Bert Dobbie

Bert Dobbie - engineer, mountaineer and Scottish Skiiing Pioneer, 1924 - 2018

Bert Dobbie

This is a fuller version of the obituary for Bert Dobbie, that appeared in the Glasgow Herald, 26 February 2018.

Robert Dobbie, known as Bert, was an engineer, mountaineer and skiing pioneer. He died last Saturday in St Margaret’s Hospice, after a short illness, aged 93. The last time I saw him he was watching the opening ceremony from South Korea, where the world’s best skiers were gathering for the Winter Olympics. In Scotland Bert was one of the people who built the early ski tows and ski huts for a fledgling sport, and for many years led the team that ensured the safety of skiers and evacuated the injured from Glencoe.

He was brought up in Maryhill, close to the Maryhill PublicBaths and Wash House, in a large family with nine brothers and sisters. He was born on 12^th July 1924 to Robert, who worked as a leerie, and Margaret. As well as running the home she worked in a chip shop, out in the morning to peel potatoes, and again at night to sell fish and chips.

Bert Dobbie, skiing in Glencoe, 1945

He started his working life as a boy in Maryhill delivering newspapers to the soldiers in Maryhill Barracks, earning tips by discreetly smuggling in cigarettes amongst their more mundane supplies. After leaving North Kelvinside School, aged 14 he began working in a grocer’s shop in Cleveden. He played the bugle in the local Boys Brigade, and early climbing experience for Maryhill boys could be found on the high dykes or on the rough walls of a local stable, the dung midden at the bottom providing a soft, if unappealing landing if you fell.

Bert Dobbie as a young man

It was in the 1930s that working-class men and women from the cities of Scotland started to take to the hills for recreation and Bert was part of that unofficial movement. Their pioneering spirit established the rights to roam in the Scottish countryside that we take for granted now. The ethos of these people was encapsulated by those that sat around the Craigallian fire, on the Carbeth estate. Discussions around the fire would range from walking and climbing tips, to debates on Socialism and the Spanish Civil War. Bert would sit as a teenager with these older men and listen to their stories and songs whilst a “drum” of tea was kept going on the fire. He was recently delighted to attend the unveiling of a memorial to these people near Strathblane. It was around the fire that the Lomond and Creagh Dhu Mountaineering Clubs were formed.

Hillwalking in Scotland, always big groups of men and women out in the hills together

As a young man he started walking in the Campsies andKilpatrick Hills, where in 1938 he met his lifelong friend Tom McGuinness. Together they would cut their teeth as rock climbers on the walls of The Whangie. Other favourite walks were around Balmaha where, as a strong swimmer, Bert would often head out into Loch Lomond to retrieve a boat to take him and his companions out to the islands. Ever practical, he and his friends would later build their own kayaks to spend weekends out on Loch Lomond. He was a great lover of sleeping out in the open air and told me of numerous dry nooks and crannies to doss down in on many a Scottish mountainside.

At the top of The Cobbler, early 1940s

Later he became a member of the Lomond Mountaineering Club and on Saturday mornings, with members of the Creagh Dhu Club, they would often clamber onto the back of a Bryson’s milk lorry at Anniesland Cross, as it headed towards Campbeltown. Getting off near the Rest and Be Thankful, TheCobbler and the Arrochar Alps were soon within their reach. Sleeping out overnight, they would catch the lorry on the road back on Sunday night. The driver would get a shilling for his trouble and in the back of the lorry they could dip their tea cans into the tanks for some fresh milk.

During the war Bert worked as a boilermaker on the Clyde, at the Clan Line Steamers Repairing Workshops. Occasionally this would involve passage on the ships as they went up and down to Liverpool or further afield. At weekends he was always back in the hills. Whilst his friend Tom could discreetly cut and fashion metal at his work in Barr and Stroud’s, to make nails for their climbing boots or create his own version of a carabiner, Bert would fashion ice axes and crampons in his workplace as their climbing abilities grew.

Dressed in tweeds and clambering up a rockface

On the night of the Clydebank Blitz, Bert and Tom were staying in a caravan at Halfway and became aware of the extent of what was happening the next morning as they came across families fleeing their homes. They gave up their caravan to some of them and spent a week off work helping the Scouts organisation set up tents and fires for those made homeless and forced to live under canvas for the first time in their lives.

