Leaving Lethinnis

As a sequel to the earlier Life in Lethinnis, this book provides a further series of stories about life on a remote West Highland croft. It captures the atmosphere of living and working in this tight-knit community and is beautifully illustrated with charming sketches by wildlife artist Catherine Putman. This is the continuing story of Lethinnis and its characters, both animal and human. In this sequel, Rory offers a further collection of pen-portraits from those early years in the place he has called Lochuisge. In the tradition of Lillian Beckwith’s The Hills is Lonely, or Sybil Armstrong’s A Croft in Clachan, the anecdotes inevitably revolve around the strong characters that made up this isolated community and became part of everyday life. With the author continuing to earn a living as a professional biologist, the characters featured are both human and animal as the various tales capture the atmosphere of living and working in this tight-knit community into which he and his wife were so immediately welcomed. After 20 years leading a research group in wildlife biology at the University of Southampton, Rory Putman decided to ‘retire’ to the Highlands of Scotland, moving with his wife to a croft at the edge of a small and somewhat inaccessible village on the west coast. In the same vein as the well-received Life in Lethinnis, he offers a further collection of cameos from those first few years as they moved into and settled in their remote smallholding. The author’s intimate writing style draws the reader with him into the heart of that same community. But in this sequel there is perhaps a greater darkness as Putman registers that life on the Peninsula is changing and that he is in effect chronicling the end of an era.