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Gurkha Highlander
Walking Mallaig to Stonehaven
Neil Griffiths
ISBN 0 9544416 3 X pbk £10.99
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Four weeks of numb feet following a 340 kilometre trek along the Southern Upland Way with four Gurkhas was not enough to dampen Neil Griffiths' enthusiasm for coast-to-coast walking. Gurkha Highlander describes his second cross-country walk but this time on a new route and with different companions. Neil and five serving Gurkhas set off from the west-coast fishing port of Mallaig on the Sound of Sleat near Skye to march 320 kilometres to Stonehaven south of Aberdeen on the east coast. This formidable trek took them to some of Scotland's most stunning scenery: from the Rough Bounds of Knoydart, through the heart of the Highlands, across the Cairngorms, over Lochnagar and on to the sweeping farmscapes of Kincardine. Neil's colourful, and at times hilarious, account of one of the country's great walks is interspersed with little known but curious facts of Scottish and Gurkha history.
Neil Griffiths is the author of highly successful Gurkha Reiver: Walking the Southern Upland Way, described by Joanna Lumley as the 'funniest book I've read about the modern Gurkha'. Now living in Edinburgh, Griffiths is a former soldier and Fleet Street journalist who has also written for The Guardian, The Scotsman, The Glasgow Herald, The Sunday Post, The Glasgow Evening Times, The Edinburgh Evening News and many magazines. He is perhaps best known as the press officer for the Scottish Poppy Appeal, The Royal British Legion, The Gurkha Welfare Trust and as editor of the Royal British Legion Scotland's journal, The Scottish Legion News.
Reproduced with permission from Ian Smith, the author, and The Scots Magazine Scottish Bookshelf, The Scots Magazine, December 2004
Magnificent Seven
A 200-mile journey on foot across Scotland.
It looked a great idea on paper. A 200-mile trek from Mallaig across the roof of Scotland, through the 12 passes as designated in an ancient guide book, until the final destination is reached - Stonehaven and the North Sea.
And so, it proved. A week of hard slog, occasional arguments and loads of laughter is brought into glorious focus in Neil Griffiths’ book Gurkha Highlander, an account of that very journey across Scotland in which he was accompanied by his brother Ewen and five serving Gurkha soldiers, Gyan, Dhal, Dil, Surendra and Chandra.
This whole undertaking, which took place in 2001, was the second of three long treks which raised an average of £70,000 in aid of the Gurkha Welfare Trust of which Griffiths is the press officer.
Some people are just plain natural writers. No fuss, no half-page paragraphs, none of the ‘here’s a batch of obscure words I thought I’d impress you with’ stuff so often guaranteed to set any long-suffering reader reaching for a dictionary. Neil Griffiths tells it like it is - only better.
The highs and lows of the trek (e.g. nothing to eat in Braemar at 10 p.m.!) are interspersed with fascinating historical titbits as Griffiths satisfies his Gurkhas’ curiosity as to why there are so few habitations in the wild, high country, so often similar to parts of their native Nepal. But it is in sheer descriptive power that the author excels.
He sees a mountain road as ‘a Land Rover track wending its way like a spinal cord between vast, muscular shoulders’. On encountering a group of corncrakes at the head of Glen Esk he writes: ‘A dozen indignant partridge-like birds scurried through the grass like a group of women trying to maintain their dignity while wearing too-tight skirts.’
One of the highlights of the trek, albeit a sombre one, was the laying of a specially-produced wreath at the Spean Bridge Commando memorial. The simple ceremony, watched by 100 onlookers, is recorded in one of the many black and white photographs.
Dhal, a sergeant piper, played ‘Flowers O’ The Forest’ after Gyan laid their wreath. The dedication read: ‘From mountain men to mountain men, in sad remembrance and proud affinity.’
Weatherwise, the team was remarkably lucky, though they did experience a little local difficulty while traipsing over Lochnagar. A freezing blizzard. And it was the beginning of August!
The team very soon turned into seven boot-clad icicles, not that it seemed to bother the little men from Nepal. There’s tough for you! Then it was on to the British Legion hotel in Banchory.
The weather changed dramatically as the journey ended. After the crunching miles of Knoydart, Ben Alder, Glen Feshie and Lochnagar the sky opened and torrential rain greeted their arrival at the Royal British Legion Scotland Club in Stonehaven. They had done it – and the man at the door took their drink orders as they entered to the cheers of wellwishers.
Ian Smith.