Gavin Maxwell

The books that Maxwell and Thesiger each wrote about the expedition have been hailed as ‘two of the finest works on Arabian travel in the English language’. It was during his two months with the Marsh Arabs that Maxwell - having been surrounded by pets and orphan animals all his life, acquired a sick young otter. It did not survive, but Thesiger found him another, Mijbil, who was to become internationally famous. The otters were Indian smooth-coated otters, not known to occur so far west and belonging to a new subspecies now named Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli.

Back in Britain, Maxwell based himself at Sandaig, near Glenelg which – ‘because such places should stay in the imagination’ - he chose to call Camusfearna. Sadly a year later Mij strayed from the lonely cottage and, knowing no fear of humans, was mistakenly killed by a local roadman.

The eloquent book Maxwell wrote of these adventures – ‘Ring of Bright Water’ – was published to international acclaim in 1960 and later made into a hugely popular film, both of which continue to motivate aspiring conservationists to this day.

After the heartbreaking death of Mij, Maxwell acquired two replacements, Edal and Teko, both African clawless otters Aonyx capensis, but as with so much in Maxwell’s life, tragedy was rarely far away. Camusfearna burnt down in 1968 and Edal was killed. Maxwell’s next two books describe these tragic events and he died a year later, in 1969, from cancer.

Gavin Maxwell was a tormented figure, ‘a man of action who wrote like a poet’. Perhaps no one knew him better than the poet Kathleen Raine with whom Maxwell had a rather tempestuous relationship and who – although he did not acknowledge it - had given him the title for his most successful book.