Calum’s Road
by Roger Hutchinson
£5.99
- Paperback
- E-Book
in stock
Buy E-bookLocal history
Reviews
wonderful, elegant and serious'
The Telegraph
MacLeod defied powers outwith his control in the only way he could . . . paints a compelling picture of the man'
Sunday Times
An incredible testament to one man’s determination'
The Sunday Herald
This is an extraordinarily fine book, and one of the most important books to have come out of the Highlands and Islands in recent years'
West Highland Free Press
About the Book
Calum MacLeod had lived on the northern point of Raasay since his birth in 1911. He tended the Rona lighthouse at the very tip of his little archipelago, until semi-automation in 1967 reduced his responsibilities. 'So what he decided to do', says his last neighbour, Donald MacLeod, 'was to build a road out of Arnish in his months off. With a road he hoped new generations of people would return to Arnish and all the north end of Raasay'. And so, at the age of 56, Calum MacLeod, the last man left in northern Raasay, set about single-handedly constructing the 'impossible' road. It would become a romantic, quixotic venture, a kind of sculpture; an obsessive work of art so perfect in every gradient, culvert and supporting wall that its creation occupied almost twenty years of his life. In "Calum's Road", Roger Hutchinson recounts the extraordinary story of this remarkable man's devotion to his visionary project.
The Author
Roger Hutchinson
Roger Hutchinson is an award-winning author and journalist. After working as an editor in London, in 1977 he joined the West Highland Free Press in Skye. Since then he has published thirteen books, including Polly: the True Story Behind Whisky Galore. He is still a columnist for the WHFP, and has written for BBC Radio, The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Herald and The Literary Review. His book The Soap Man (Birlinn 2003) was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year (2004) and the bestselling Calum’s Road (2007) was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize.You may also like…
-
Paperback | Pub: 09 Oct 2015£12.99In the 1830s and 1840s the district of Glendale on the island of Skye was swamped by immigrants cleared from other north Skye estates. The resultant overcrowding and over-use of land caused simmering discontent – not against the incomers, but...
-
Paperback | Pub: 20 Mar 2017£9.99
Early on a Sunday morning in October 1905, in Eriskay, one of the smallest and most isolated of Hebridean islands, a forty-five year old Catholic parish priest died of pleurisy. It was a disease which had claimed many of his parishioners, and Father...
-
Paperback | Pub: 01 Aug 2016£9.99
St Kilda is the most romantic and most romanticised group of islands in Europe. Soaring out of the North Atlantic Ocean like Atlantis come back to life, the islands have captured the imagination of the outside world for hundreds of years. Their...
