Beyond the Secret Howff

As a young man with a compelling interest in the great outdoors and the natural world Allister ('Ashie') Brebner spent his precious weekends in the 1950s and early '60s as a pioneer of the emerging Scottish bothying and mountaineering scene, and was one of the builders of the famed Secret Howff on Bheinn a' Bhuird in the Cairngorms. At the start of the 1960s he threw in his steady, well-paid job as a factory worker and, with another companion who did the same, started as a pioneer of mountain and nature guiding in the Scottish Highlands. Here is the unique story of a working man whose odyssey took him from the tenements and factory work of Aberdeen to the mountains and islands of the Highlands, their people and their wildlife.

Auteur

Allister ('Ashie') Brebner was born in 1935 in a working class tenement near Pittodrie Stadium in Aberdeen. He left school at 15 and trained as a motor vehicle mechanic, later working as a maintenance engineer in Aberdeen's paper industry. Participating in the explosion of outdoor activity after 1945, Ashie developed a deep love of the Scottish mountains and in 1963 gave up his job and co-founded Highland Safaris, a nature and outdoor guiding company, which he continued with till his retirement. Ashie lives in Strathpeffer, Rosshire, and this is his first book.