Rum: A Landscape without Figures

by John A. Love

This is an account of Rum, one of the Hebrides and the people who contributed to its story. The site of some of the earliest settlements in Scotland, Rum's history extends back to the Mesolithic period. It was also an isolated haven for the early Celtic Church in the figure of Beccan the Solitary, and later formed part of the territories of the Vikings and Clanranalds, and ultimately the Macleans of Coll. Its population were driven out to North America between 1826 and 1828 and the Bulloughs, a family of Lancashire industrialists, bought the island towards the end of the nineteenth century and left a bizarre legacy of Edwardiana in the form of Kinloch castle and its grand contents.

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2001

About the author

John A. Love was a Scottish naturalist. He was interested in animals from childhood. Joining the local Bird Club as a schoolboy in 1958 broadened his horizons, especially two summer weekend trips to the island of Handa, Sutherland in 1963 and 1964. In winter, evening lecturers at the bird club included Seton Gordon, George Waterston, and Lea MacNally – all eagle enthusiasts.

Love trained as a bird ringer and spent several school holidays as a volunteer helping to protect what were at the time Scotland’s only pair of nesting ospreys. He graduated Honours in Natural History at the University of Aberdeen and did three years post-graduate research on bird predators of bivalve mussels.

Love was Sea Eagle Reintroduction Project Officer for the Nature Conservancy Council between 1975 – 1985. From his base on the Isle of Rum, he managed the re-establishment of white-tailed eagles in Scotland, releasing a total of 82 young birds taken from nests in Norway.

Love later worked as an Area Officer for Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) for Uist, Barra and St Kilda and, after retirement, worked as an expert guest speaker for a cruise company, having written books on eagles, penguins, sea otters, St.Kilda, Rum, and even the natural history of lighthouses. Sea eagles remained his passion to the very end.