Travel in Time - Thomson’s Scotland - Lochaber Series No.20: Glen Nevis

For a year, photographer and history researcher Estelle Slegers Helsen has wandered around Lochaber in the footsteps of W S Thomson MBE, 1906-1967. Estelle has made a series of photographic remakes around 70 years after Thomson originally captured the landscape. She has talked to local people along her journey. Each fortnight Estelle is taking readers to a different place in Lochaber. This week she focuses on Glen Nevis and W.S. Thomson’s role in the Lochaber Mountaineering Club.

 

In Thomson’s first publications of his Let’s See series, published in the late 1940s, about a dozen photographs highlight views of Glen Nevis, one of Scotland’s most iconic glens.

 

Most photographs, taken from the Youth Hostel up to Upper Glen Nevis, ‘where the road ends’, are black and white. Only a few are in colour.

 

The highlighted photograph is an example.

 

The photograph with the man in a typical Scottish outfit looking southeast to Sgùrr a’ Mhàim (left) and Stob Bàn was printed as a postcard, taken at the end of the 1950s.

 

Of course, the question arises: ‘Who is this man?’

 

I get in touch with Ewen A. Cameron of the Glen Nevis Estate. He says: "I have spoken with my elder brother and we understand the kilted man in the older postcard picture is very likely Mr W S Thomson himself, although neither of us can say definitely."

 

Ewen continues: "The group of beech trees, now mixed trees, showing across the river, is an old burial ground with a low wall surround.

 

"The location, where the river is very broad and therefore shallow, would have made it convenient to cross, especially if carrying a coffin.

 

"There were ancient habitations and signs of tilling ground near the burial ground and other locations in the glen."

 

So the question remains…

 

In early 1945 W.S. Thomson settled in a dwelling called Earnisaig at 3 Cameron Square in Fort William, with his wife Elizabeth and their two young children, Alastair and Fiona.

 

After five years on Orkney, it allowed Thomson to reconnect with his mountaineering friends and simultaneously shift his photography work towards capturing landscapes, his true passion.

 

On New Year's Day 1946, the photographer was documented as being one of the founding members of the Lochaber section of the Junior Mountaineering Club Scotland at a meeting held at Kingshouse, Glen Coe.

 

The section members preferred the name Lochaber Mountaineering Club, as it is also remembered by most of the older mountaineers in the area.

 

Both names are mentioned on a series of annual dinner menu cards from 1951 to 1965 as part of the archive of the late Jim Ness, a known figure in the Lochaber mountaineering scene.

 

Almost all the cards are illustrated with a W.S. Thomson colour photograph on the front.

 

Mick Tighe, who is deeply rooted in Scottish mountaineering and is the founder/ curator of The Scottish Mountaineering Collection, sent a digital copy of the Minute Book of the Lochaber Mountaineering Club running from December 1956 to September 1968, which unveils W.S. Thomson as an active member.

 

Over the years, Thomson shared his ideas, made suggestions and used his network outside mountaineering to benefit the group but was never a key figure.

 

One of the topics discussed during most general and committee meetings was the urge to improve the mountain rescue team in the area in terms of training, equipment and safe places in the mountains.

 

Maintenance became necessary once the shelter huts were in place, and vandalism was an issue.

 

At the December 1960 Annual General Meeting, ‘Mr Wm.S. Thomson suggested that a Notice be affixed to the shelter huts telling people what the huts were for, i.e. saving life.

 

At the end of 1960, an ongoing discussion started for a permanent club room where rescue mountain gear could be stored.

 

The Minute Book unveiled that Thomson came up with a proposal because he was also a Fort William Rifle Club member.

 

At the end of 1962, a small room at the Rifle Range was inspected and found suitable for mountain rescue gear storage. The keys were deposited at the police station.

 

During these two years, Thomson was vice president of the Lochaber Mountaineering Club.

 

In September 1962, he resigned from the club somewhat unexpectedly because he was moving to Edinburgh.

 

Like in the remake, taken from a knoll not far from where the village of Lanark in the film Braveheart (1995) was constructed, the man becomes a tree and vanishes in history.

 

 

• Travel in Time - Lochaber Series is supported by the West Highland Museum

   

  and the Year of Stories 2022 Community Fund. Estelle has published a 64-page

   

  book with 30 side-by-side then-and-now pictures, which you can find in local

   

  shops or buy online. More information is available at www.travelintime.uk