The Dun Cow Rib: A Very Natural Childhood
By John Lister-Kaye
In his latest and fullest memoir, the naturalist Sir John Lister-Kaye recalls that he first picked up Ring of Bright Water while at public school in 1961. He pounced on Gavin Maxwell’s hit directly after finishing ‘the fashionable novel of the moment’, Lampedusa’s The Leopard. The coincidence is apt. Not only would Lister-Kaye grow up to become a champion of that elusive gattopardo of the Highlands, the Scottish wildcat, but his writing would inherit from Maxwell’s a Lampedusan atmosphere, its tattered chivalry and outdoorsy Romanticism sturdily adapted to northern climes. When Lister-Kaye first got in touch with Maxwell, he was overwhelmed by the speed and generosity of his hero’s response, only later to discover that Maxwell had fond memories of ‘Rabelaisian house-parties thrown by our bachelor cousin Sir Kenelm’. In 1967, Maxwell invited his young acquaintance to join him at his latest house off the Isle of Skye, in order...
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