In which I reveal what Henry Vollam Morton has taught me about myself

Touring for six weeks in Scotland with my twentieth century travel buddy Henry Vollam Morton has been an insightful privilege, for which I thank the indulgence of Niall Taylor and H V Morton Society members. The journey has helped me to better understand HVM’s writings; and surprisingly, informed me about myself.

It not simply took me across an autumnal Scotland with ‘In Search of Scotland’ 1928; and ‘In Scotland Again’ 1933 in my bag; but during those six weeks exposed me to much commentary about HVM - Michael Bartholomew, John McCarthy, Walter Mason, Stephen McClarence, Nina Sankovitch, Prof Michael Gardiner - some critical, others sensitive, but all recognising his mastery of his medium.

Few of us have the strength of character that we expect of other’s unblemished lives - the myth of ‘the perfect gentleman’. But does unvarnished biographical reconstruction steal away a writer’s magic; and has it affected my fascination with HVM?

Retrospective judgment of character is an acid tool. Social mores change, and evolve (or regress). To appreciate the writing, do we really need to know about the writer? To view a man in the time of his life, shouldn’t we enter ‘both the man and the time’? For some of Morton’s biographical commentators this has seemed an impossible task, causing me to question their motivation (and morality).

In my travels with Henry, I focused simply on his writing not personality. The character that accompanied me was the Henry Vollam Morton discovered from his work, the one that charmed and captivated contemporary society and has seduced travellers since. For me, his is an identity described without critique, displayed solely from his words.

In my opening paragraph I mentioned that the journey also informed me about myself. It may appear strange that a senior twenty first century barrister would gain personal insight from the writings of a mid-twentieth century travel writer. The insight relates to my responses to our shared travels. In a nutshell, under Henry’s influence it was increasingly difficult (and unnecessary) to remain objective and factual about what I saw and felt - and in consequence what I wrote.

It was not until I fictionally ‘introduced’ HVM to Robert Louis Stevenson on the banks of Loch Linnhe that I realised what was happening. At the Corran ferry I gazed out at the glory of the Highlands, the silhouettes of mountains peeling away from the stillness of the loch. Perhaps I should have anticipated my emotional response to the landscape from the romantic writings of Robert Burns and Walter Scott; or more latterly, Mike Tomkies’ “A Last Wild Place’ and Amy Liptrot’s ‘The Outrun’. Tales of Scotland are necessarily historical romance rather than simple historical fact. Each observation and memory has woven into its core a peat-flavoured thread of heart-pounding fiction, not always intentional, but inescapable. It is impossible to write about the Highlands without the romance; for the stark realities of one moment evaporate on the suffused colour and countours of the next.

Detractors have tested HVM’s writing against a template of their perceived reality. Did he actually walk the fells above Loch Nan Uamh, rest at the Loch Sligachan inn, meet the Highlander Campbell in Glencoe? I sense that the answer to that question -  is to question the question. Was it ever relevant? Did his readers wish to know, or simply believe? Like me, and many Mortonites like me, they simply sought to submerge themselves in his prose - to feel the wind against their faces, to smell the heather and to hear the call of the curlew across the fell. Henry was walking in the steps of the romantics, Burns and Stevenson; that is what Morton invited me to do, and it is precisely why we love what he wrote.

I have sought to capture the fusion of fact and fiction, where time stops and starts again, in a place where Henry and I indulged ourselves in the almost real romance of yesteryear.

In which Henry meets an old friend on the banks of Loch Linnhe

Whilst driving the road from Killin to Crianlarich Henry Morton announced that he had received a letter from a man named Robert Louis Stevenson who he now planned to meet on the shore of Loch Linnhe. He muttered something about '1751, David Balfour, and the British Linen Company', but his words were kidnapped in a gust of wind from the open window of the bull nose Morris, pulling a cloud of smoke from Henry’s teeth-clenched pipe.

