The cartilagenous vertebrae of processed sharks laid out to dry in the factory’ ‘boneyard’ on Soay.
Peter Scott. Drawing by Gavin Maxwell, 1946.
Raef Payne. Drawing by Gavin Maxwell, 1946.
Tambimuttu. Painting by Gavin Maxwell, 1949.
Tambimuttu, Kathleen Raine and Gavin Maxwell photographed at their first meeting in the garden at Paultons Square, August 1949.
Racing the 3½-litre Bentley at Silverstone in the summer of 1949.
Clement Glock working on a set at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, c.1949.
The burn and the bay – the twin components of the ring at Sandaig (Camusfeàrna).
Sandaig, showing the ring of bright water, as it was at the time of Gavin Maxwell’s first stay in the spring of 1950.
With a young gull on Gull Island, Sandaig, during Gavin’s first exploration of his West Highland retreat, 1950.
Salvatore Giuliano, the so-called Robin Hood of Sicily, at the time of his armed campaign in 1949.
Ma’dan boatmen in the reed channels of the Iraq marshes, during the explorations of Gavin Maxwell and Wilfred Thesiger in the winter of 1956.
Wilfred Thesiger in the tarada, or war canoe, in which he and Gavin travelled in the marshes.
The only photo of Gavin in the marshes – and the only photo of his first, short-lived, baby otter, Chahala.
Mijbil asleep on the studio floor at Avonmore Road after his arrival in London.
Mijbil on the steps of the Maxwell family seat at Monreith, Galloway, in the summer of 1956.
Mij in the Sandaig burn.
Kathleen Raine with Mij, autumn 1956.
The pine-panelled kitchen-living-room at Sandaig in its heyday. Left to right: Kenneth Alpin, Gavin Maxwell, Jimmy Watt.
Edal roaming free at the high waterfall at Camusfeàrna, 1960.
Jimmy Watt and the greylag geese on a shell-sand beach on the Sandaig Islands.
Edal emulating the Modigliani nude.
A rare informal portrait, snapped by Gavin’s niece Magda Stirling in an off-guard moment in the summer of 1960.
In front of the house at Sandaig, summer 1961.
Gavin with Edal, Sandaig, 1960.
Gavin at his writing desk, Sandaig, 1963.
Terry Nutkins with Teko.
Gavin and Teko.
Teko running free in the surf in Sandaig Bay, 1961.
Gavin Maxwell and the Duke of Edinburgh chat at a Spinningdale house party-picnic, Sutherland, autumn 1962.
Gavin in heroic Thoreau-esque pose carries a lame sheep down the hill to Sandaig, 1960.
Camusfeàrna under snow in the severe winter of 1961–2.
Gavin and Lavinia drive off in the Mercedes roadster after their wedding in Covent Garden in February 1962.
The Kasbah of the Lords of the Atlas at Telouet in the Moroccan High Atlas, where Gavin and Lavinia spent part of their honeymoon.
Gavin tending an injured climber in the High Atlas.
Monday on the day of her arrival.
Mossy and Monday in the early days of their sojourn at Sandaig, February 1962.
Gavin and Dirk.
Lavinia and Monday.
Douglas Botting with Edal.
Free at last, Teko surveys Sandaig’s wild vistas with Andrew Scot. The spirit of the old Camusfeàrna is reborn, October 1967.
Early on the morning of 21 January 1968, the house at Sandaig still smoulders after the fire that had destroyed it during the night.
Gavin in the long room of his new home, the lighthouse cottage on Kyleakin Island.
Richard Frere and Owl.
Lisa van Gruisen and fox cub.
Douglas Botting’s last view of an ailing man and his ailing otter – Gavin and Malla, November 1968.
About the Author
Douglas Botting is a writer whose previous books reflect his interest in travel, exploration and wild places. He has accompanied expeditions to Socotra (Yemen), the Sahara, the Amazon and Arctic Siberia, and was an exploration film-maker for the BBC’s ‘World About Us’. He became a full-time writer with the publication of his highly praised biography of the German explorer-naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, Humboldt and the Cosmos. Subsequently he has written several travel books, a bestselling investigative history, Nazi Gold (with Ian Sayer), and the authorised biography of Gerald Durrell, hailed by Desmond Morris as ‘brilliant’. He first met Gavin Maxwell after the tragic death of Maxwell’s first otter, Mij. He was at Sandaig during the writing of Ring of Bright Water and spent a winter there with Maxwell’s otters during their owner’s absence abroad.
61 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QL
Email: [email protected]
Eland was started in 1982 to revive great travel books which had fallen out of print. Although the list soon diversified into biography and fiction, all the titles are chosen for their interest in spirit of place.
One of our readers explained that for him reading an Eland was like listening to an experienced anthropologist at the bar – she’s let her hair down and is telling all the stories that were just too good to go into the textbook. These are books for travellers, and for those who are content to travel in their own minds. They open out our understanding of other cultures, interpret the unknown and reveal different environments as well as celebrating the humour and occasional horrors of travel. We take immense trouble to select only the most readable books and many readers collect the entire series.
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Copyright
First published by Harper Collins Publishers in London in 1993
First published by Eland Publishing Limited
61 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QL in 2017
This ebook edition first published in 2017
All rights reserved
Copyright © Douglas Botting 1993
The right of Douglas Botting to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–1–78060–087-1
Cover image: Gavin and Mij at Sandaig in the summer of 1956
by Phillip Glasier
Gavin Maxwell Page 72
