Irvine Butterfield

Irvine Butterfield (1936–2009) was an environmentalist, hillwalker and author of several books about mountains and the outdoor environment who took an significant role in the running of organisations with such interests in Scotland. He was a good organiser and volunteered large amounts of his time to causes he believed in.

Butterfield was born in Farnhill, North Yorkshire on 8 August 1936 and from his youth he was a keen walker. He worked at the local gasworks and then in the Post Office. In 1957 he moved to London to start his lifetime career with HM Customs and Excise, in 1960 transferring to its whisky departments in Perth, Dundee and then Inverness. It was here that he developed his love for the Scottish hills.

Butterfield was a burly man, not built with the physique for climbing, who never claimed to be more than a hillwalker. He admitted that to climb the Inaccessible Pinnacle "a climbing friend from Manchester hauled me up it".

Butterfield died in Dundee on 12 May 2009, survived by Moira Gillespie, his partner. His ashes were scattered at Loch Clair, just east of Upper Loch Torridon at a place looking towards Liathach, a favourite view for Butterfield; and at Kinloch, near the Dibidil bothy, a simple memorial stone was erected with a quote from William Blake "Great things are done when men and mountains meet; This is not done by jostling in the street."

When in Perth he started climbing the Scottish mountains and became particularly attracted to Schiehallion. An interest in improving bothies, remote highland shelters, led to him becoming secretary of the Mountain Bothies Association from 1969 to 1972. In 1972 he published a book about a project for repairing Dibidil bothy on the island of Rùm, and in 1979 he produced a detailed report A Survey of Shelters in Remote Mountain areas of the Scottish Highlands (1979).

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