Open Zoom event with Lesley Riddoch on the 10th of December. Free Tickets at:
In this talk Lesley takes us through her adventures in Norway and the meaning of ‘Hytte’ (huts) for Norwegian citizens. These simple wooden buildings are in fact a lifestyle across all countries on the same latitude as Scotland, offering citizens of Russia, Canada and Scandinavia access to their land and a retreat from the modern world – a connection back to nature. So are wee wooden huts a solution to transforming our health, happiness and democracy ? Seems simple ? but this type of low impact weekend retreat would offer Scots the opportunity of low cost leisure time. Is it not time to reconnect Scotland’s people with nature in a way that it is not the sole preserve of the wealthy and doesn’t rob locals of existing housing stock?
Lesley Riddoch is a journalist and writer based in Scotland – she’s also Director of policy group Nordic Horizons which has organised 60+ events featuring Nordic speakers on areas ranging from childcare to flexicurity over the last ten years. She completed a PhD comparing the hutting traditions of Scotland and Norway this summer and has just published a book full of stories about her own experience as a lone hutter in Aberdeenshire and travels amongst the hytter of Norway – Huts, a place beyond. It also traces the history and struggles of Scotland’s hutters and our lost heritage of but ‘n’ bens.
Lesley Riddoch has just completed a PhD comparing the hutting traditions of Scotland and Norway and published a book full of stories about her own experience as a lone hutter in Aberdeenshire and travels amongst the hytter of Norway.
You can buy a signed copy of the book before the zoom event with free postage (well Christmas is coming!) by using the code 1000Huts in the checkout process – https://lesleyriddoch.com/books
Reviews of Huts, a place beyond;
A clarion call for a revolution in the way we understand home, leisure and our relationship with the natural world.
Guardian
Lesley Riddoch has managed to take a mad fringe idea, give it respectability and put it in the context of the wider northern world, quite apart from publicising the largely lost radical working-class movements of the early twentieth century. I haven’t waited so eagerly for a book for ages and it surpassed expectations.
Chris Ballance, Carbeth Hutters