‘BE YE also ready’ warns the inscription on a stone in the layby at the summit of the Ord of Caithness, in author James Miller’s native county.
It commemorates traveller William Welch, a vagrant who perished in a snowstorm there in 1878. Stories about the challenges (and the sometime horrors) of travel in the Scottish Highlands abound as far as records go back and the stone’s warning is wisdom for the ages: even with modern vehicle and infrastructure developments, travel in the Highlands can still be treacherous.
James Miller tells the dramatic and sometimes surprisingly humorous story of travel and transport in the Highlands, from the 18th century to the present day.