Dave Hewitt is surprised to find himself praising private landowners who have been forward thinking in removing access restrictions.
It was almost possible to forget there was a war on.
For five days, in fine weather, we enjoyed an old-fashioned, no-hassle hill holiday. Various tops and glens around Braemar were visited with little or nothing in the way of restriction. A few new hills were climbed, as were a few old favourites and among the many highlights was an adder that hissed from a sun-lounger of a rock on a springlike afternoon.
The best highlight of all, though, was one we normally take for granted - freedom of access. While there were signs at the obvious start-points, these were refreshingly walker-friendly, quoting (and quoting accurately) the Comeback Code, indicating that folk were very welcome to spend time on the hill provided they did the obvious things such as steer clear of sheep and deer.
For the past six weeks Braemar has been lucky in having sat at the centre of several (to adapt the MAFF jargon) "contiguous" estates which have proved themselves to be forward-thinking and law-abiding.
At the heart of this regional free state is Invercauld, covering a great sweep of prime-climb big-hill country from the eastern Cairngorms to the glens south of Braemar. The head factor, Simon Blackett, had re-opened "his" land even before the Code was established and he explained the simplicity of his logic when we met for a meal one evening. "I reckoned," he said, "that if upwards of 10,000 skiers could come into the area without the disease being introduced, then there was no reason why the hills couldn't be opened to walkers as well."
Blackett was aware of the need for risk assessment and admits to having worried that his move might prove to be "a dreadful mistake" but he was open-minded and inclusive enough to know that concepts of risk and caution did not just involve the sporting estate and its staff but the wider community as well.
Enormous numbers of walkers and climbers pass through Braemar, leaving behind money in one form or another. Indeed, it was telling that when we discussed upper-Deeside economics over Geva Blackett's rather wonderful tagliatelle, the subject that seemed most irksome was not the foot and mouth conundrum but the local fuel provider's increasing tendency to keep his garage closed whenever the mood took him. (So it's tough luck and an empty tank if your decision to skip Blairgowrie coincides with one of the Braemar supplier's gone-fishin' days. The local economy, as they say, needs pump-priming.)
One thing which Simon Blackett's decisiveness shows (and I never thought I'd be writing these words) is that private landownership does have its merits if attempted properly, humanely, holistically. Blackett's situation allowed him to swerve the sludgy committeedom in which various landowning agencies have become enmired. Instead, as he noted, "I just got up one morning, thought about it and gave word for the signs to be taken down."
Of course there is a darker flipside to this - for every well-intentioned land manager willing to act so boldly, several more will try to keep their signs posted and their estates closed for many months after foot and mouth has passed. But that is their problem (and ours, sadly). Blackett, by contrast, has done well and deserves any number of Brownie points from the hillgoing community plus a medal from the Braemar chamber of commerce, if such a thing exists.
The Invercauld situation has been helped in that Balmoral on one side and the National Trust for Scotland on the other were likewise quick to re-open. The NTS has done well on Mar, unlike on their still-closed Ben Lawers estate. As one lifelong hillgoer recently noted, many of those who donated to the NTS Tarmachan appeal will be feeling rueful now.
In fact the main restriction on Mar is nothing to do with foot and mouth at all but a consequence of the recent fighter-jet crash on Ben Macdui. A soldier stands on point duty at Derry Lodge, instructing walkers to avoid the summit area while offering the rather curious (and George-W-esque) explanation that the crash site is "a crime scene". It was, as I say, almost possible to forget there was a war on.
To put upper Deeside in context, it is worth having a quick look at estates in neighbouring areas, as much of the Munro-less Aberdeen/Kincardineshire hinterland (Donside and the Cabrach to the north east, Forest of Birse and the lower Mounth to the south east) has an unreconstructed, walker-unfriendly reputation. As we headed south over the Cairn o' Mount on Easter Saturday I didn't, to be honest, hold out hope of being able to break the journey with anything more than a road walk.
This proved unduly pessimistic, however. We pulled in at the lay-by beside Cuttie's Wood, west of Strachan, where I fancied stretching the legs with a 20-minute bushwhack to an obscure, arboreal trig point. (Somebody has to do these things.) This was precisely the kind of place that has, within a few short weeks, come to embody closure - and, sure enough, the lay-by had a variety of signs nailed to gateposts, all posted by the Fasque and Glen Dye Estate. The first, half-obscured, dated back to early March and announced the initial blanket shutdown.
