Mind, Body and Spirit Grand Tours of Scotland


Mind, Body and Spirit

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Without doubt, one of Scotland's most abundant resources has to be this.

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Magnificent scenery, enormous tracts of beautiful, varied countryside.

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A great outdoors that's attracted tourists and travellers

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for the last 200 years.

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Early visitors came and stood in awe of places like this.

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They still do, of course, but increasingly our mountains,

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lochs and glens have become a sort of

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giant playground where we can escape the pressures of the modern world.

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This is a place that exercises the body and expands the mind.

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In Victorian times, many holidaymakers followed routes

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suggested by the most influential guide book of all -

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Black's Picturesque Guide To Scotland.

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In this series, I'm taking my well-thumbed copy

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of this fascinating book.

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It's been in my family for generation and was always kept

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in the glove compartment of my father's car

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when we went on holiday.

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Now, it's inspired me to make six journeys of my own.

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Letting its pages guide me, I want to retrace the steps

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of the early tourists to find out how Scotland became

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a jewel in the crown of tourist destinations.

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For this journey, I'm on the trail of health and the great outdoors,

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finding out how Scotland's landscape has drawn visitors with the promise

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of improving, mind, body and spirit.

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This grand tour starts on the shores of Loch Tay in Perthshire,

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goes north across the great wilderness of Rannoch Moor,

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through Glencoe and then across Loch Ness and north again

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to the old spa town of Strathpeffer.

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I'm in the picturesque Highland village of Killin,

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which makes the proud boast of being at the centre of Scotland.

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In the 19th century,

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Killin was a hub for road, rail and steamer connections that

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allowed tourists to get away from it all

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and benefit from an escape into Scotland's wilder country.

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When it comes to extolling the virtues of the Scottish landscape,

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my Victorian guide book doesn't hold back.

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Here it says, "There is no country whose ever-changing scenery

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"deserves more reflection than the Highlands of Scotland,

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"and we're bound to exclaim in the words of the modern poet,

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"then hurrah for the Highlands,

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"the stern Scottish Highlands,

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"the home of the clansman, the brave and the free.

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"Where the clouds love to rest on the mountains rough breast,

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"ere they journey afar on the boundless sea."

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But looking at the clouds today, I fear they have not journeyed quite far enough.

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But otherwise, pure genius.

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In Victorian times, it was easy enough for ordinary folk

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to get to this health-giving landscape.

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According to Black's guide, a tourist could leave Edinburgh

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or Glasgow and complete a circular tour to Killin in a single day.

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Until the 1960s, Killin had its own railway station

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and there were regular steam boat services on Loch Tay.

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But the public transport links that once served the village are now all gone.

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Nowadays, tourists and day-trippers usually do the round trip

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from Glasgow by car, or for the more adventurous, by motorbike.

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At a pub overlooking the Falls of Dochart,

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I'm meeting up with members of the Mercury Motorcycle Club.

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Killin is a favourite time-honoured destination.

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In Killin, just now, we hold a rally every year

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and it's certainly a great place to come and visit.

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The people here are lovely and there's a great selection of pubs.

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We love every bit. The west coast has become famous for motorcycles,

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because of the small roads, the islands.

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There's places we've never seen on the west coast, we've never been to.

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And you could take a lifetime to explore it.

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It's really fantastic.

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Giving up on public transport,

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I hitch a ride with the club to continue my journey north.

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Early guide books made the unwise claim that the roads

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to Highland of Scotland are the best and safest in the world.

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Now this was a wildly-exaggerated claim at the time

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and certainly not true now judging by the horrendous potholes

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we encounter on the drive north.

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But it seems that right from the start,

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travel guides were keen to encourage tourists on to Scotland's roads.

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They held out the promise of freedom, of exciting journeys

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through spectacular scenery,

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where there was always something new just around the corner.

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Anyone whose ever driven north from Glasgow to the Highlands

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will recognise this place.

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Tyndrum, which means in Gaelic the house on the hillside.

