Favourite books of 2020: non-fiction

It's been a good year for non-fiction, a genre of which I used to read very little; I've delved into subjects as diverse as hill walking and herring fishing, but when I look back I see that the thing that unites all but one of my reads is their Scottish roots. It's been a year for staying put and appreciating more than ever the nature, culture and history of the country I am glad to call home.

My weekly walks with my wonderful friend Nancy, who's very well informed about local history, have shown me just how much I've missed in the past.  In such an agricutural area history may not be quite as closely packed as it is in London or Edinburgh, but it's there when you look with open eyes. We've had so much fun pottering around the fields, woods and villages, balancing on wood stacks to peep into abandoned walled gardens, venturing into derelict cottages, getting lost despite our maps and guidebooks. Two middle-aged ladies in Aberdeenshire may not sound quite as thrilling as Travels with a Donkey in Cevennes, but we've loved it. 

Derelict cottage, Drum Estate, Aberdeenshire

My first book is Brodiach to Bervie: A History of Skene and Westhill by local historian Jim Fiddes. I wanted this book as soon as I saw my friend's copy, but I did wonder if it might be a little academic and dry - well it isn't. Mr Fiddes writes so well, and makes everything so interesting, that you just want to read on and on. Although he has a vast knowledge of the local area, he also knows how to bring that information alive - there are lots of excerpts from the always idiosyncratic Aberdeen Press & Journal, and anecdotes about local events and characters. When a farmer discovers an old tomb in his field while ploughing, every local Tom, Dick, Harry and their dogs are on the scene within a hour. This is 1905; the bush telegraph clearly worked. The grave contained a male skeleton, two beakers, flint scrapers and charcoal. The locals thought they were between 50 and 250 years old. When two Aberdeen university archaeologists arrived on the scene they informed the assembled hoardes that a more accurate estimate would be 2,000-3,000 years;

'Some took the statement with more than the proverbial grain of salt. They shook their heads and winked slyly to each other, as much to say "these toon billies are awful leears."'

What's more, the academics only removed the skeleton, leaving the rest of these priceless relics with the tenant farmer who'd unearthed them. 

I love the chatty tone of the article, so different from today's;

'What would the deceased have thought if he had suddenly returned to life again and found himself dashing down Union Street in a horseless carriage?'

John D Burns - image James Roddie

The Last Hillwalker by John D Burns begins in suburban Liverpool, when the author is still at school and has never been further than a North Wales holiday camp ('Picture a kind of Auschwitz by the sea.'). It is 1972. A youth hostelling trip to the Lake District with the hapless Geography teacher, Mr Mally, begins Burns' lifelong love of the hills, and this is the story of his early trips with his equally ill-equipped friends (one of them later traverses the bogs of the Pennine Way in his school shoes), his increasingly ambitious excursions into the mountains, and eventually some much more serious attempts at peaks in Scotland, Europe and North America  As soon as a job opportunity presents itself, Burns moves to Inverness, where he still lives. Along the way he meets some engaging characters - some professional climbers, some eccentric amateurs - including Charlie , with whom he climbs for some years, and who doesn't believe in safety precautions;

'Och, if your number's up, it's up. That's all there is to it.'  

Eventually Burns realised he was no longer enjoying the hard climbs; these days he settles for the lower hills, and for time spent in bothys - where he meets all sorts of people, and finds material for another book, Bothy Tales. 

The Last Hillwalker was a present from my son, and knowing him I feared it might be a bit too technical for me - but instead it's a brilliant read, often hilariously funny, always modest, and above all one that communicates an abiding love of the hills. My full review is here.

Jim Crumley has been my favourite nature writer since I first heard him speak at Blackwells in Edinburgh many years ago. His Nature's Architect, a wonderful meditation on beavers, architecture and jazz, remains one of my favourite books. 

Lately Jim's written a quartet of books about the seasons, and this year he completed the series with The Nature of Summer. While writing as lyrically as ever about the birds and animals of Scotland - seals at Burnmouth, dragonflies and lizards at Flanders Moss, razorbills and guillemots on his first visit to St Kilda in 1988, eagles teaching eaglets to fly off Creag na h-Iolaire - in this book Jim is seriously worried about our abuse of the natural world, pollution, global warming and the future of wildlife. He quotes truly alarming statistics about the decline of the puffin, and of seabirds in general, the barbaric killing of birds of prey on shooting estates and the need for tougher penalties for all wildlife crime - but in between all this there are still moments of joy; a symphony of larksong, a salmon swimming upstream on the River Orchy, taking rapids and waterfalls in its torpedo-like stride, a roe deer appearing from the woods, followed by her faun ('I was oak-tree still.'). 

