Qualla: Gavin Maxwell https://qualla.com/gavin-maxwell en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:24 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/v/gavin-maxwell-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Gavin Maxwell https://qualla.com/gavin-maxwell Gavin Maxwell: Introduction https://qualla.com/gavin-maxwell/ Photo credit Mike McBey, CC BY 2.0. Maxwell called the place Camusfeàrna, Gaelic for Bay of Alders, but on the maps it was Sandaig - a cluster of lighthouse keepers' cottages on a peppercorn rent, opposite Isleornsay on Skye, with a parallel lighthouse marking the shipping channel through the Sound of Sleat. He arrived in 1948 as a writer's retreat, brought the first of his otters in 1956, and spent the next decade making this corner of the Highland coast famous to millions of readers. His book Ring of Bright Water (1960) sold more than two million copies. It also concealed - because Maxwell, born 15 July 1914, made a complicated, often painful path through the world - more than it revealed.

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Image: Mike McBey | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/v/gavin-maxwell-wp/gf5v-gavin-maxwell-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Gavin Maxwell: From Elrig to Soay https://qualla.com/gavin-maxwell/ Photo credit Rosser1954, CC BY-SA 4.0. Maxwell was born at the House of Elrig in Wigtownshire, the youngest of four children of Lieutenant-Colonel Aymer Edward Maxwell and Lady Mary Percy, daughter of the 7th Duke of Northumberland. His father was killed at the Siege of Antwerp on 9 October 1914, when Gavin was three ...

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Image: Rosser1954 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/v/gavin-maxwell-wp/gf5v-gavin-maxwell-from-elrig-to-soay.mp3 0:06 2 full Gavin Maxwell: Iraq, Mij, and the Bay of Alders https://qualla.com/gavin-maxwell/ Photo credit Martin Southwood, CC BY-SA 2.0. In January 1956 Maxwell travelled to Iraq with the explorer Wilfred Thesiger to tour the reed marshes of the Euphrates. He spent seven weeks on a traditional canoe called a tarada, an experience he found both physically painful and life-changing. In Basra at the end of the journe...

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Image: Martin Southwood | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/v/gavin-maxwell-wp/gf5v-gavin-maxwell-iraq-mij-and-the-bay-of-alders.mp3 0:06 3 full Gavin Maxwell: The Curse and the Cottage https://qualla.com/gavin-maxwell/ Photo credit John Allan, CC BY-SA 2.0. Maxwell's life was shadowed by a difficult friendship with the poet Kathleen Raine, six years older, whose unrequited love for him she described in her memoir The Lion's Mouth. After a fierce argument at Sandaig in July 1956, Raine - frustrated by Maxwell's homosexuality and mood...

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Image: John Allan | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/v/gavin-maxwell-wp/gf5v-gavin-maxwell-the-curse-and-the-cottage.mp3 0:06 4 full Gavin Maxwell: Eilean Bàn and After https://qualla.com/gavin-maxwell/ Photo credit Mike McBey, CC BY 2.0. After the fire destroyed Sandaig, Maxwell moved to the lighthouse keepers' cottages on Eilean Bàn - White Island - between Skye and the mainland near Kyleakin. He called it Kyleakin Lighthouse and invited the young naturalist John Lister-Kaye to help him build a small zoo and wri...

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Image: Mike McBey | CC BY 2.0

]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/5/v/gavin-maxwell-wp/gf5v-gavin-maxwell-eilean-b-n-and-after.mp3 0:06 5 full