Chivers, 1993, 371p. First published 1931.

Like Highland River, this is a tale steeped in Gunn’s experience of growing up in the coastal village of Dunbeath in Caithness. The viewpoint character is Hugh MacBeth, youngest son of the family but old enough to be tasked with collecting mussels with which to bait his father’s fishing nets. Part One is a slow unfolding of the realities of living slightly away from the small community but nevertheless enmeshed in it and displays a deep knowledge of the fishing life and empathy for a child on the cusp of early manhood. Hugh’s sister Grace has been away working in a city but recently returned home. He is mildly disturbed by meeting her walking along the road one evening with Charlie Chisholm, with whom his other sister, Kirsty, apparently has an understanding. His father is an accomplished seaman but his mother is opposed to any venturing out in boats by his elder brother Alan, since the McHughs’ other son, Finlay, had drowned several years before. The dramatic climax comes when Alan has offered to take a place in another man’s boat due to a crewman’s indisposition. A storm brews up shortly after the boats are out and a magnificently described passage shows us the perils of trying to make safe harbour in a raging sea and the fears of the women – and men – on the shore. Alan’s boat grounds just outside the harbour mouth but lines cast out from the shore help all to safety. In the meantime Hugh’s father’s boat appears doomed to all the observers when it materialises out of the rolling swells. Yet he times the approach and angle to the small harbour entrance to catch a wave surging into its shelter.

Part Two sees Hugh’s initiation into the company of older men and involvement in a ploy to poach salmon from the upper reaches of the local river, on the return from which he overhears Kirsty and Charlie Chisholm having a serious conversation about their relationship. By this time Alan has resolved to make a life for himself in Australia, an outcome which his mother much prefers to a life on the boats even though she is unlikely ever to see him again.

Hugh’s interactions with his peers and elders and theirs with him and each other are all firmly rooted. Understated love, minor betrayals, low-key heroism, the exigencies of a hard life (when doctors are only available by calling at their houses and even then may be out on a call) are all implied rather than underlined. This is a fine novel.

Pedant’s corner:- Magus (elsewhere Magnus.) “Bows rained on his own face” (Blows rained,) page 40 refers twice to Sandy – this is the name given to another character not in the scene. It is Hugh who is, and Hugh who is meant. “Icredible” (Incredible,) “a light in Morags” (Morag’s,) “tears navigating he zigzag furrows” (the zigzag furrows,) a missing full stop. “Ner’er” (Ne’er,) “a breat of snow” (a breath.) His conused mind” (confused,) “thrust two half-crowns into this pocket” (his pocket.) “He seemed to playing a game” (to be playing a game,) “he grilse rolled in his jersey” (the grilse.) “Cast they bread upon the waters” (Cast thy bread) not yet riches (nor yet riches.)

Canongate Classics, 1996, 246 p, plus vi p Introduction by Dairmid Gunn. First published in 1937.

Though it is couched as a sort of biography of Kenn, a young boy growing up into manhood and early middle age, this is an unusual novel in that its focus is really on the river of the title – almost a character in its own right – and clearly rooted in the author’s upbringing in the town of Dunbeath in Caithness and his knowledge of the Dunbeath Water which runs into the sea there. Evocation of landscape is a major component of the Scottish novel in general but not always as to the fore as it is here. Gunn’s descriptions of the river are precise and detailed so that the reader almost feels present. Not that he neglects characterisation; Kenn’s mother, elder brother and father are sketched economically but powerfully and all the minor characters have the stuff of life. It is, too, a philosophical novel, crammed with the thoughts Gunn puts into Kenn’s head as he recounts his experiences. It joins the long roll of Scottish literature about times lost and a way of life remembered.

The first scene is of a very young Kenn’s struggle with a huge cock salmon in the lower reaches of the river. In the end he manages to land it and this marks his transition into boyhood. (This episode is also commemorated by a statue erected by proud locals alongside the harbour in Dunbeath. I featured the statue in this post.)

This is one of many instances where the catching of fish (whether trout or salmon) is portrayed, the elaborate precautions taken to avoid gamekeepers, the deep knowledge of the likely pools, the intricate procedures needed to spy the fish and entrap it. Another early scene shows the disconnect between geography lessons about the main industries of English cities and Kenn’s daily life. None of that mundane esoterica is relevant to existence in a small village. Kenn finds himself dreaming through such lessons and as a result becomes the subject of his teacher’s wrath, expressed as was the custom of the times via the institutionalised violence of the tawse.

