PREFACE TO THE TWENTY-FIRST ANNIVERSARY EDITION

To mark this reprint of Mountain Days and Bothy Nights, and to celebrate the fact that the book has been continually in print for twenty-one years, we are re-issuing it with a new cover - showing some images of characters from the 1960s on mountain and in bothy- and with this new Preface.

These images, with the characters? attire and deportment, might arouse nostalgia in those who experienced that period of Scottish mountaineering, and a little bemusement in those who came to the hills at later dates. We originally published the book in the 1980s, a decade which was marked by the individualism and designer chic of Thatcherism, trends which were not without their influence on the world of mountaineering. Those 80s years were, however a far cry from the socially collectivist and sartorially patched-up world of the 1960s which was the basis of both our formative climbing experiences.

There is little doubt that at least part of the initial wide appeal of Mountain Days and Bothy Nights was due to the nostalgia of 40-somethings looking back on their rapidly receding youths. We have met examples of such people -now further down the age line- who are on to their fourth or fifth copy having made the mistake of lending the book to their peers and foolishly expecting it to be returned. But in the year 2008 it is would appear that nostalgia alone is not the basis for the continuing demand for the book, and that it is attracting new layers of readers for whom the events of -brutal thought - 40 to getting on for 50 years ago have no direct resonance. These people are interested in reading "The Bothy Book" as it is generally known, in the way the work?s own authors used to read about the Scottish mountaineers of the 1930s and 40s, - that is, as social history.

When people began describing this work of ours as a "classic" we did not like the epithet; it made us seem middle aged and our experiences far distant. Now, when it is undeniable that these things are the case, and when it is clear that the attraction of the book has moved beyond nostalgia, that it has stood the test of time and has become a modest and warm-hearted piece of real social history, we are proud to accept the label of classic for the book. Mountain Days and Bothy Nights has come of age.

Dave Brown

Ian R. Mitchell - About Ian Mitchell

May 2008.