The Cape Wrath peninsula – the most north western tip of the British mainland – is an area of 207 square kilometres of uninhabited wild, windswept moorland and mountain. It is the last true wilderness in the British Isles, and both the land and the waters surrounding it are a haven for wild life. It is also a key area of study for geologists, as it contains some of the oldest rocks to be found in Britain.

And since 1828, Cape Wrath has been the home of a famous lighthouse that attracts visitors from throughout the world, and which has saved countless lives on the treacherous seas around the Cape.

David Hird has produced a meticulously researched and beautifully written book that for the first time gives an all encompassing and accurate account of the history and natural history of the Cape. He covers the geology, fauna and flora, climate and delicate ecology of the area. He also looks at the history of habitation, and the problems encountered by those who lived here. He looks at those who have visited the Cape, and the reasons for them doing so. And he looks at some of the military activity that now takes place. But above all, this is a history of the building and maintaining of the lighthouse, and of the road to the light, and how it became a tourist attraction. He recounts the work of ordinary men and women in ensuring that access to this wilderness continues.

This fine book will interest anyone who loves wild and remote areas, and will also attract those fascinated by geology, wildlife, engineering, lighthouses, the sea, and social history. The story it tells is as exciting and gripping as any fiction.

David Hird was born in 1945 in Yorkshire and has always been proud of his Yorkshire roots. After being educated in his home county and London University he began a career in the administration of constitutional law and the electoral franchise. After a four year interlude between 1982 and 1986, during which, with his wife, he jointly kept a small country inn in the Yorkshire Dales, he returned to local government specialising in financial law. In 1995 he grasped the opportunity of early retirement and later moved to Sutherland. He is married to Rachel and has one son, Nic who – with his wife and three children – lives in Durness.

He enjoys local history, industrial archaeology, early transport research and staunchly resisting the alleged march of technological progress, distrusting any machine which refuses to function until plugged into the National Grid.

David acts as Travel Consultant to the UK’s leading motorcaravan magazine and is a regular contributor to that and other local history periodicals. In the 1980s David compiled a definitive history of the development of the railways in Nidderdale. “A light in the Wilderness” is his first book on a Sutherland subject, an interest prompted by his taking visitors to the Cape Wrath lighthouse in past summer seasons.

Balnakeil Press is an imprint set up by Kevin Crowe and Simon Long, owners of Loch Croispol Bookshop & Restaurant in Durness. Balnakeil Press aims to publish high quality books about Sutherland and Wester Ross, or books written by authors from or living in the area.

Publication date: May 2008
ISBN: 978-1-905974-01-6
Recommended Retail Price: £14.99
Number of pages: 283

Signed copies of the book are available.