Grandfather Inglis

Hello again

Yesterday I spoke about my dad and his dad, so today I will show you a couple of layouts about grandfather. As I said yesterday, he was a keen hill man, taking to the hills whenever possible. My first layout shows him at the age of 70, relaxing in the Welsh mountains - Capel Goch to be precise! (That has to mean something to do with a cuckoo! I am sure Goch is a cuckoo in Welsh!!!) I never met the old boy - he died well before I was born - but I love this photo of him. It would most likely have been taken by my dad, who was his companion on so many walks in the hills and mountains.

Grandfather was a very early member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club founded well over a century ago now. His peers were the pioneers of the day, exploring the previously little known routes up to the Scottish summits. One of the men he would have walked and talked with was Sir Hugh Munro, the man whose name was given to all the Scottish mountain tops over 3000 feet in height. Munro was the compiler of the original list of these tops, but though he listed them, he never climbed all of them, to become the first Munro-bagger! It was quite an achievement in the early days, to "bag" all 277 or so of them, but now it is quite commonplace, and I believe there are even people who have completed the list twice! Grandfather wasn't one of them and nor was my dad. Although they climbed a lot of mountains neither of them managed to check off the whole list even once - and as for me, well you could count on two hands the number of Munros I got to the top of! I was certainly not a "bagger" of mountains!

This next layout, which I am again having trouble uploading, is of a Scottish Mountaineering Club Easter meet in 1905, in Glencoe. The club members were staying at the Kingshouse Hotel from where they set out each day to walk or climb.

This has taken several attempts, but here we are! At last!

Unfortunately Sir Hugh doesn't appear to be on this trip, and although I have the names of most of the members in the photo I am not familiar with more than a couple. The most important person to me though, is the man standing to the right of the group - grandfather! The original glass slide of another photo of this same group, this time taken by grandfather, is in the SMC collection. Grandfather also contributed articles to the SMC journal, some of which were re-published in the book brought out for the centenary of the club. What illustrious ancestors I have!

Well, once again, that's it for now.

Talk again soon!