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Now despite this rather evocative name, I think it's only fair to say

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that Tyndrum is, well, just a wee bit challenged in the picturesque department.

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What most visitors to Tyndrum won't know is that this busy place

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once served the needs of a different sort of tourist.

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Unlikely as it may seem,

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people used to come here for the good of their health.

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For 1,000 years, pilgrims stopped on their way

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to take the waters of a nearby holy well.

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The first person to write about delights of Tyndrum was Sarah Murray.

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In 1796, this redoubtable lady traveller

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spent three months touring the Highlands.

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Forced to shelter from torrential rain,

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she spent an uncomfortable night at a hotel here.

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"There is little to see or admire in Tyndrum.

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"The landlord however wished me to see a holy well

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"near Strathfillan Kirk, whose waters, he told me,

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"cured every disease but that of the purse."

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I love Sarah Murray, she's never afraid to poke fun at her own failings.

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She completely misunderstood the man's Highland accent and thought

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purse must be a Gaelic name for some sort of disease.

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When she asked what purse might mean in English, he said,

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"Money, madam, it will not cure the want of that!"

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Indeed not.

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Just down the road from Tyndrum is the holy well the innkeeper wanted Sarah Murray to see.

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As a Highland version of the healing grotto of Lourdes,

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St Fillan's is a bit disappointing.

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But in the years before the Reformation,

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the priory of St Fillan stood nearby

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and pilgrims flocked here in the hope of a cure.

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The holy pool is actually on a bend in the river, but traffic

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on the busy A82 just over there

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does tend to undermine any religious atmosphere you might get.

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But this is where pilgrims in the Middle Ages came,

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looking for a cure.

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Now the holy pool was reputed to cure a range of diseases,

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but was particularly beneficial to those suffering from mental illness.

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I sometimes think that the cure was actually worse than the affliction.

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The poor patient, if you can call him that, was first bound

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hand and foot and then thrown into the icy waters of the pool.

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You might think it's an early form of shock therapy.

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Running close to the holy well of St Fillan is the West Highland Way,

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Scotland's most popular long-distance path,

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where modern pilgrims and devotees of healthy living

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can be seen making their way from the outskirts of Glasgow in the south,

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to Fort William in the north, a distance of 96 hard Highland miles.

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Now it often seems to me that distances in the Highlands

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are different from distances in other parts of the country.

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Especially if you're on foot.

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As the day wears on, the miles seem to grow longer and longer and longer.

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Now interestingly, this might not just be subjective experience.

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In the past, travellers were often amazed at how long it would take

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them to get from one place to another.

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They didn't realise that Scots miles were longer than southern ones.

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In fact, the lang Scots mile was 176¾ yards

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longer than the English mile.

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North of Tyndrum, the route of the West Highland Way

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follows the old military road, built by General Wade

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after the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

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The road was designed to provide easy access into the remoter parts of the Highlands.

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This was a wild place.

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And still is, which is why, for me, it is so attractive.

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But back in 1865,

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Black's guide describes this area in forbidding terms

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as a wild, dreary desolation, a wasteland without trees.

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Travelling across the wilds of Rannoch Moor on foot

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or in a carriage was tough going.

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Eventually, of course, places like Rannoch Moor

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stopped being seen as forbidding.

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I'm meeting up with geographer, Hayden Lorimer to find out

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how this magnificent scenery was transformed

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into a poplar destination for tourists and travellers.

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Scotland was changing a great deal in the 1920s.

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Prior to the 1920s, the Highlands had been largely the preserve

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of the rich and the landed and the titled.

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-The hunting, shooting brigade?

-The hunting and shooting, brigade, yes.

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In 1919, there was still something approaching

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3.5 million acres of land given over to sporting estates in the Highlands.

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But there was revolution in the air.

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The combination of cheap fares and increasing leisure time

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brought the masses to the wild places.

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For the first time in history,

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ordinary working people discovered a new kind of freedom.

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Both in the landscape and more interestingly in politics.

