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DR RICHARD SHELTON, RESEARCH DIRECTOR, ATLANTIC SALMON TRUST

WRITING IN THE ATLANTIC SALMON TRUST JOURNAL

Strip away the family estate tweeds and put the Purdeys back in their oak and leather case and even the most civilised of us are genetically little different from the spear-waving cave painters of Lascaux. Nowadays of course, for all to much of our time, work has to stand in for the life of the hunter for which our Cro-Magnon brains are programmed. Small wonder then that a lucky few find such fulfilment in fishing and shooting and a profound sense of spiritual contentment in the remote and unspoiled places where the best of wild sport is to be found. For Jamie Whittle that place is the River Findhorn, and for those who know it as the ‘big river in miniature’ that it is, the Findhorn is the finest salmon stream in the north east of Scotland.

Jamie Whittle’s book is based on two journeys, the first a tramp upstream from the white sands of Culbin to the mist-shrouded puddles high in the Monadhliaths where the infant Findhorn is daily reborn. The second is Jamie’s return by canoe. The highly original result is an account of both the river itself and of his thoughts on man’s place within the natural world of today.

As Professor Alastair McIntosh says in his perceptive foreword, ‘White River’ is one of those rare environmental books that, more than a local travelogue, takes us i=on a journey into the soul of modern times. Holding the lawyer’s scales of balance as he goes, Jamie recognises that the river meanders between two banks. One is economic and practical. The other is aesthetic and idealistic. Without both we are undone but with them – with this constantly shifting equilibrium – we can glide through the potential paradise that is our earth.’

Take it from me, this is an important book and Jamie Whittle is a wonderful writer.