Frank Fraser Darling

Frank Darling was born illegitimately at a farm near Chesterfield, his mother resisted family pressure to have her baby fostered. Aged 15, bullied and self-conscious, the wayward child ran away from school. He worked on a farm for a time where, under the guidance of an observant farmer, he revelled in the wild animals and plants around him.

An uncle finally encouraged Frank to go to agricultural college, where he was to fall in love with a fellow student, Marian Fraser or ‘Bobbie’ as she was known. They were married in 1925 and Frank added her surname to his own and from then, was known as Frank Fraser Darling. He soon gave up any career in dairying to accept a PhD studentship at Edinburgh, studying fleece development in Blackface sheep on the Scottish hills.

His work in the hills instilled in him a love of wild places, especially the Highlands and Islands, and a desire to follow a research career. He won a small fellowship to study red deer, which he had hoped to base on the Isle of Rum but permission was refused by the owner. and so Frank, Bobbie and their young son moved to Dundonnell in Wester Ross in 1933.

Four years later, his book ‘A Herd of Red Deer’ was published. It was as much anecdote as science and reached a wide audience because of it. . Although much of the information is now dated it remains an enjoyable and influential text.