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Some of the people coming out of Glasgow and the west of Scotland

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carried with them radical politic ideas.

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These were people who had spent time working in the shipyards,

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in engineering works,

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and were great espousers of socialist ideology.

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So these were working people coming into the hills with ideological baggage, as well as tents?

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That's right, folks who were coming up from Red Clydeside

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certainly didn't like the idea that a very small number of people

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could own and dominate, control such a large proportion of the country.

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So socialism actually had its play in the landscape here, too.

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I think it not too much of an overstatement to say this was a place

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for social revolution to take place.

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Walkers and ramblers took on the big landowners and the sporting estates,

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eventually winning the right to roam.

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And all of us who enjoy the great outdoors today owe

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a debt of gratitude to those early pioneers -

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men and women who fought for the right to tramp the hills,

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a pleasure I've enjoyed ever since I was a teenager.

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This is Buachaille Etive Mor,

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an iconic mountain guarding the entrance to Glencoe.

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For the me, it's a view that's bound up with boyhood adventure.

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Now this is something I've not done since I was 15 or so.

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On a Friday night after school, I'd hitchhike up to here

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to Glencoe and pitch my wee tent beside the Jacksonville bothy

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on the other side of the river.

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That bothy was built by members of the notorious Creagh Dhu Climbing Club,

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whose members were really hardcore mountaineers and a lot of them were

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shipyard workers on Clydeside.

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Now legend has it that if you ever went inside that bothy,

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without their invitation, you would rue the day.

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Which I why I very sensibly always camped.

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For ordinary people, camping was a wonderful liberator,

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an affordable way to experience the great outdoors.

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As a youngster, I travelled all over Scotland with my tent on my back.

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It gave me enormous freedom and although Black's guide suggests

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some bracing walks,

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my own inspiration lay in the pages of a different book.

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Fortunately, I've managed to get the tent up before the rain's come on.

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But this is what I looked forward to all week as a schoolboy,

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it might be hard to imagine now.

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This was my inspiration.

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A magnificent book called Mountaineering In Scotland

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by my hero at the time, WH Murray.

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The reason why so many kids like me were bitten by the mountain bug

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and tomorrow, weather permitting,

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I hope to recapture some of that mountain magic.

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The following morning dawns with the usual cloud and rain.

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A damp start to my proposed ascent of Buachaille Etive Mor

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with professional mountain guide, Dave Cuthbertson.

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Mr Cuthbertson, how are you, sir?

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'Even before we can think of starting the climb proper,'

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there is an hour of lung-busting toil to the base of Curved Ridge.

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Scotland's mountains might be small, but they can be steep and punishing

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and I'm reminded of how Victorian guide books

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described the awesome spectacle of Scottish mountains.

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"We have wandered the Highlands with the citizens of Switzerland

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"and although their own hills are higher,

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"they have declared with enthusiastic rapture

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"that the mountains of Scotland outrival them

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"in point of variety and changefulness of aspect."

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Inspired by our own mountains, well-to-do Victorian climbers

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scaled the summits, clad in tweeds and hobnail boots.

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As we stop to rope-up, I ask Dave how things have changed

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since the days of gentleman climbers like my hero, WH Murray,

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who developed the sport in the 1930s.

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After WH Murray's time,

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the likes of the young Glasgow working-class climbers,

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particularly those of the Creagh Dhu,

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really started to make their presence here in Glencoe

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and moved away from the more traditional obvious features

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that had been developed by the likes of WH Murray,

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and on to the much steeper walls between.

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Interestingly enough,

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the Creagh Dhu were responsible for an incredible rise

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in Scottish rock climbing standards,

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predominantly by working classes, I suppose.

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Our route on Curved Ridge takes us into the rocky heart of the Buchaille.

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It was up here on the big walls and buttresses above us

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that working-class climbers tested themselves on the mountain,

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forging harder and harder routes.

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I haven't been up here since I was 17

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and it's something of a personal pilgrimage.

