An unlikely Laird
For Louise Gray owning a share of an estate in the Highlands of Scotland was something to be ashamed of. But then came lockdown, living in this wild landscape and realising that the reality is always more interesting than the myth
For years I did not tell anyone my family owned an estate in the West Highlands of Scotland. I certainly did not tell them I was likely to inherit a part of this wild, inhospitable, glorious, heart-breaking place. It was embarrassing, it made me squirm. Who says that? A toff in a tweed suit, a show-off, a spoilt brat. A man.
I thought my friends would judge me, ask too many questions, expect too much, perhaps even want something from me? In truth I think the real reason was because in my heart I knew I did not deserve something so beautiful. I had no practical skills to offer, no reason for this extraordinary privilege, other than a family tree and the throw of the dice.
I was in my twenties trying on different identities, working to make a career as a journalist in London and Edinburgh, and, mostly unsuccessfully, trying to find love. The Highlands seemed a distant place where I spent my childhood summers in a remote cottage, mostly wet and mostly complaining.
It was only in my thirties, as I perhaps, finally, grew up a bit, I began to think that wee house with no electricity and a view looking down a black loch to the blue mountains beyond might be a key touchstone in my life. I started to visit more often and while the midges can be annoying, the exhilaration of plunging into the freezing loch to escape them feels like escaping the rest of the world too.
I started to dream of the deep dark water as I struggled into work every day on the Tube and I became increasingly lonely not having anyone to share these strange dreams with. So, I did what any self-respecting young woman does with a guilty secret, I got drunk and told a close friend that one day a little bit of this brooding, magical place might be mine.
Fortunately for me the friend was a writer and a wise man. ‘Don’t do it,’ he said. ‘It will be like marrying a movie star. It will never truly be yours.’
He was right of course. The Highlands can be as glamorous, romantic and untouchable as any star of stage or screen. It is also shared by millions of
In my heart I knew that I did not deserve something so beautiful
people. But it was too late for me. Like anyone with a crush, I ignored my friend’s sage advice.
Slowly at first, I started to try and make myself useful. I got stuck in clearing rhododendrons and applied for a woodland creation grant to plant trees. I learned how to stalk red deer and I started to listen to my father, who had quietly been planting hundreds of hectares of woodland and improving the land for the last thirty years.
I began to share the place with my friends and found they did not judge me but supported me. I let go of the voices in my head that said I needed to wear tweed to go shooting or find spiritual awakening on a walk or learn how to identify every resident birdsong. I could be myself, an ordinary person getting to know an extraordinary place.
Then during lockdown I found myself living here with my young daughter. As the cuckoos and the sand martins and the house martins arrived for spring and the rowan buds opened, I realised I was changing too. I was falling in love. I wanted to open up too about my responsibility to this place. There was only one problem. I still had this hang up, this chip on my shoulder, about owning an estate the Highlands.
Part of it is politics. Who owns Scotland has been a contentious issue in recent years. Huge areas of land are owned by relatively few people, mostly the government, aristocracy and foreign investors. Campaigners have demanded to know not only who owns Scotland but what they are doing with this wild land that supports so much of our shared wildlife, paths and history.
Although ours is a small estate in relative terms it is still a huge piece of land and environmentally important, including SSSIs and the potential to bring back ancient Caledonian Forest. I don’t have a problem with being open about our ownership and what we are doing but it is scary to enter into that arena and stand by my decisions.
And part of it was a fear of losing another part of my life as a writer and a journalist. Helping to run an estate can be all-encompassing and overwhelming. I realised the only way I can do both is to write about it. And the only way to write about it is with complete honesty. Honesty about when the composting toilet needs emptying as well as the frankly spectacular view when you are sitting above the heap. Honesty about how lonely it can be as an incomer in a place I have come to since I was a child but still know little about. Honesty about the days when you wake up and look at these extraordinary views and just feel, well, nothing.
My friend was right. It is like marrying a movie star. The
Highlands is glamorous but behind the scenes it can be difficult – though few admirers will see that side. Just by association, I become a different person in many people’s eyes, but I also lose something of myself.
Ultimately it is like a relationship, we have good days and bad days. It makes me feel wonderful and gives me so much but it is also frustrating and difficult and there are days when I would rather be back in the city.
And just like a relationship it took me a while to realise that I had to work at it. I cannot possibly live up to the image we all have of the Highlands, but I can be honest about the reality and the small things I do know.
I know the shape of the mountains; lopsided Seana Mheallan, glowering Liathach, the sweep and hump of Beinn Damh, the blade of Beinn Eighe. I know where the wild primroses grow, where to forage for chanterelles and blaeberries and wild garlic, where the aspen shiver and where to find shells the otters have munched. I know where the roebuck bark in summer and where the stags rut in autumn. I know what time the bats come out and where the adder sunbathes.
I am yet to learn how to stalk a stag alone, or catch a salmon or guddle for trout. I don’t know why the curlews will suddenly start calling around an hour after nightfall before settling back to sleep or how to tell the difference between a woodcock and a snipe in flight. I don’t know where the eagles nest or exactly when the ptarmigan turn white.
I don’t know why this landscape that makes my heart soar on some days can also, on some days, make me feel incredibly sad. I have so much to learn, and so much to share.
“Ultimately it is like a relationship, we have good days and bad days