Seal pup at St Abb's Head - image (c) National Trust for Scotland

And as ever, Jim discusses his antipathy to ill-thought-out 'wildlife management schemes' (though he is certainly not against all organised attempts to help nature; the Woodland Trust's work at Glen Finglas comes in for praise), amd celebrity wildlife programmes, and repeats his mantra - 'let wildlife manage wildlife' (words first spoken by David M Carroll.). There would, he argues, be no need for deer culls if we allowed the wolf to repopulate the Highlands, just as beavers are the expert managers of waterways and our best defence against flooding;

'Reintroduce the wolf and everything in nature starts to make sense, and biodiveristy follows...it as as simple as that.'

Glen Finglas - image: Woodland Trust

Jim Crumley is the first to acknowledge that he doesn't have all the answers;

'beaver behavour is erratic, inconsistent and unpredictable, and our notions of logic have nothing to do with it.'

'why do they (foxes) live here when eagles take their cubs?'

He sees signs of hope in a visit to Norway's Lofoten Islands with their rich bird life, and in moments closer to home that;

'simply go beyond, that touch more depths of communication between nature and nature writer'

I recommend Jim Crumley's books to everyone I know, and The Nature of Summer is no exception.

Bob Gilbert (image: Greenbelt Festival)

A book that combines nature and history is Bob Gilbert's Ghost Trees: Nature and People in a London Parish. When his wife was ordained as an Anglican priest, Gilbert imagined himself living in an idyllic country parsonage, or walking across the snow-covered fields to a Christmas carol service. In fact the family ended up in Poplar, one of London's poorest- and most diverse - boroughs (and, for those who follow the series, location of Call the Midwife's Nonatus House.) Gilbert decided to take Rev Gilbert White's advice and study a small area in close detail; he would spend a year investigating the nature and social history of this fascinating area, and would also see if he could find the original poplar tree. 

James I Mulberry Tree, Poplar (image: inlondon.co.uk)

Chaim Weizmann, Manchester biochemist and first president of Israel

Over the years Poplar has been home to people from China, France, Scotland, Ireland and Bangladesh, all of whom have brought their cultures, and their gardens, with them. The stories Gilbert uncovered (who knew the strange connection between the horse chestnuts of East London and the first president of the newly formed state of Israel?), the trees (and other plants) he found, the people he met - and most interestingly the connections between them - fill this wonderfully readable book. My full review is here. 

Finally, a book much closer to home. Christian Watt Marshall lived her whole life in Broadsea, a close-knit fishing community in Fraserburgh. Like most of her friends, she left school at 14 to become a herring worker, and followed the fleets as they followed the fish, around the coast of Scotland, up to Shetland, and back again to Yarmouth. 

Christian with her friend 'Bengie's Kirsten' in Dundee in 1916

Thirty years ago, two university researchers visited Christian in her old age and recorded her memoir verbatim. In 1993 this was published as A Stranger on the Bars; it forms a precious record of a time long gone - not just of the fishing itself, though this dominated every aspect of the local families' lives, but also of daily life on the Broch in the early years of the 20th century. My full review is here.

Brodiach to Bervie by Jim Fiddes is published by Leopard Press and is available direct from the author. 

The Last Hillwalker by John D Burns is published by Vertebrate Press.

The Nature of Spring by Jim Crumley is published by Saraband.

Ghost Trees by Bob Gilbert is published by Saraband.

A Stranger on the Bars: The Memoirs of Christian Watt Marshall of Broadsea is published by Aberdeenshire Council Leisure & Recreation Department 

My weekly walks with my wonderful friend Nancy, who's very well informed about local history, have shown me just how much I've missed in the past.  In such an agricutural area history may not be quite as closely packed as it is in London or Edinburgh, but it's there when you look with open eyes. We've had so much fun pottering around the fields, woods and villages, balancing on wood stacks to peep into abandoned walled gardens, venturing into derelict cottages, getting lost despite our maps and guidebooks. Two middle-aged ladies in Aberdeenshire may not sound quite as thrilling as Travels with a Donkey in Cevennes, but we've loved it.