Huts: A Place Beyond - How to End Our Exile from Nature

by Lesley Riddoch

Victorian visitors had shooting lodges Scots had trips doon the watter. Norwegian citizens had hytte Scots had Butlins.

Why have the inhabitants of one of Europe s prime tourist destinations been elbowed off the land and exiled from nature for so long?

Lesley Riddoch relives her own bothy experience, rediscovers lost hutting communities, travels through hytte-covered Norway and suggests that thousands of humble woodland huts would give Scots a vital post-covid connection with nature and affordable, low-impact holidays in their own beautiful land at last.

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2020

About the author

Lesley Anne Riddoch (born February 1960) is a Scottish journalist and radio broadcaster. Born 1960 in Wolverhampton, England, Riddoch moved with her Scottish parents to Belfast in 1963, then to Glasgow in 1973, where she attended Drewsteignton, a fee-paying private school then located in the affluent suburb of Bearsden. In 1978 she attended the University of Oxford and graduated with an honours degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. She was also elected president of the student union in 1981. After graduating she studied for a postgraduate diploma in journalism at Cardiff University.

From 1989 to 1994 she presented the BBC Radio Scotland programme Speaking Out and was one of the presenters of Radio Four programme You and Yours. In 1993 Riddoch won a Cosmopolitan woman award for Communication and in 1994 her Radio Scotland production team won best talk show award. One of the Speaking Out programmes took the Silver Quill Law Society award that same year. Between 1999 and 2005 she had her own daily radio programme the Lesley Riddoch Show on Radio Scotland.

Reviews

[Frank McNab · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully written friendly exploration of how we can all enjoy our natural world and feel we belong to it and it belongs to us. All of us.
I loved the personal experiences and the optimistic view. We do need aspirations and the ability to recharge our batteries!
Well done, Lesley Riddoch! I recommend this.

[Grim-Anal King · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found the history of the sites I've been to (Carbeth and the Cloch) particularly interesting and some valid points are made about land use and so on. As a veteran of a few bothy nights who would be more happy than most living somewhere really remote, I still feel like the author allows herself to get a bit carried away regarding the simple joys of living primitively. A glaring omission (particularly given her politics) is any mention of carbon emissions. Surely people driving out to burn wood or coal in poorly insulated huts is never going to accord with the vision of those she acts as a useful idiot/inspirational cheerleader (delete according to prejudice) for?

[Calum Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant insights / comparisons of Norwegian vs scottish culture and cultural history especially in first half, must read again.