Leaving Achallader in the Morris, we head towards Glencoe. Would Henry recognise today's Glencoe?, I thought to myself.  Might he continue to marvel at a 'landscape without mercy...still dreaming of geological convulsions?'

The mountains that border Glencoe remain to this day ominous and overbearing. There is drama - simply from the inescapable landscape. But what of man's efforts to tame the journey? I sensed that Henry might be saddened. Civil engineers have cured 'the worst road in Scotland.. that winds its way through the solitude'; but with the cure, comes the crowd. Yes, the glen is busy as we journey on a September morning - still preserved and uninhabited, but with coaches and motorhomes delivering tourists rather than travellers. HVM's shepherd no longer walks his sheep in a 'grey wave over the grass on invisible feet. Enchanting Dianas no longer visit in breeches and dubbined boots'. And, despite Henry and I singing 'D'ye ken John Peel with his coat so gay' we fail to spot the Highlander Campbell in Crianlarich, or on the mountain above.

So we leave the glen behind and reach Loch Leven where the road swings to the west along its southern shore which will take us through North Ballachulish, on to Onich and Loch Linnhe.

As we approach Loch Leven Henry picks up his 1933 copy of  ‘In Scotland Again’ and reads aloud from chapter 6 section 3, 'dark mountains rising from a tidal loch, ridges of trees marching the hills like regiments, the mountains piling up in the distance towards the gloomy fastnesses of Glencoe and Lochaber, the whole scene mirrored in sleety-grey water ruffled at the edges by a fresh wind and swirling in a central channel with an incoming tide'.

At the Loch Leven crossing we search for Henry's ferry boatman; but instead we see but an expanse of box bridge. The Highlands are surely tamed. We miss 'the ferryman's Ancient Mariner's eye' and the Renfrewshire traveller. How times change.

Now Loch Linnhe spreads before us, with a stretch of pure white sand in the distance. As we approach, a lone figure comes into view. Might this be Robert Louis Stevenson? He is soberly dressed, but a single silver button stitched to his lapel catches the autumn sun.

I watch as HVM greets his friend, and they walk slowly to a small house standing alone by the shore of the Linnhe Loch. 'The sun was already gone from the desert mountains of Ardgour upon the hither side, but shone on those of Appin on the farther; the loch lay as still as a lake, only the gulls were crying round the sides of it; and the whole place seemed solemn and uncouth'.

That evening, over a glass of Talisker in the spitting light of a log fire, RLS tells his story of David Balfour’s exploits on the banks of Linnhe. 'It was near noon before we set out; a dark day with clouds, and the sun shining upon little patches. The sea was here very deep and still, and had scarce a wave upon it; so that I must put the water to my lips before I could believe it to be truly salt. The mountains on either side were high, rough and barren, very black and gloomy in the shadow of the clouds, but all silver-laced with little watercourses where the sun shone upon them. It seemed a hard country. There was but one thing to mention. A little after we had started, the sun shone upon a little moving clump of scarlet close in along the water-side to the north. It was much of the same red as soldiers' coats; every now and then, too, there came little sparks and lightnings, as though the sun had struck upon bright steel'.

Beyond 'a wood of birches, growing on a steep, craggy side of a mountain that overhung the loch. It had many openings and ferny howes; and a road or bridle track ran north and south through the midst of it, by the edge of which, where was a spring, I sat down to eat some oat-bread of Mr. Henderland's and think upon my situation'.

Smoke curls from Henry’s pipe; our glasses clatter on the wooden table and an empty bottle of Talisker 1956 Cask catches the fire’s dying embers. RLS rises to extinguish the gas lamp, pulling the low door closed as we depart the cottage. Robert heads off into the darkness by the loch, whilst we ascend the bank to where our bull-nosed Morris is parked.

'A magical night', says HVM as he swings his failing legs into the passenger footwell and pulls on his seat belt. 'Fancy that, there was only two years between us, you know', he continues, '26 July 1892 to 3 December 1894'. I frown with confusion, but as we turn towards Onich and the Corran ferry I realise how time can play tricks.