HIGHLAND THINK TANKS
Though best known for her acclaimed crime thrillers, Tartan Noir novelist Lin Anderson finds great freedom when wild swimming with seals in the Highlands and far north, finds Rosie Morton
Crime novelist Lin Anderson shares her passion for wild swimming
Everyone has that one friend. The friend who once coerced you to jump headfirst into an ice-cold plunge pool in the Highlands. A novel idea, it may have seemed, but it certainly hasn’t become a regular pastime for most. Perhaps put off by the biting water that sapped your breath? Or was it the midges that feasted on you when you scrambled out? Either way, it would take a greater incentive than the mere approval of peers to repeat such an ordeal.
But Lin Anderson, author of the acclaimed Rhona MacLeod crime thriller series and co-founder of the annual ‘Bloody Scotland’ crime writing festival, just about convinced me to don my old wetsuit. Taking to the Highlands’ freshwater on a regular basis, Lin finds deluges of creative ideas for her novels when wild swimming in the pristine wilderness.
Taking the plunge for the first time as a child, Lin learned to swim at Gourock Pool near Greenock – a modest outdoor pool that she explains ‘was just a wall with waves crashing over’. Fond memories of running home from primary school, grabbing her kit and heading to the seafront on her own, Lin is well accustomed to the shock of icy water and unknown creatures lurking beneath. After her father retired from his post as a detective inspector in Greenock – he is the man who inspired much of DI Wilson’s traits in her renowned crime series – the family home shifted up to Carrbridge in the Cairngorms, where her love of water really took hold.
‘It’s fascinating,’ says Lin. ‘Apart from the fact I’m a Pisces, I don’t know where my love of water comes from. My mum couldn’t swim, and my dad used to go into the River Dulnain behind the house for his “annual swim”.’
Nowadays spending most of her time in the Highlands, where her own family grew up, she has the likes of Sluggan and the Dulnain on her doorstep, forming part of her very own natural waterpark.
‘Lin finds deluges of creative ideas for her novels when wild swimming’
‘Up at Sluggan, you’ve got the rock face on one side and these ancient pine trees on the other,’ she says. ‘It’s quite magical. How do you put something like that into words? The sense of your body being completely weightless – it’s totally freeing.’ Though she largely sticks to a leisurely pace in the water, she says she’s not a ‘foutering-about-on-the-edge-type swimmer’; instead she drops straight in, tackling the initial shock of the cold head on.
Needless to say, the spectacular scenery of the Highlands is a massive draw for Lin, but with the added bonus of some remarkable wildlife to enjoy, she finds it an enchanting experience. One inquisitive creature in particular makes frequent appearances on the likes of Skye or in Berneray. ‘The time I remember most was on the West Coast,’ says Lin. ‘When you go out in the water, seals just suddenly appear and bob along beside you. It’s like they think it’s a game – as if to say, “Ah, it’s one of those strange human things”.’
Lin also gains a great sense of calm when out in the wilderness, and although she still enjoys taking to the sea for a dip, it is the soft, peaty water of the Highlands she craves the most. ‘When you feel the water in lochs, it’s like brown silk against your skin,’ she says. Of course, it is no coincidence that hydrotherapy has long been used extensively for all manner of physical ailments, but it is the mental aspect of being out in the wild that Lin finds so valuable.
‘It’s not about getting away from the darkness of my writing so much as getting away from the fact that I can’t work out what I’m going to do next in my novels,’ she jests. ‘It is an interesting thing because for some reason water helps me. If I’m really stuck when I’m writing, and I don’t have anywhere to go and swim, I stand under the shower – I solve problems there. So if I can swim in a loch, I think it frees up the thought processes.’
Water works its way into the lives of her fictional characters too, including the famous Rhona MacLeod, who enjoys a spot of wild swimming herself while unravelling the ‘whodunits’ she’s faced with. ‘Rhona swam up on Sanday in Orkney, which I’ve done as well. I’ve given her that love of water which I’ve always had. In the latest book, which comes out shortly, most of it is set in Skye, so she swims out there,’ says Lin.
With that next venture about to begin, Lin has just gone over the sea to Skye with her swimming buddy, her beloved border collie, in search of more crime writing inspiration. And if the magnificent bodies of Scottish water help inspire her extraordinary Rhona MacLeod stories, long may her wild swimming adventures continue.
‘When you feel the water in lochs, it’s like brown silk against your skin’