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Memorials on Mountain Tops

Now, are mountain tops an appropriate place for memorials to people who've died? It's an issue which has been causing some controversy in Scotland. Mountaineers think monuments are intrusive and inappropriate. But bereaved families and friends say they want to be allowed to commemorate their loved ones, and no-one should have the right to stop them. As Huw Williams has been finding out, there are strong opinions on both sides:

I met Cameron at his home in the village of Newtonmore, in the Scottish Highlands. He's a passionate hill walker, so when we went out of his comfortable home, up onto the open hillside above the village. I could easily tell how much he loves being outside in the wilderness. As he looked round, enjoying the scenery and talking, his face lit up. But when I asked him about memorials to the dead in the countryside. His brow furrowed. He talked about all the stuff he's seen, left by people who've been on the mountains before him. There's litter and left-over food, he tells me. But also, more and more monuments. Marble plaques. Laminated photographs. Bunches of flowers wrapped in plastic. Children toys cemented onto boulders. He hates them all, he says. He's never destroyed a memorial himself, but he knows other people who have and he has some sympathy with them.

On the other side of the argument are Mo and Morag -- two women whoes friend, Ailsa, died last year of breast cancer. Mo told me Ailsa was a very special person, it's difficult to believe that she's gone. And she talked about the plan for a sponsored walk up Britain's highest mountain, Ben Nevis. The aim is to raise some money for a cancer charity, to help Ailsa's friends say good-bye, and to build a small cairn of piled-up rocks in her memory -- complete with an engraved memorial stone. Morag explained that they picked Ben Nevis because, on a grey day of mist and low cloud, the summit was spot-lit by golden sunshine. It was as though the decision had been made for them. And, she added, the top of the mountain is the closest you can get to heaven.

Ben Nevis towers over Fort William, a small town in the west of the Scottish Highlands. It promotes itself as the Outdoor Capital of the UK -- not least because the mountain is on the doorstep. Admittedly, at one thousand three hundred and forty three meters the Ben isn't particularly impressive on a world scale. But it does feature some extraordinary wild and rugged scenery, which draws tens of thousands of people every year. They come for all sorts of reasons, and in all sorts of ways. Some walk up a wide, easy, path to the top because it's something to do on Sunday morning when it feels like everything else in Fort William is shut. Some are climbers drawn by the much more challenging Alpine-esque cliffs and ridges on the mountain's north face. And some -- like Mo and Morag -- come to commemorate a loved one, a family member, or a friend who's died.

The mountaineers and walkers say all these memorials are crass, intrusive, and worse than leaving litter in a wild, unspoiled place. The bereaved agree that mountains are special, spiritual, places -- but say that they should be free to leave monuments to the dead in the wilderness, if that's what they feel they have to do.

It's complicated. A sensitive and difficult subject. And it's been dealt with in a variety of different ways. Some land-owners allow people to place memorials on hill and lake- 1

sides. Others remove anything and everything they find even digging up snow-drops and other wild flowers that have been planted in places where people have died.

Now the Mountaineering Council of Scotland is calling for a debate about what should -- and shouldn't -- be allowed.

Back on Ben Nevis they're working on a possible solution. The mountain is owned by the John Muir Trust -- named in honour of the great champion of wild places, who was born on the east coast of Scotland. He's hardly known in his homeland. The family moved to the United States of America when he was still a boy. And it was in California that John Muir invented the concept of National Parks, and became a founding father of the world conservation movement. So the Trust is dedicated to preserving the qualities that make a place like the the Ben unique. Its suggested compromise is to set aside an area for memorials, at the foot of the mountain. A special garden, in a woodland clearing, near the river that runs past the visitors centre. The argument is that avoids spoiling the summit, but still gives a place to focus grief, memories, and love.

The problem may be persuading people to use it. Mo told me that people comparing their plaque for Ailsa with litter has been deeply hurtful. And, no matter how carefully and respectfully it's done, the thought of people moving monuments off the mountain is likely to upset and anger at least some of those who placed them there.

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