SIR, – It was with great sadness that we recently heard of the passing of Donnie Ross. He will be a huge loss to the whole rural community of the Highlands.

However, I think we gave him a really good send off in a very unique, but fitting funeral service. I can honestly say I have never carried a coffin out to a hill before, but if anybody deserved this it was Big Donnie.

The family and the funeral directors have to be commended for organising such a special send off for him and many well respected people and personalities from many walks of life were there to see him off. In fact, hundreds of them on the hillside above his home at Lealt Farm, Kingussie.

Everybody I know loved and respected this great hill man! He always had time to talk to people and his stories were amazing and so educational. He was a great mentor to me and many others interested in the hills and grazing of traditional livestock.

I know the one thing that I will really miss though is looking forward to the next letter in the press from ‘DW Ross, of Lealt, Ross-shire’.

His letters were from the heart and as honest as anything I have read in print ever. His passion for a way of life that sadly seems to be disappearing and respect and enthusiasm for the cultural heritage of the hill men of the Highlands was well appreciated in many circles.

I just wish that more people in conservation, environmental and agricultural bodies would come out from behind their desks and talk more to people like Donnie, although they will need to be quick as they are getting thinner and thinner on the ground.

Then they might learn, firstly, what is practical and what works and how it can be achieved, but secondly to look at our historic use of the hills and the numbers of people that lived there and remember it was a highly managed landscape that has created what we have today.

We do not want the use of our hills to change too much from what they used to be used for, especially for the production of beef, mutton and venison.

The day will come with global populations and greenhouse gases and carbon footprints when we will be looking to our hills again to feed us – when we suddenly realise that we can’t buy lamb in New Zealand and ship it to the other side if the world. It is, after all, morally wrong to burn all those hydrocarbons!

E Ruaridh Ormiston

Croila Croft

Kingussie