ANOTHER good man gone.
My first meeting with Dick Balharry ("Conservationist mourned as 'warm and generous' pioneer", The Herald, April 24, and Herald Obituaries, April 25) was in a Radio Scotland studio in the 1980s. Much more recently, we were guests at the celebratory opening of the koala enclosure in Edinburgh Zoo and in between there were a number of meetings in various parts of Scotland. In the Creag Meagaidh nature reserve we slogged up the glen to the cliffs of the Coire Ardair.
Dick was such a warm and affable man and his manner so casual, that it was only later that I realised that I had been informed and instructed every step of the way. I was amazed that he could instantly pick out the form of a dun-coloured stag on a dun-coloured hill half a mile away, while I struggled with field glasses to spot anything at all.
He had a natural empathy with the Scottish countryside and its wildlife, encouraged and supported the few like-minded landowners of his acquaintance and despised the rest for what he saw as their greed, stupidity and disregard for the real welfare of the environment.
He accomplished a great deal in his life. Our debt to him is huge and a few Dick Balharrys in the Government would undoubtedly make Scotland a better place.
Jimmie Macgregor,
16 Holyrood Crescent, Glasgow.
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