Dougal Haston

A Scottish mountaineer who was famed for his exploits in the UK, the Alps and the Himalaya.

Dougal Haston - Cumha Dughall

by Robin Campbell

"So, mighty Haston, the painter of Lagangarbh, has gone now, too: killed in some meaningless skiing accident. It's worst when they die abroad.

Remember the aching disbelief when Smith went, the dreams from which you couldn't bear to wake, the feeling that you'd turn a corner, somewhere near the High Street, and there he would be – tatty raincoat, grinning suedes, wicked schoolboy smile – and the feeling that came after?

At least they found Haston’s body and somebody, Moriarty, saw him buried. You thought it didn't matter about Haston – he'd none of the innocence of Smith, he'd been away from the High Street too long, he’d spent too much time with the worshippers of money and fame - but then you saw the newsreel of Moriarty carrying the coffin through the town and then it mattered. The indomitable giant, his great head bowed, shuffling up through the drifts with the front end of the stretcher and the black coffin swaying past the camera made you crack.

Now you wish you'd gone, don't you? You wish you'd mortgaged your meaningless house a bit more and gone. Well, it's too late. Sometime soon you'll be walking in the City and there he'll be – loping along in his big boots, long hands slotted in pockets, ahoulders hunched, the big wolf grin and the North Wall eyes, ready for anything. But he won't really, will he?

You remember that time when you both hitched to the Ben, you got there first and he had the key? You kipped in the shithouse, threw the Elsan outside and cursed him. Four o'clock in the morning, a big blue shiny morning, the door burst open and there he was, stripped to the waist cracking that huge grin and waving the key in front of you. Or that other time when you stood all the way from Paris in a train to Chamonix, stumbled out of the station and didn't know a soul? You turned a corner and he was coming towards you like a golden greyhound, sunglassed and sandalled, just back from the Eiger and who could mistake that smile ?! Or the time you tried that horrible route of his on the Tannery Bridge, 'grade six sustained' he said, and you quivering on the final miserable fingerhold while he grinned down the parapet and held out a merciful hand? Well these times are all gone now, for you and for him, and won't be again. Except, once in a while you'll get that kick in the guts that tells you it's a dream and you're going to wake up and whenever you go moping about the old wynds and closes there'll be the feeling at corners and the feeling that comes after.

Remember Scott, sitting in some dreary single-end of a studio staring at the camera like a poleaxed bull while the blathering B.B.C. imbecile asked if he ever really knew him? What does knowing matter, (you felt like screaming)! He's gone and, with him, a long loping stride, narrow hips, wide shoulders, a lipless grin and bright blue bivouacked eyes."

Reproduced from SMC journal #168, page 209.