm-hm, mm-hm.

-We'll start branching off.

If we head up towards the Slugain Howff,

which is one of the great fabled secrets and untold stories

of the Cairngorms,

and we're in the company of the last survivor of the group

of people who built it back in... When was it?

-That was 1953 we finished it.

-1953.

-Yes, that's right, uh-huh.

It was quite an epic adventure, but it was great fun to do.

And it's lasted 60 years. Did you expect that?

I didn't expect me to last 60 years, never mind the howff!

There were four of us and I remember we were in the glen

and we thought, "We really must find somewhere

"that no-one else can find,"

you know, "and get something really well built,"

and Jim Robertson was the driving force

because he was really the builder.

He knew what he was doing, being a monumental mason,

so we had a really long scout around about the area

and he said, "I think this is the place

"where we do the least amount of building,

"but make something that's really hidden and well constructed."

And, hopefully, it's a secret that will always be kept,

cos part of the fun is looking for it and then finding it.

Of course it is, yes.

I remember one time in the middle of winter, I was in the howff,

nice and cosy, got up in the morning and about 20 yards away,

there was two guys sleeping in the snow and they'd failed to find it.

-Oh, well, that's good news.

-Well, it wasnae good news for them.

It was good news for the howff, but wasnae good news for them!

HE KNOCKS

That's the whitest I've ever seen it, I think.

But it's gearing up to be a top day.

We're going to go and have a little ski around, see what happens

and see if we can find a bothy at the end of it, I think.

If you're staying in a bothy

then you don't need to take a tent,

you've got somewhere that you can stash your gear

and it's just somewhere to get warm as well...

..which is always an added benefit.

I think that's the place there.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the place.

It looks a real... It looks amazing.

Realistically, it's been...

..ten times -

as much time going up as you do going down.

We've got a sunny, powder day. We've been here for three hours

and there's only three tracks in it and they are all ours.

So much of life in the modern world is controlled

so it's sensible and domesticated

and there's something beautiful about being out in wild nature,

there's something exhilarating, it's wild, it's untamed, I love that.

Every country skier is an optimist and an opportunist.

And so when you get the good days,

you've got to grab them with both hands.

I actually proposed to my fiancee up on Aonach Mor and, you know,

it was a howling gale, absolutely blowing a hooley,

and it's exhilarating, you know,

for both of us, it's definitely a happy memory.

-Mountains are the contexts of loves.

-I take it she said yes, then?

Yeah, yeah, she said she'd love to. I couldn't believe it.

BAGPIPE PLAYS

This is the Eastern Highland section of the Mountain Bothies Association.

They're sitting outside Allt Scheicheachan,

also known as the unpronounceable bothy.

There are worse places to have a meeting.

The stove was a bit problematic, it had rotted away,

we put in a spare... at very limited cost.

If we all went down at the weekend or a day, really,

it will need a few...it will need a good few volunteers...

-Yeah, yeah.

-..at the end of the day.

Yeah, so nice and simple, very effective.

THEY HUM SCOTLAND THE BRAVE

The two Kennys have been bothying and messing about in the hills

since they were teenagers.

Aye.

If there was any deer in the quarry,

the trick would be to roll a stone down

and they would instantly run towards the wind,

so we could tell exactly where these deer running would come out,

so I'm explaining this story to Kenny here about how it worked.

Kenny says, "I wonder if it works with sheep,"

so I get this boulder and rolls it down and the next thing

I saw a sheep in midair, you ken, absolutely four legs out in midair,

so Kenny had actually rolled this stone down

and it had actually hit the sheep.

About the size of a rugby ball, so I said, "Right, we'll go down

"and make sure the thing's deid and if it's no' deid, I'll kill it."

So I was about to set off down towards it

and the thing got up on its feet and took off.

-That's right, it took off.

-And it wasn't even limping.

It was an accident, hitting the sheep, it was just unfortunate...

Unfortunate!

-One of those things.

-Aye, aye, I didn't mean to hit it.

I thought the chances of hitting it were a thousand to one, you know,

-but there we go.

-I've been trying for years to hit one

but I've never managed to hit one!

When your workforce are all volunteers,

you need to make sure everyone's having a good time.

CHEERING

Stan is one of the oldest guys that still goes up the hills

and still manages to do some incredible things, you ken,

still a keen cyclist.

I think you've had two hip replacements now, Stan,

-have you?

-Yes.

And probably heading for a bit more surgery to keep him going,

you ken, but he's still there, come through the Lairig Ghru

last year, you ken, which in itself is something...

-something else, you ken. He's an amazing character.

-It's hard going.

Stan, give me my favourite song. Will you give me my favourite song?

He'll soon be deid, so you'd better get on with it!

# Sometimes when you think that you're going

# To leave an invisible hole

# Just follow this simple instruction

# And see how it humbles your soul. #

-I got most of my bowel taken away last year...

-Aye, that's right, aye.

..you know, with cancer.

Aye, bowel cancer.

Stan was recovering from his bowel cancer and he was walking up...

The guys here, we were all busy working up in the Hutchinson Hut

you ken, and Stan...

you were just kind of getting better,

you were still getting chemotherapy and was coming up to visit us,

you ken, nae getting as far as the Hutchie, but meeting us

at Bob Scott's on the way back down

cos the guys were walking back down

and Stan was there to greet us on the way back down.

# Take a bucket and fill it with water

# Put your hand in up to the wrist

# Pull it out and the whole lot you've left there

# Is a measure of how you'll be missed. #

-No... Getting past it now.

-Aye!

-Och, aye.

-But you're still managing to cycle.

-Oh, aye, I still ride a bike.

-It's easier cycling than it is walking.

-Aye.

What would you cycle now, Stan?

What would you cycle in a day, you ken?

I used to go maybe about three times, four times a week

-and I'd always try to get at least 150 per week.

-Aye.

# Now the moral of this is quite simple

# To do the best that you can

# Be proud of yourself but remember

# There is no indispensable man. #

CHEERING

CHEERY BANTER

It tends to be people that value that kind of camaraderie,

that kind of coming together, sharing an evening,

singing a song, telling a story,

and these are the things that are really, really important.

# I ken ye didnae like it last winter here in town

# The scaldies miscry us and try to put us down

# And it's hard to raise three bairns in a single flex box room

# But I'll tak ye on the road again

# When the yellow's on the broom

OTHERS JOIN IN: # When the yellow's on the broom

# When the yellow's on the broom... #

It's passing on the traditions that we were taught, you ken.

We kind of learn the crafts from other folk

in the bothies, you ken.

A lot of these traditions and storytelling and things

-are passed on, you ken?

-Aye.

# I'm weary for the springtime

# When we tak the road once mair... #

Folk dinnae speak to each other nowadays, I find.

You get kids that are used to sitting in front of a computer,

playing computer games, dinnae go out.

-On the phones.

-Yeah, on the phone, whatever.

This is completely different, you ken.

# And the yellow's on the broom

OTHERS JOIN IN: # When the yellow's on the broom... #

You're in a bothy, you're sitting around a fire, everybody speaks.

There's naebody sitting on a mobile phone or a computer, you ken.

# When the yellow's on the broom

# When the yellow's on the broom When the yellow's on the broom

# For they're aye cooped up in hooses when yellow's on the broom

# When the yellow's on the broom When the yellow's on the broom

# When the gang-aboot folk tak the road and yellow's on the broom. #

CHEERING