Many in Highland Perthshire will have been familiar with the name of Irvine Butterfield – wild land campaigner, photographer and writer of iconic books such as “The High Mountains of Britain and Ireland”. Royalties from another of his books, the lavishly-illustrated “The Magic of The Munros”, were donated to the John Muir Trust’s appeal to buy a large part of Schiehallion, including the summit and east ridge.
Irvine died in May 2009 and, by way of a tribute to his memory, his executor Roderick Manson together with David Robertson and John Mitchell from the Mountain Bothies Association decided to republish his first book.
“Dibidil – A Hebridean Adventure” tells the story of the restoration of a bothy on the isolated south-east coast of Rum in 1970, of the landing of materials on a dangerously rocky shore in gale-force winds and of the rebuilding at the height of the midgie season. Rum midges, it should be noted, are a particularly vigorous breed.
The book was first published in 1972 as a limited edition to raise funds for the MBA. Digital printing had not been invented so the typesetting, as well as the binding, left something to be desired and the pictures were in black-and-white. Nevertheless, a copy in mint condition can reasonably be expected to set you back around £60.
The new edition is digitally-set and the pictures are now in colour, having been scanned from the original colour slides which Irvine left to the MBA. There is also additional material from a later 1975 revisit, including a further ten verses of the notorious “Dibidil Song” and we feel that the book is now in a form which does justice to this remarkable undertaking.
Cheques for £8.00, including postage and packing, should be made payable to Roderick Manson at 33 Cedar Avenue, Blairgowrie, Perthshire, PH10 6TT. All profits, just as soon as we make some, will go to the Mountain Bothies Association