The second, dated 29 March, discussed the ongoing closure at some length: "Although Scottish Natural Heritage suggested you, the visitor, should Comeback to the Countryside," it noted, "we ask you to stay away. All the paths and tracks on this Estate are used by deer and sheep on a daily basis. Should foot and mouth disease be allowed to infect Scotland's wild deer population, the rural scene which you have enjoyed will not be there for your children to enjoy. Do not be duped by election fever - help us to contain the infection and preserve our heritage for the future. Could you really envisage these hills with no deer on them?" And finally, in CAPITALS: "You have our assurance that as soon as it is safe to walk these hills again you will be made more than welcome - meanwhile, please stay away."
This raised several questions - not least being the odd assumption that "election fever" has a liberalising effect on land control, whereas most frustrated hillgoers would assume the precise opposite. But all such subtleties are forgotten if the "You have our assurance" statement is seen to be true, as it was here. A third sign, dated 12 April, read much more snappily: "Welcome to Glen Dye. Please disinfect your boots thoroughly in the containers provided, both before and after walking. Please stay on paths and keep away from deer and sheep. Please keep dogs on short leads. Thank you for your co-operation."
And thank you, Fasque and Glen Dye, for a genuine attempt to re-open the land while keeping the public informed. As on Invercauld, this will do wonders for landowner/land-user interaction in the longer term. (Oh, and for the record, the mini-hill with the 156m trig was very pleasant: a tad thicket-strewn on approach but the actual summit was treeless, carrying an old cairn and giving a fine view to Clachnaben with its landmark tor.)
That I had been gloomy about Cairn o' Mount prospects was partly due to a foray into Strathdon the previous day, when we had passed several access points on the huge Dunecht Estate. Dunecht controls a large and lengthy swathe between the Don and the Dee (and has for years had "a bit of a reputation"). The signs here were unnecessarily - even remarkably - bullish. Take this, near Edinglassie - "Members of the public are requested to refrain from walking and driving in the estate due to the risk of foot and mouth infection to wild and domestic animals".
This was in place three weeks after the Comeback Code's publication and over five weeks since the Executive's initial "moderating" statements on risk, yet Dunecht was still trying to dissuade walkers from visiting not just paths and tracks but also from the network of public roads which criss-crosses this very scenic area. Now, quite aside from the domineering and sod-you attitude this sends out not just to walkers but also to tea-rooms, gift shops and so on, the Keep Orf Our Roads edict is plain illegal. The guidelines are quite clear: only in infected areas should there be any road closures, and then only those instigated by the local council, not by cowboy estates such as Dunecht. Crazy stuff.
But craziest of all had been the stretch of A93 south of the Spittal of Glenshee, where each of a series of lay-bys was blocked with massive circular hay bales. Three or four bales per lay-by, making it impossible to stop safely on a winding stretch of road. Clearly these had been placed by a particularly paranoid farmer (possibly the one who came on heavy with local accommodation providers in the early days of the crisis). And while nervousness, caution and even paranoia is understandable at such a time, questions again need to be asked about legalities.
The farmer didn't build and doesn't maintain these lay-bys, so why is he (I presume it is a he) allowed to block them so blatantly? Were you or I to dump one old washing machine in one lay-by, then even if the police didn't catch us at it, some council official would soon come to our door having been tipped off by a sharp-eyed local. And fair enough, keep the countryside tidy, neighbourhood watch and all that.
So why have these massively obvious blockages been allowed to persist over a couple of months? It's not like the police and the council don't know they are there. The answer, I fear, is that obstructions such as these and signs such as those on Dunecht, are visible evidence that we are living amid ill-informed superstition and near-vigilantism. We're in a period when many of the elected and appointed authorities have, at best, declined to do their jobs and at worst have sided with the murkier undemocratic institutions that riddle so much of society.
But now is not the time to be downbeat. Angry, yes, pessimistic, no, not just now. This is written just two days from the start of May, an emotive date in any year but unusually significant this time round. Why? Because on May Day, barring any sudden rogue outbreak in the Comeback Zone, the Scottish Executive will further ease animal-movement and public-access restrictions, such that unless a landowner or grazing tenant can find a damn fine reason to suggest otherwise, it will be back to normal everywhere north of the Forth/Clyde.
Crucially, the Executive will be issuing strict access-enforcement guidelines to local councils, while the return of "innocent until proven guilty" status for walkers and climbers ought to allow scope for agencies to be "assisted" in their task of taking down unnecessary and illegal signs (and removing litter such as hay bales).
There will doubtless be a transitional period during which resistance will be encountered but with legal types in the councils and legwork punters on the ground both now clearer as to what's meant to happen, it's time to get the country working - and walking - again.
The sooner this happens in the never-infected areas, the smoother the same process will be, come the time, in Dumfries and Galloway, Cumbria and points south. We owe it to the people in such places to seize the moment and get the country's northern chunk sorted without further delay. This has gone on long enough already.
Dave Hewitt
29/4/01
