One for your bookshelf, Huts: a place beyond - How to end our exile from nature is written by broadcaster and hutter Lesley Riddoch. With particular reference to Scotland and Norway, she follows her hut story (she's quite keen to make the distinction that she's not talking about sheds) from renting an ex-shepherd's hut bothy in the 1980s to thoughts on how woodland huts could play a key part in a post coronavirus world. Here's a snippet:
"After visiting hytte from the islands of Inner Oslo Fjord to the snowfields of the Arctic, I realised huts have shaped Norway into an outdoors, active, nature-oriented and healthy society. While the near total absence of huts in Scotland - uniquely for a country at our wooded latitude - has kept kids distant from nature, Scots cooped up in cities and modest wee holiday homes beyond the means of the average family. This book, traces my journey as an eccentric eighties lone hutter in Scotland, a hytte hopper in Norway and finally a researcher and huts activist on both sides of the North Sea. What I discovered surprised me. Scotland’s inter-war generations were actually hutting-daft and cycling, camping and socialism-crazy. Huts didn’t fail to be built in Scotland. They just failed to survive. That’s not just a shame. With modest wee country hideaways becoming highly sought-after refuges in our Covid-dominated future, the huts-free state of Scotland is a total scandal."
The online book launch is tomorrow (Thursday, September 10). More details here plus a little look at the book below.
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