In our house there is a toilet. It belongs there. It’s a good place for a toilet. In this toilet is a basket and in this basket are some magazines (yes, my mother thinks that’s unhygienic too, but hey ho). Some of these magazines are Scottish Mountaineer, the magazine published by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, and in this magazine there is a letters page. The letters page belongs there. It’s a good place for a letters page. Frequently, those letters raise the subject of mountain memorials, and whether memorials belong in the mountains.
A couple of years back, I undertook a walk with some friends around Buachaille Etive Beag in Glen Coe, up the Lairig Eilde, down towards Dalness at the head of beautiful Loch Etive, and back up the Lairig Gartain. Coming through the Lairig Gartain, onto the highest point of the pass between Buachaille Etive Mor and Buachaille Etive Beag, I spotted something ahead of us that looked odd and out of place.
Arriving at it, I was surprised to find it was a wooden bench, the sort you might buy in a garden centre or B&Q. Taped to the side of it was a bunch of (long dead) flowers and on it was a little commerorative plaque, made out to someone who had died and who enjoyed the view from this spot. (It is a particularly beautiful view, with the mountains on either side framing an uninterupted view right down Loch Etive). The bench had toppled over and one of the sides of it had rotted and was falling off. I examined it with mixed feelings whilst the others stood back. Whilst I appreciated that friends of family of the deceased had cared for him and grieved at his death, and obviously gone to some efforts to haul a bench up here from the road, my over-riding thoughts were, I admit, ‘What’s a bloody great bench doing up here?’ and ‘Who would bring a bloody great bench up here only for it to decay and turn into so much litter?’
I shared my thoughts with my friends. They weren’t impressed. They were even less impressed when I suggested that, as it was already unable to stand up and was actually falling apart, that we should carry it out and put it in the bin. I don’t think it would be too strong to say that some of them were appalled at this idea, and at me for suggesting it. I tried explaining to them my thinking that, despite the best intentions of those who brought it here, that it didn’t belong here. Although Glen Coe is not ‘wild land’ in any absolute sense, it is, for Scotland, relatively ‘wild’. Like many (all?) places in Scotland it is not ‘untouched by human hand’; it is a managed landscape. However, for those visiting Glen Coe (like the person the memorial bench was there to commemorate), the management is unobtrusive and the joy of visiting here is to be in a grand and beautiful place, away from towns and cities, away from rubbish and litter. My friends weren’t having any of it. They just felt that we couldn’t remove the memorial as it would be disrespectful to those who who erected. I was going to ask them about the respect the self-same people had shown to this wonderful place, but thought better of it. We left the toppled bench where it lay and headed for home. Within a few metres, however, we came across a huge boulder which had a commematorive plaque super-glued onto it!
The argument about whether memorials should have a place in the mountains is a long-standing one. For my tuppence worth, they shouldn’t. They don’t belong there and can only reduce the quality of the landscape. To my mind, Glyn Jones, an estate ranger at Balmoral Estate sums it up well when he refers to a memorial near the Spittal of Muick car park with ‘Doug’s Favourite Place’ engraved on a stone slab, and asks:
I wonder if ‘Doug’s favourite place’ would have been his favourite place if, when he had first visited, he found a plaque already on it declaring it to be ‘Bob’s favourite place’?.
Scottish Mountains 