Forewords by HRH The Prince Charles, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Billy Connolly

112 pp 210x242mm Full colour
Hardback with dust-jacket.

Through the years, the North Highlands of Scotland have fascinated and drawn in artists from all over the world.

From LS Lowry, who painted Wick and Thurso, to the poet Norman MacCaig and the writer Neil Gunn – just to mention a few – art has tried to imitate life in this beautiful stretch of the British Isles.

Following in that great tradition is Mike McCartney. For two weeks in April, 2008, McCartney recorded his impressions of an area that he admits is almost impossible to capture fully. That is part of its elusive allure.

But this resulting book – is another important contribution to the eternal quest to define one of the most stunning areas in the world. The North Highlands are impossible to capture in a single phrase, painting or photograph.

That is because the light, the seasons and the people are constantly changing on a landscape that is timeless – yet, simultaneously shaped by the past, absorbed in the present and embracing the future.

It is to this physical and social landscape that McCartney has brought his sharp eye and keen intelligence – but also his trademark Scouse humour, well-honed from his earlier days in the satirical group, the Scaffold.

McCartney was commissioned by Highlands and Islands Enterprise to highlight the area’s beauty and diversity and as a place in which to live, to work and to escape. His journey was an epic one and his days long. But his sheer enthusiasm and passion for his art – and The North Highlands – shines through this stunning collection of images.

McCartney’s photography has a poetry and a rhythm but also a sense of reportage, that magical quality of capturing a time, a place and a moment in a single image. He has a talent for taking pictures that never leave you because they often contain more complex messages than is obvious at first glance.

McCartney is not a complete stranger to the area. He mounted an exclusive public exhibition of his Live8 photographs for the award- winning John Lennon Northern Lights Festival at Durness in September 2007 – including portraits of his brother Paul, of Travis and of Annie Lennox. The exhibition attracted worldwide interest. After travelling to Durness to open the exhibition, McCartney was struck by the diversity of the area.

“It left quite a mark and I wanted to return to take part in this big project, but I feel that I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “I think the North Highlands are unique and there are few more fascinating places. The area has the rare ability to keep drawing people back – including me! In fact the North Highlands were a well- kept Scottish secret ... till now.”

Every picture tells a story, but Mike McCartney takes his art one step further. For him, as you will see, every story tells a picture.

Publisher: Guy Woodland/Woodland Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-905547-09-8
Recommended Retail Price: £15.00
Loch Croispol and World Book Market Price: £13.50
Number of pages: 112

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.