Skiing in Glencoe

Preparing the equipment

En route to Skye, 1945. Left to right this is Ian Martn, Grace Morris, Bill Forrest, Margaret Morris, Rod Urquart, Willie Gordon, Anne Williams, Cath Simpson, Bert Dobbie and Tom McGuinness

When heavy falls of new snow made climbing unsafe, members of the mountaineering clubs became the first people to ski regularly in Glencoe. The favoured spot was on Meall a’Bhuridh, above Ba Cottage on RannochMoor. Ba Cottage was a substantial empty building over two floors, owned by the Black Mount Estate and it became a regular “doss” for the mountaineering clubs. After the Second World War ex-army skis, boots and other equipment meant that more working-class people from the cities took part in the climbing and skiing, and their popularity as recreation grew.

Climbers from the Ba Cottage were known to poach the occasional deer, and in 1948 the gamekeepers decided that they had had enough. Occasional poaching was not unusual, particularly as the war years had led to an increase in deer numbers. However, Bert remembered that things came to a head after one of his companions did some poaching with a German machine gun that he had brought back as a souvenir from the war. In response the estate gamekeepers felt a line had been crossed and burnt down the Ba Cottage.

The famous Ba Cottage, before it was burned down, skis at the ready

Camping in Glencoe, though to avoid carrying excess weight most nights were spent bivouacking, rather than under canvas

Undaunted, temporary camps of climbers grew up three miles further up into Glencoe. Using salvaged material from the Ba Cottage, and some tarpaulins from a railway yard in Tyndrum, Bert supervised his colleagues in building a new doss for the Lomond Mountaineering Club members from an old sheep fank, at White Corries near to where the Glencoe Ski Centre car park now sits.

Building the "sheep fank doss" in Glencoe, left to right Archie McFarlane, A.N.Other?, Bill Forrest, Andrew Wynd, Hugh Forrest, Ian Martin, Andrew Pryde, Tom McGuinness. Photo taken by Bert Dobbie

Bert Dobbie re-visiting the site of former doss of the Lomond Mountaineering Club in Glencoe last year

As an accomplished skier he travelled all over Scotland. He was spending a few days on Cairngorm with friends one time when famous hills man Tom Weir came clambering up the snow with his skis on. Amazed at the lack of polish on his wooden skis that had allowed him to do this, Bert lent him his expertise. After drying the skis by the fire, they were waxed up for him. Afterwards as Tom Weir whizzed down the hillside at a rate of knots, his red woollen hat and his gloves flew into the air as he disappeared over the horizon. Bert recalled that his immediate thought was "My God, I’ve killed Tom Weir."

Loaded up with climbing gear on the old Bergans backpacks and heading out on the motorbike

Looking towards the Hornli Ridge on the Matterhorn, 1949

After the war Bert started motorbiking on an old Triumph, and as well as giving him the freedom to go further afield in Scotland, he undertook some expeditions into Europe. One of my favourite photographs of his, from July 1949, shows him eyeing up the Hornli Ridge and the north face of the Matterhorn. As well as the Matterhorn, with the Lomond Club he also tackled Mont Blanc, the Eiger, and Picos de Europa in Spain. On one of his trips to Europe on the bike, he was refused entry to a restaurant for not wearing a tie. He went back outside and returned having ripped up an old cloth to fashion into a makeshift tie. When he found himself being admitted, he tore it off in disgust and walked out. This attitude of walking away from stuffiness and rules was a lifelong characteristic.

Skiing in the Campsies in the 1940s, past the Carbeth huts

Blackrock Cottage in Glencoe, which shows the extension they built here in the 1950s to store their ski equipment

Skiing at Ben Alder 1949

Whenever possible it was skiing he was returning to more and more often. When heavy snowfall meant the buses could not run to Glencoe, the Campsies sufficed. One highlight he remembered was in 1951 when a group of Norwegians set up a ski jump on Braid Hills in Edinburgh, though ski jumping did not seem to catch on. The Scottish Ski Club and Philip Rankin planned a ski tow at Glencoe to make the slopes there more accessible, and for this the engineering skills of Bert and several other members of the Creag Dhu and Lomond Clubs were exploited. Forming volunteer work parties and man-handling the equipment up the mountainside, the ski tows they constructed took their first passengers up Meall a’Bhuridh in 1956. His advice was later sought in the Aviemore developments.