In contrast, despite the reticence bred by Calvinism – “None of the mothers in that land kissed their sons. If it were known that a boy had been kissed by his mother, not a dozen school fights would clear him of the dark shame of such weakness,” a weakness seen as more the mother’s than the son’s, “Nor can Kenn remember having seen his father kiss his mother ….. affection was as shy and as invisible as death,” – his parent’s quiet attitude to Kenn’s academic success and his own reluctance to declare it speak volumes.

As for the rock of the family, “Kenn’s mother did not go to church simply because she believed she was not worthy ….. She had done nothing to make herself unworthy. She was seen in her life as a good woman and without reproach. Yet she believed herself unworthy.” The men, too, did not take communion; their lives, tainted by rough living (and the odd drink,) had “not contained enough solemnity of holiness to justify them in going forward.”

The narrative flits back and forth through time between Kenn’s childhood, his experiences in the Great War and his life as a physicist afterwards, but the transitions are not jarring. They seem to occur organically, scenes flowing smoothly into one another. It is a kind of stream of consciousness, but controlled, always alert to the point. The removal in the Highland Clearances of Kenn’s not so ancient ancestors from the land they had worked since time immemorial, henceforth to make their living through sea-fishing, is mentioned in passing but without it they would not have been in reduced circumstances.

Through it all the river exerts its pull, Kenn’s last journey in the book marking his progress at last up to its source where he thinks, “Out of great works of art, out of great writing, there comes upon the soul sometimes a feeling of strange intimacy.” Here, Gunn’s intimacy with his subject, his feel for his particular hinterland, reaches beyond the Dunbeath Water, beyond the village which shares its name, beyond Scotland, to become universal, recognised by Highland River’s award of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1937.

Pedant’s corner:- In the Introduction; a quote is given partly as “you make me try to see him” (the text actually has ‘you made me try’,) “no so ancient” (not so ancient.) Otherwise; Sans’ (several times, Sans’s,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech (x 3,) milennia (millenia,) Archimedes’ (Archimedes’s,) acction (action,) “this land of bare moors had their austere effect” (had its austere effect.)

This memorial is situated just off the A 9 at Berriedale (almost at the lowest point of the Berriedale Braes, a particularly hair-raising descent to and ascent from a river valley containing the Berriedale Water and the Langwell Water.)

The main aspect of the memorial faces north:-

The photograph below shows the World War 2 dedication. Names on left here are for the Great War, those killed or died of wounds and – unusually – those wounded. The smaller list on right names World War 2 dead and the memorial’s architects are named at the bottom:-

The memorial from the west. In another unusual touch the names on this side of the memorial are of those who served in the Great War (and presumably survived it):-

From west to north to east the pillar is surmountd by the words “Their Name Liveth Evermore” with the theatres of war Palestine, Salonika, France, Belgium, Egypt and Gallipoli, engraved towards the base.

Dedication. “Honor et Gloria. To commemorate the patriotism of the men of Berriedale and Braemore who fought on land and sea some of them giving their lives for their king and country during the Great War 1914-1918 and in thankfulness to God for the victory their valour helped to win”:-

Just over the Dunbeath Water from the small harbour lies Dunbeath Castle. This photo was taken from up the hill the road ascends north of the village, where we had parked the car:-

This is a closer view taken from the harbour:-

On a wall by the harbour is this memorial to the SS Gretafield which was torpedoed off Wick on 14/2/1940, set on fire, and finally ran aground on Dunbeath beach. 12 men died.

A small building had a kind of museum to the small boats people used to use for fishing out of Dunbeath. This is a model of the type. I kept thinking of The Silver Darlings:-

On the way down from Orkney and Thurso we stopped at Dunbeath, Caithness. This was the birthplace of Scottish writer Neil M Gunn.

This stone was laid in his memory. “To commemorate Neil M Gunn, author of world renown, born into this community 8^th November 1891.”

This statue, erected 100 years after Gunn’s birth, is in honour of the character Kenn from his novel Highland River:-

This is the river running through the village, the Dunbeath Water, possibly that same Highland river:-

This information board was on a wall nearby. As well as mentioning Gunn it notes other local attractions:-