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This is where I learned the rudiments of climbing

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and looking at the awe-inspiring scenery around me,

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I have considerable respect for my younger self.

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Eventually we reach the summit of Crowberry Tower,

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a magnificent end to a classic day out.

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After all these years, it's great to get back in touch with

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the mountain that filled me with such awe and excitement as a boy.

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I think that's part of the attraction, isn't it?

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It's that sort of strange element of the unknown.

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Although the climb may have been done before,

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or it may not have been done before,

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that is part of the attraction, to explore the unknown

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and to, in your own way, feel that you are pioneering.

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It's very rewarding.

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On a day like today, one of the greatest rewards

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has to be the fantastic views across the vast expanse of Rannoch Moor.

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From up here, the tourist traffic on the busy A82 looks tiny

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and insignificant as it enters the dramatic scenery of Glencoe.

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In 1796, tourists were almost unknown

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this far from the lowland cities.

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In Sarah Murray's day,

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the road beyond the King's House Hotel

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was too rough for her carriage.

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Ever resourceful, she hitched a lift in a peat cart.

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In this undignified conveyance,

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she made her way through the wild and romantic glen.

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"Huge towers of rock forming a multitude of stages to the greatest height,

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"the whole mass appears an immense and inaccessible ruin of the finest architecture,

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"mouldering, defaced and become uneven by the vast lapse of time."

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Quite simply, this is a place of superlatives

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and there is nothing quite like this anywhere else in mainland Britain.

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Traffic passing through Glencoe slows down not because the road

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is dangerous in any particular way,

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but simply because drivers and passengers can't resist admiring

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this fantastic landscape.

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Most modern visitors reach for their cameras when they get here,

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but ever since Sarah Murray bumped and rattled her way through the glen,

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writers and artists have been inspired by what they saw.

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The landscape artist Horatio McCulloch came here.

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Images like his became icons,

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encapsulating the magical essence of the Highlands.

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Art made Glencoe a must-see destination on the tourist trail for 200 years.

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Leaving the glories of Glencoe,

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my route takes me north to Fort William.

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In Black's day, most tourists would have made the trip by steamer

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before sailing through the Caledonian Canal,

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an inland waterway that connects Fort William to Inverness.

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This is Neptune's Staircase, the entrance to the Caledonian Canal.

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Completed in 1822 and designed by the great Scottish engineering

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genius Thomas Telford, the staircase is a series of eight locks

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that lift boats 70ft above sea level.

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While tourists were encouraged to admire the genius

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of Victorian science and engineering that had made

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all this possible, the Queen herself was less than impressed.

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Sailing through Neptune's Staircase in 1873,

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Victoria found the whole business exceedingly tedious.

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To make matters worse, curious spectators were able to look down

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upon Her Majesty as she sailed below.

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Remarking on this role reversal, the young Queen was overheard to say,

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"We are not amused".

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The canal enters the southern end of the celebrated Loch Ness.

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There's more freshwater here than in all lakes of England and Wales put together.

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Today, Loch Ness is synonymous the world over with the monster.

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In fact, Nessie has made Loch Ness the most famous lake in the world.

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But what's striking is that neither Sarah Murray nor Black's guide

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make any mention of a mysterious beast

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lurking in the 800ft deep loch.

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I've joined Adrian Shine,

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who has studied the Loch Ness monster since the early 1970s,

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to find out when the modern myth of Nessie began.

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It was in 1933 that the manageress of the Drumnadrochit Hotel,

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now the Loch Ness Centre where the museum is,

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was driving back from Inverness when she saw something

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and yelled to her husband, "Stop! The Beast!"

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"The beast"?

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"The beast." Not, "Stop, you beast."

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"The beast." Which shows, there was a tradition,

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there was something that she knew about.

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Of course, you could say it's rather suspicious that it was a hotelier.

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Exactly, it's a bit of a conspiracy amongst hoteliers to boost

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the popularity of Loch Ness by inventing a Loch Ness monster.

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I had the privilege of meeting Mrs Mackay many years later.

