Alexander McCall Smith

My countryside ...
Alexander
McCall Smith
CLOCKWISE FROM THIS PICTURE
The mountains of
Morvern; Alexander
keeps rare-breed pigs;
he enjoys the pleasures
of living close to nature
The author of the bestselling
No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
series relishes rural life in
his remote Highland home
The difference between the landscape
in which I was raised and the one in which
I have spent the rest of my life is that
between green and brown. Having been
brought up in Africa I appreciate the
arid planes and eucalyptus trees of a dry
climate; but it has been in Scotland, with
its lush foliage, that I’ve made my home.
When you move to a rural area you have
to respect what you find and jolly well fit
in. My wife Elizabeth and I divide our time
between Edinburgh and Argyll. As part of
an agricultural community, it’s important
that you do what you can to support it,
such as buying your food locally.
I’m a great believer in local food production.
This is partly why two years ago I went
into business with a couple from the
village, which is six miles away, and set
up a little pig farm. I’ve always wanted to
be a pig farmer – not that I handle the dayto-day running myself – but we have 26
rare-breed pigs that are Saddlebacks and
Gloucester Old Spot-Tamworth crosses.
Our neighbour smokes the bacon for us and
we sell the pork to customers in the area,
including a restaurant in the village. It’s so
delicious that people queue up to buy it.
Having lived in dry countries, I am very
much aware of the gift of water, and our
186
house in Argyll is surrounded by it. It is
in a remote part of the Highlands at the
foot of a mountain and opposite a sea loch,
Loch Teacuis, which at high tide reaches
our gate. It is the water that makes Argyll
such a lovely place to live. The weather
comes in off the Atlantic and sweeps over
Mull, hits the mountains of Morvern,
then falls on us as rain. We have 335cm a
year, which means it rains every day, but
I don’t mind. In Botswana, where water is
so precious and scarce, when you wish
someone luck you would say ‘Pula, pula,
pula’ which means water or rain. It’s
interesting that in Britain where water
is so plentiful, our metaphors about wet
weather tend to be negative.
When we were renovating our house
in Argyll we tried to work in harmony
with the environment. We used proper
lime rather than cement, and installed a
geothermal heating system so that all our
heat comes from the rock below. Our water
supply comes straight off the hill and is
beautifully soft – it feels like silk.
Time has a different feel when I’m in the
countryside, and although I spend my days
doing what seems very little, it actually
keeps me busy. I’m always aware of what
the tide is doing, and in a sense my day is
regulated by it, because if I want to go out
in the boat to catch some mackerel, or take
it across to the Isle of Mull – the quickest
and easiest way to do our shopping – I have
to know when it is high and low. With the
quiet and dark nights, I also sleep much
better. Being surrounded by abundant
wildlife, it’s not unusual to open my
curtains in the morning and come face
to face with a deer.
Argyll and the west coast of Scotland
is such an extraordinarily beautiful area.
Some days the sun plays on the mountains,
and on others they are shrouded in cloud.
We have veils of rain drifting across the
loch which itself is constantly changing
in colour from blue to silver. Often, if the
water is still, it will reflect the mountains
and sky as though it were a mirror. Right
now, I like the balance that I have in my life
between country and town. If we did move
to Argyll permanently one day, although
I would miss some of the stimulation of
city life, I think it would be more than
compensated for by the sheer beauty and
pleasures of living closer to nature. d
Alexander McCall Smith’s latest novel
is The Limpopo Academy of Private
Detection (Little Brown, £16.99).
INTERVIEW BY CATHERINE BUTLER. PHOTOGRAPH BY ALAMY
Although I didn’t go to Scotland until I
was grown up, setting foot here was like a
homecoming to me. My father was Scottish
and it had always been assumed that we
would one day return to our roots, so when
I arrived to study at university, somehow
the landscape felt familiar. I’ve now been
here for more than 40 years.
MARCH 2012 countryliving.co.uk
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