Odd places

In the early stages of "Northern Trip", which started out as a travelling session, I visited and revisited some favourite haunts. One of those is the Youth Hostel at Loch Ossian. You need a fairly detailed map of the Scottish Highlands to find it, but basically, it is located 20 miles east of Fort William, 100 miles north of Glasgow.

The hostel, as pictured above in a wintery setting, is situated on the banks of Loch Ossian. This body of water, at about 1300 feet above sealevel, stretches for 4½ miles in a broadly northeasterly direction. The hostel stands at its western end, 1 mile from the railway station at Corrour. There is nothing at Corrour. Well, hardly anything. Just a station building and a restaurant. That's all. The nearest road is 10 miles away to the south, at Rannoch Station.

After a 25 minute walk down a rough track, you arrive at the hostel. Now, it was recently improved, but I am going to tell it the way it was in 1990, at the time of my first visit. The warden was a Yorkshireman called Tom Rigg. He retired in 1995 after about 23 years there. He shared the lonely wilds of the Corrour Estate with his neighbours at the station and at the Corrour Lodge, 5 miles away. Tom found the "Around Loch Ossian in Under an Hour Club", which you join if you managed to run around the loch within 60 minutes. Total distance 7½ miles, including 3 gates.

The hostel was simple to the Nth degree. You were welcome to take a bath - the loch is just outside the back door. Water was pumped up by hand from the loch. Ablutions were performed in a very rudimentary sink, with water - indeed, straight from the loch. A toilet was provided just outside the backdoor: an outhouse. Containing a bucket with special liquid and a toiletseat mounted on top. The gents' outhouse invited the more pressed "you may pee on the grass if you wish". And the admonition to "Bolt the door or it blows away". Corrour is windy.

You need to bring all supplies on the train with you. Entertainment would be provided, in the shape of the local stag. He would be enticed inside using chocolate biscuits. As soon as the animal stood on the chair with his frontlegs, he would get the cookie.

Corrour is a midge's paradise. At one time, I was due to go on a train, but as I walked up to the railway station, I wasn't aware of any particular problem. It wasn't until I stood on the platform that millions of the blighters went into my eyes, nose, mouth and ears. So I joined the other ten there in wrapping a towel round my head until the train came. The driver took one look at that motley crowd on the platform and he slammed the window shut. We were decidedly impopular, as the rest of the carriage spent the next half hour swatting midgies.

Corrour is a deerstalking estate. Until 1910, a steamer plied the waters of the loch. The high and mighty came up on the train, were taken to the pier at the western end and transferred by boat to the lodge at the eastern end. This all came to an end with the First World War.

A sad tale concludes my resume of Loch Ossian, as was. A friend of Tom Rigg's had come up on the train in late March, before the spring opening of the hostel. He found Tom was out and decided to amble out on to the pier, that still existed at the time. It had been snowing and the pier was covered in ice. As was the loch. When Tom came back, he found a pack by the door, but no trace of anybody. By nightfall, still no sign of anybody. A full search was mounted of the surrounding area at first light the next morning, but nothing. It wasn't until the ice on the loch mounted that the body of Tom's friend appeared on the surface of the loch.