MARRIAGE, WORKING AND WRITING

      While he was at Aberdeen Ian was developing a relationship with a girl of his own age, Elizabeth Cameron, who had been a fellow student in the Honours English class. She was the daughter of the Rev. John Cameron, a Free Church Minister of Helmsdale. The class had dispersed on graduation but Elizabeth had remained in Aberdeen to do a year's postgraduate teacher training at Aberdeen.

      It was the intention that at the end of his two-year contract, Ian would go on to postgraduate work at Cambridge University. However, both he and Elizabeth were unhappy in teaching, eloped and were married, by declaration before witnesses, at a lawyer's office in Dundee on the 10 May 1930. Elizabeth had to give up teaching on marriage, and Ian, despite his 1st Class Honours degree, was unable to take up a teaching job, as he had not undertaken teacher training.

      Ian had a motorbike and they bought an old car, and a caravan and trailer, and set off to become travelling salesmen in the Highlands. After a few false starts, trying to deal in china and crockery that was all too easily broken ‚ they settled for hawking fruit and vegetables in the towns and villages of Speyside. They discovered a niche in the market, for in the summer season all the myriad of hotels and guesthouses on Speyside were keen to buy their produce. They parked their caravan at Culreoch, between Grantown on Spey and Nethy Bridge and later moved nearer to Newtonmore. They supplemented their income with private tutoring, and provided a taxi service for the men working on the Hydro scheme on Loch Ericht who needed a taxi to and from Dalwhinnie on a Saturday night. Towards the end of 1930 they rented Halfway House (half way between Laggan and Dalwhinnie) quite cheaply from the Macpherson of Glentruim. In a remote and exposed area, it was wood lined, with two bedrooms upstairs with skylights in the roof and two rooms downstairs each with a fireplace. There was also a small room used as a storage space. Water for all uses was obtained from the burn, and there was an outside toilet. This story is largely told in their book titled the Happy Hawkers.

      It was during the six years at Halfway House that Ian did his most important writing. The tutoring had come to an end and the taxi business dwindled as the Hydro work was completed. Some cash was earned from ghillieing, but journalism, with some broadcasting, was their main source of income. He wrote a regular short column, under the title Over the Dike, for The Bulletin and longer pieces for The SMT Magazine and The Glasgow Herald. Over a period of nine years, between 1932 and 1941, Ian wrote almost fifty leading articles. In addition, he did regular work for the BBC.

      Between 1936 and 1938 they lived at Penpoint, Dumfriesshire, and Peebles where he worked for the Scottish Country Industries Development Trust which was formed to help revive the rural economy of Scotland and halt the depopulation by assisting small country enterprises. Although this was a change of direction, his knowledge of rural issues, having been brought up on a hill farm and his knowledge of political economy gained at university were invaluable tools for the job.