Stob Coire nan Lochan

Alan Clarke

1970

It was on the summit of Stob Coire nan Lochan, an outlier of mighty Bidean nam Bian in Glencoe, on 17th October 1970, that I really started life. I was twenty-seven years old, and at last free from those twenty-seven years.

Freedom: what is it? The word was one of the mantras of the twentieth century. Freedom fighters: another word for bloodthirsty terrorists. Freedom, man: the hippy sixties slang meaning to do what you like, smoke what you like, be as dirty as you like, so long as you leave me alone and I leave you alone and we both enjoy this beautiful life in our own ways, man. Democratic freedom: a cynic might define it as the ability for every person to vote for the party that has been most successful in persuading that person that it will fulfil its promises for a better nation. ... (continues)