First ski tow being built in Glencoe, 1956

In the 1960s he learned to become an accomplished seaman, sailing on a boat owned by his friend Glen Perry. Among his companions his excellent seamanship was greatly respected, whether in races or on trips to the islands. Later he was regularly deployed as coxswain on his cousin Jack Williamson’s boat. He developed an intimate knowledge of every rock, skerry and hazard on the treacherous waterways of the West coast and around the Sound of Mull. Years later in their 80s and 90s he still enjoyed an annual sailing trip up this way with old friends. One frustration in later years was that whenever they approached St Kilda, the weather turned against them and stopped them ever being able to disembark there.

Glencoe remained his true home from home, and for years he was a familiar face on the ski slopes there. When Tom McGuinness became manager of the ski resort in the late 1960s Bert was recruited to lead the Ski Rescue team at weekends. Alan Thomson’s book on Glencoe describes Bert as “the forceful leader” of the formative Glencoe Ski Rescue team, working there to ensure the safety of skiers and climbers over several decades. Their training came from years of personal experience on the hills and many of the casualties they dealt with over the years had suffered major trauma. In the early days friendly doctors would supply them with vials of morphine to give to any badly injured skiers or climbers, to help get them off the hills. The safety pin used on one occasion through an unconscious skier’s tongue to stop it slipping back and choking him as he was transported down the slope, is probably a technique that physicians no longer use.

Bert Dobbie, second on the left in the Glencoe Ski Rescue team

He married Jessie Thomson in 1950, and they shared their love of the Scottish hills, going away on many expeditions together, or further afield in the caravan he constructed for them. When her health was failing he spent many evenings up and down the roads to Ayrshire on his bike after work to visit her in hospital, and he was widowed in the early 1990s.

In his 70s he met my grandmother, Edna Climie, who was also widowed. Their friendship grew and led to them living happily together for over 20 years. The pair of them were never at home, and a morning run in the car was as likely to end up in Norwich as it was Drymen.

In later life he still took any opportunity to get into the great outdoors. A group of old friends met twice a year to stay in the GlenBrittle Hut in Skye and head to Coire Lagan in the Cuillins, or to go on sailing trips. When these outings started they called themselves the “500 Club”, the combined total of the ages of the seven men getting together, but as it got closer to becoming the “600 Club” they were still getting out to the hills together. Bert continued to keep his orthopaedic surgeon's busy, as he returned to ski again in Glencoe in his 80s after getting knee replacement surgery. 

Bert Dobbie 1924 - 2018

Latterly he became an attentive carer for my gran, after she developed dementia. Despite his own recent illness, he managed to continue looking after her in their own home until only a few days before he succumbed to the consequences of his exposure to asbestos in his early working life.

Bert is of the generation of Scottish men and women who felt that we all had a right to use the land around us. Self-taught and highly skilled, these early adventurers did not shout about their exploits, but are the people who made the outdoors great for us all. For us no family gathering will be the same now without Bert's songs, laughter and fantastic stories. 

Glencoe (1939 - 1994) from Doug Bryce on Vimeo.

Here are a couple of photos from February 2018 of the ruins of Ba Cottage, Glencoe Ski Centre and from Meall a'Bhuiridh. I went for a walk, taking Bert's old Bergan backpack to some familiar haunts. Funnily enough, the only deer that I spotted were above Ba Cottage, who obviously hadn't heard some of these old stories.

Celtic Connections 2018. Marnie. Peter Broderick

Marnie. The Hug and Pint, Glasgow. Celtic Connections. 28th January, 2018. Live Review. 

Helen Marnie, once of Ladytron, has been performing solo for a couple of years now as Marnie, and played a hometown gig in Glasgow tonight under the Celtic Connections umbrella. Despite The Guardian guide describing her as folk-pop, this is a decidedly synth-pop affair.

Kelora

Support act Kelora gave us a surprisingly original warm-up, the best medieval futurist, nu-celtic folk band I have ever listened to. Marnie came on to a sold out crowd dressed like a Gothic Victorian doll, all staring eyes and attitude. The music however is breezy, with catchy pop riffs throughout, with G.I.R.L.S. a stand out track. Basically just F.U.N.