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It turned out that she actually tried to conceal her story.

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Despite Mrs Mackay's reticence, the press got to hear about the beast.

0:21:270:21:32

A series of silly-season articles quickly followed

0:21:320:21:35

and Nessie was born,

0:21:350:21:37

along with a string of photographs

0:21:370:21:40

that seemed to show something in the loch.

0:21:400:21:42

Adrian, you've studied this loch for the last 35 years.

0:21:420:21:45

What conclusions have you come to about the authenticity of

0:21:450:21:49

the legend, or whether there is in fact something living here?

0:21:490:21:54

Well, eye witnesses are sincere and my problem is that 1,000 people

0:21:540:21:59

have left recorded sighting reports.

0:21:590:22:02

People you would trust in your everyday life,

0:22:020:22:05

people who are sober,

0:22:050:22:07

and they insist they've seen large creatures here.

0:22:070:22:11

Yet science can't find them.

0:22:110:22:15

From what Adrian is saying, it seems to me that Nessie belongs to the realm of myth and legend,

0:22:150:22:21

feeding humanity's hunger for the mysterious and the unexplained.

0:22:210:22:25

Loch Ness is a lost world in the same way

0:22:250:22:29

that Jules Verne's great cavern under the earth was a lost world.

0:22:290:22:34

The idea of such a thing still being with us, something so mysterious,

0:22:340:22:39

so elusive, and yet, potentially, so terrible,

0:22:390:22:42

I think appeals to something deep in human nature.

0:22:420:22:45

From the mysterious waters of Loch Ness,

0:22:480:22:50

my journey takes me over the hills to the Beauly Firth,

0:22:500:22:54

where I join the route of a railway line that once took

0:22:540:22:57

health-seeking Victorians to the village of Strathpeffer.

0:22:570:23:00

Although the station is still here,

0:23:080:23:10

the railway line that once connected it to the outside world

0:23:100:23:13

has long gone, and my dramatic arrival

0:23:130:23:16

is literally all smoke and mirrors, to give the impression

0:23:160:23:20

of an busy railway station at the height of a great Victorian craze -

0:23:200:23:25

taking the waters.

0:23:250:23:27

Now a museum, the station once saw 20 trains a day arriving

0:23:300:23:33

and departing with visitors queuing up to receive the benefits

0:23:330:23:37

of drinking water saturated with mineral salts -

0:23:370:23:40

a practice begun in Continental Europe,

0:23:400:23:43

it spread to Britain in the 19th century.

0:23:430:23:46

Elevated to a medical science, it became very fashionable

0:23:460:23:50

to seek a spa cure for a host of medical conditions.

0:23:500:23:54

In Scotland, Strathpeffer was the premier Highland resort.

0:23:540:23:59

Today, Strathpeffer is no longer a spa,

0:23:590:24:04

but the glory days have left their mark in the architecture of the town.

0:24:040:24:08

Behind me is the Spa Pavilion, where all kinds of musical events

0:24:080:24:12

were put on for the benefit of patients and their friends.

0:24:120:24:16

Over there is the Pump Room, which is just about the only place

0:24:160:24:19

in town where you can still get a good drink...of water, that is.

0:24:190:24:25

Nowadays, the Pump Room is a curious combination of museum and bicycle hire shop.

0:24:280:24:33

Among the exhibits, some of which seem in need of a reviving glass,

0:24:330:24:37

I'm meeting up with historian Alastair Durie

0:24:370:24:40

to learn more about the science formerly known as hydrotherapy.

0:24:400:24:44

This is one of many such resorts

0:24:440:24:48

throughout all of Europe in the 19th century.

0:24:480:24:50

It looks like a bar here. We've got - what's that? Iron well.

0:24:500:24:54

They're arranged in order of strength.

0:24:540:24:56

The strongest here, the weakest down there,

0:24:560:24:59

in terms of how much sulphur is in the water.

0:24:590:25:02

That would help a doctor to schedule which treatment you would get.

