Tom Weir; Telegraph obituary (climber, naturalist, broadcaster)
Hyfler/Rosner
Tom Weir
(Filed: 08/07/2006) Telegraph
Tom Weir, who died on Thursday aged 91, was a climber,
naturalist, writer and broadcaster; for many decades he
celebrated Scotland's countryside, and was as engaging and
informed a companion as could be had for ventures on to the
Scottish hills.
Weir had an exceptional enthusiasm for life. Even as
he walked uphill, the flow of commentary and appreciation,
the airing of encyclopaedic knowledge, continued unabated.
So too did the output of books and columns, and his various
series for radio and television. He became best known for
his series for Scottish Television, Weir's Way, first
broadcast in 1976; usually clad in a Fair Isle jumper and
woolly hat, he explored his country's landscape and history.
Thomas Weir was born on December 29 1914 at
Springburn, the area of Glasgow where the great locomotive
works was located. His father, who had been an engine
fitter, was killed in Mesopotamia in 1916; called up at the
age of 28, he left his young family and was sent to Basra,
where he was killed while advancing on Turkish gun
emplacements.
Tom's mother, who worked as a carriage-painter at
Springburn, was left to bring up on her own Tom, his brother
Willie and sister Molly - later the actress Molly Weir,
known for her role in the children's television show
Rentaghost. Tom's mother disapproved when he left school -
where his performance had been distinctly ordinary - at the
age of 14 to take a job chopping firewood. She was pleased,
however, when he later found a post as a shop assistant at
the Co-op.
He left the Co-op to work at another grocery, Willy
Paton's, but one afternoon, after he was scolded for
breaking a weighing scale, he removed his apron and walked
out. Mr Paton came after him, and pleaded with him to
return; but the young Weir went to help with the potato
harvest on Arran, where he earned 14 shillings a week, with
Sundays off to go into the hills.
The hills had already begun to figure large in Tom's
life. As a boy he had joined the local boxing club, in the
belief that it might help him to grow (he stood barely 5 ft
tall), and the club would take the boys out to Ben Lomond
and the Campsie Fells.
The Forth and Clyde canal was near his home, and often
he would follow it out to the Steps of Kelvin. In Cadder
Woods there were corn buntings, great spotted woodpeckers
and redpolls. He read all Seton Gordon's books in his local
library, taking inspiration from their accounts of
travelling in the Highlands and Islands. Weir would say that
the 1930s were the great age of "stravaiging", people in
their thousands migrating out of the city each weekend on
foot, by bicycle, bus or train, to Loch Lomondside or the
Trossachs.
One holiday weekend, when he was on a train, Weir met
a boy called Matt Forrester, who worked in a butcher's shop
and loved the outdoors: " I got talking to this big,
ginger-haired chap a few years older than myself," he later
recalled. "He had a tent and a spare blanket and persuaded
me - not a difficult task - to stay out for the night. I got
a message back to my mother with someone on the train and
that was it. " The two became friends, and climbed together
in the Cairngorms, Glen Tilt, Sutherland and Wester Ross.
After his sojourn on Arran for the potato harvest,
Weir returned to Glasgow, where he began writing about the
Scottish landscape in newspapers and magazines. He also took
up photography.
During the Second World War he served with the Royal
Artillery, although he never saw action, and with the return
of peace he worked for the Ordnance Survey.
He went on the first post-war Himalayan expedition,
later returning to explore a little-known region of Nepal;
he also climbed in Greenland (with Sir John Hunt), Iran and
Kurdistan.
Weir wrote a column in the Scots Magazine, called "My
Month", which he maintained for nearly half a century, and
began to produce books on mountains and on the Scottish
wilderness. They included Highland Days; The Ultimate
Mountains; East of Katmandu; and Tom Weir's Scotland. He was
naturally observant, and wrote in a precise, often humorous,
style; never gushing or sentimental, he was shrewd in his
assessment of human character.
In 1959 Weir married his girlfriend of many years,
Rhona Dickson. "It was fear of going into lower gear that
had held me back until I was at the dangerous age of 45", he
later explained. The honeymoon was spent on the remote
island of Foula, and the couple settled in the village of
Gartocharn, where there was a school at which Rhona could
teach and a hill for Tom to climb every morning.
Tom Weir, who published an autobiography, Weir's
World, in 1994, was a sprightly man with ruddy features and
a firm handshake. He was celebrated in a song, Tom Weir,
written by the Edinburgh musician Sandy Wright.
In 1976 he was appointed MBE, and in 1978 was named
Scottish radio and television personality of the year.
His wife, a retired primary school headmistress,
survives him. Two years ago Tom Weir said: "The hills gave
me everything. I was a daft laddie, but the cleverest thing
I ever did was marrying someone who shared the same
passion."