Marnie

Peter Broderick. The Hug and Pint, Glasgow. Celtic Connections. 2nd February, 2018. Live Review. 

Looking like the love child of Nick Cave and Mackenzie Crook, Peter Broderick is an American musician and multi-instrumentalist from Oregon. Whether it is the fact the gig is advertised through Celtic Connections or not, he was happy to see a full house tonight in The Hug and Pint after telling us the same venue made a loss on his gig in the same venue a few months ago.

Playing keyboards, violin and guitar, with and without loop pedals he mixed up some of his own tunes, with covers of several artists, including a few songs by Arthur Russell. This has come about through a project he is involved in with Russell's former partner, to re-master and release some unreleased music by the musician, clearly a project he is relishing. Some of the most moving music of the night however were the instrumental pieces he played, either at keyboard or violin, and it would be nice to have heard more of this stuff tonight.

Good company throughout he was a cheery and energetic performer. Don't be put off by the austere pictures on his posters.

Peter Broderick

Celtic Connections 2018. Live review

Julie Fowlis, Live Review. City Halls, Glasgow.
Max Richter, Live Review. Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. 

Celtic Connectios 2018. The 25th anniversary edition.

Julie Fowlis, City Halls, Glasgow. Celtic Connections. January 20th 2018

Of all the stand out shows at this year's Celtic Connections music festival in Glasgow, a big pile of them were all on the same night. Julie Fowlis's sold out solo show at Glasgow City Halls was the one I plumped for, and it was a good choice. On stage she was accompanied by fiddlers Duncan Chisolm and Patsy Reid, bass, two guitarists (including husband Eamon Doorley) and various harmonium and keyboards from Celtic Connections director Donald Shaw. Much of the set drew from the new album, Alternum, from opening piece Òran an Ròin (Seal's Song) to Cearcall mun Ghealaich in the encore, and was a mixture of old, old songs and new. 

With no percussion, the singing provided much of the rhythm, the back and forth that often creates a connection to the world of the singer in Gaelic songs. Bright and breezy throughout Julie Fowlis led from the front, introducing us to the story of one song with a cautionary "because it is happening in a Gaelic song, we know it won't end well."

Going out of her comfort zone, one song was given to us in English (or "the other language"), a version of "Go Your Way", whilst another was taken into Gaelic ("Blackbird" by The Beatles.) When I have seen Julie Fowlis before, it is when she gets out the whistle that the audience are getting ready to tap their feet, and it was the same again here, and I had completely forgotten that she is an excellent bagpipe player too, until the pipes appear as a finale. There were several young children in the audience, I thought drawn there in the hope of hearing the soundtrack songs from the Disney movie "Brave". I was wrong, the wee super-fan sitting behind me sang along in perfect Gaelic to every song in the set. A warm and smile filled evening's entertainment.

Max Richter Ensemble : Three Worlds. Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Celtic Connections. January 23rd 2018.

With his increasing involvement in soundtracks, modern classical composer Max Richter seems busier than ever. The concert he performed at Celtic Connections harked back to a ballet score he produced for Royal Ballet's Woolf Works, a triptych of works choreographed by Wayne MacGregor in 2015. The recently released recording based on this music was brought to the Glasgow Concert Hall by Max Richter and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra tonight, though much of the orchestra were hidden behind the banks of keyboards, pianos and celesta that Richter played at front of stage. 

Virginia Woolf's books, Mrs Dalloway, Orlando and The Waves were the inspiration for the three pieces of music performed here. I am not a great fan of her books, but the recording of her voice that introduced the first piece was electrifying. The music that followed was melodic, with the violins and piano ebbing and flowing, but ultimately going nowhere, so pretty much like the book. Orlando was introduced as an other-worldly tale and the music representing it was more dynamic, with pizzicato strings and synthesizers leading to an impressive cello solo. The music felt quite cinematic, like a Philip Glass piece from 40 years ago, but was no poorer for that. The unimpressive flashing LED light show was a pointless distraction. Gillian Anderson's recorded voice reading Virginia Woolf's poignant suicide note led us into the final piece, where solo soprano voice of Grace Davidson made the whole thing more like a requiem.

The music was not quite muscular enough to fill the venue, but pleasant and graceful none the less. An encore of On The Nature of Daylight was enough to please the screaming super-fans at the front in a congenial, rather than barn-storming, evening of music.