0:25:020:25:06

Do you want to try some?

0:25:060:25:09

I think since I've made the effort to come this far I should have a wee sip, at least.

0:25:090:25:15

Well, it should be said that this is supposed to be good,

0:25:150:25:18

according to the label on the bottle -

0:25:180:25:22

"Excellent against any lethargy of the body."

0:25:220:25:26

So, that should cover everything.

0:25:260:25:28

The ideal patient was one who needed regular treatment.

0:25:330:25:37

An annual three-week break was quite often prescribed by doctors,

0:25:370:25:41

with the patient's best interests at heart, of course!

0:25:410:25:44

But not everyone was so impressed.

0:25:440:25:47

The writer Robert Louis Stevenson wrote bitterly about his experience.

0:25:470:25:52

"A beastly place inhabited by a wholly bestial crowd."

0:25:520:25:56

Oh, dear - not much of an endorsement there!

0:25:560:26:00

Do you notice an aroma?

0:26:000:26:02

-Rotten eggs.

-Yes.

0:26:020:26:04

No doubt about that at all.

0:26:040:26:07

And it tastes...

0:26:080:26:11

Strange. A bit like a flat old ale.

0:26:110:26:16

Right, brilliant.

0:26:160:26:18

To be honest, this is just a glass of smelly water.

0:26:180:26:20

It's not going to cure anybody, is it? It's all psychosomatic.

0:26:200:26:24

There are two things about this.

0:26:240:26:27

Firstly, there are people where it doesn't really matter what you give them,

0:26:270:26:31

it's if they believe it's going to do them good.

0:26:310:26:34

Secondly, there are conditions which are genuinely helped by these chemicals.

0:26:340:26:39

-Right.

-Don't forget also that this is just one part,

0:26:390:26:43

it's the most important part of the regime.

0:26:430:26:47

You're also getting baths, you're getting massage,

0:26:470:26:50

you're getting showers.

0:26:500:26:51

All of these things would help with treating things like skin conditions and whatever.

0:26:510:26:57

Excellent. I think you should try some of this, Alastair.

0:26:570:27:00

Perfect. I won't need any more for some time.

0:27:040:27:06

I don't think you want any more for some time!

0:27:060:27:09

It's sometimes amazing to think that patients survived the cures

0:27:090:27:14

that were prescribed at the spa.

0:27:140:27:16

These later included therapies that used electric shocks and radiation,

0:27:160:27:20

all for the good of your health.

0:27:200:27:22

But ultimately, the fate of Strathpeffer was determined

0:27:220:27:27

by something beyond the control of doctors and therapists - fashion.

0:27:270:27:32

People eventually got bored with the whole idea

0:27:330:27:36

of spas and health resorts and advances in modern medicine,

0:27:360:27:40

especially the discovery of antibiotics,

0:27:400:27:42

made taking the waters seem somehow primitive and old fashioned.

0:27:420:27:47

All this talk of health makes me feel in need of some therapy

0:27:510:27:55

of my own, and as I head for the nearest bar,

0:27:550:27:58

I reflect on how so many of us can be easily persuaded

0:27:580:28:01

by health fads of one kind or another.

0:28:010:28:03

In medieval times,

0:28:030:28:05

lunatics hoped for a cure by immersion in St Fillan's Well.

0:28:050:28:10

In the 1890s, people believed in the benefits of sulphurous water.

0:28:100:28:16

In the 1930s, my grandmother was told by her doctor no less

0:28:160:28:20

that smoking was actually good for her.

0:28:200:28:23

Personally, I've always been inclined to believe in the benefits

0:28:230:28:27

of vigorous exercise in Scotland's great outdoors,

0:28:270:28:31

followed, of course, by a life-affirming pint of beer.

0:28:310:28:36

Your good health.

0:28:360:28:38

On my next grand tour,

0:28:380:28:40

I'm in search of perfect isolation

0:28:400:28:43

in the elemental beauty of the far north.

0:28:430:28:46

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