Today on the Blogger Network, Neil Reid pays tribute to Ashie Brebner, a modest pioneer of the Scottish hills
Ashie Brebner, a pioneer of Scottish adventure tourism and a key figure in the bothy movement, sadly passed away on the 8th of April 2018. He is perhaps best known as one of the builders of the ‘Secret Howff’, and recently published a book, Beyond the Secret Howff, which was recently reviewed by Roger Smith in The Great Outdoors.
Neil Reid, writer of the Cairngorm Wanderer blog (as well as editor of Scottish Mountaineer, Comms Officer at Mountaineering Scotland and volunteer with the MBA), has published a moving tribute to a man who played a vital role in establishing many of the mountain traditions we value today:
Yet he remained a modest man. Though his two main Scottish Mountaineer articles appeared in different form in the book, there was scarce a mention of his Black Spout exploit, which was years, if not decades, ahead of its time. Indeed, it would have remained altogether undocumented if, acting on information from his son, I had not persuaded Ashie it would make a good tale for this magazine. And though he was delighted at the way the howff he and his pals built had entered Scottish mountaineering legend and was still being used and cherished, when he spoke of it there was not so much pride in what he had done as joy in remembering the days on the hills, the brightness of youth and the memory of good pals.
