RIP: Irvine Butterfield, A walker and writer whose guidebook hellped put Scotland's mountains on the map

Irvine Butterfield
A walker and writer whose guidebook helped put Scotland's
mountains on the map


Ed Douglas
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 May 2009 20.03 BST


The practice of climbing hills of more than 3,000ft in
Scotland, known as "Munro-bagging", is now well known. But
when Irvine Butterfield, who has died aged 72 after a long
illness, published The High Mountains of Britain and Ireland
in 1986, it was still an esoteric, even eccentric cult. His
lavish guidebook went on to sell 50,000 copies in hardback -
good business for a hill-walking book - and inspired large
numbers of new enthusiasts to explore Britain's mountains.

The huge success of High Mountains gave Butterfield a strong
platform from which to campaign on the issue he cared for
most passionately, the defence of Scotland's wild
landscapes. His commitment was prodigious: he volunteered
huge amounts of time, donated funds and helped to found
several organisations, including the influential
conservation charity the John Muir Trust.

It was no matter that Irvine was born in the North Yorkshire
village of Farnhill, between Keighley and Skipton. Although
he was proud of his Tyke roots, he showed the zeal of the
convert in his love of Scotland's hills. In 1960,
Butterfield had been sent north to Perth as a young customs
and excise civil servant from his first posting in London.
To a young man raised near the Yorkshire moors, Scotland's
grander scale was immediately compelling.

His first Scottish hill was the Cobbler, attractive but well
below the magic height of 3,000ft. His first Munro was Stob
Diambh, the peak of the stags, an eastern outlier of Ben
Cruachan. In 1971 he completed the round - there are
currently 284 Munros (named after Sir Hugh Munro, who first
catalogued them) - on Ladhar Bheinn in the spectacular and
wild Knoydart peninsula. Not many more than 100 had finished
before him and there were no guidebooks. Now Munro-bagging
is an industry in itself.

Butterfield was a burly man, not physically suited to
teetering up rock faces, but he had an instinctive
appreciation for the landscape, and his warm and sometimes
gruff personality could not help but show it.

That emotional attachment proved the wellspring for a host
of effective and determined interventions to protect
Scotland's landscape and encourage people to enjoy it. He
helped set up the Mountain Bothies Association, established
to maintain the remote shelters so many walkers and cyclists
rely on in the Highlands and, in 1970, was a founder member
of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, giving up
thousands of hours of free time to the fledgling
organisation.

Butterfield's mantra was that you should give something back
to the mountains, and his civil service background made him
a good organiser, alongside his talent as a photographer and
lecturer. All these qualities coalesced in his support for
the John Muir Trust, founded in 1983.

Butterfield's was the fifth name on the membership list, and
he served as a director on its board and donated royalties
for his 1999 follow-up to Highland Britain, the Magic of the
Munros, to help fund the trust's purchase of the mountain
Schiehallion. Butterfield could see the value of a voice for
Britain's wild lands, and the trust he worked so hard for
has become their most coherent champion.

Latterly, he helped set up the Munro Society, and campaigned
as part of the Perthshire Alliance for the Real Cairngorms
to have the boundary of the new Cairngorms National Park
extended to include wild land in Perthshire, left out for
reasons of political expediency.

After so much hard work, commitment and generosity,
Butterfield became an honorary member of many organisations,
but his attitude remained that of an outsider. His books
helped inspire a huge increase in the number climbing
Munros, and, unfortunately, also in the damage that increase
caused. But very few have equalled his commitment to
Scotland's wild places.

He is survived by his partner, Moira Gillespie, and his
sister Irene.



Irvine Butterfield, hill walker, photographer, writer and
conservationist, born 8 August 1936; died 12 May 2009



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