Harpoon At A Venture - Gavin Maxwall

Over the last couple of years I've periodically checked amazon for copies of 'Harpoon At A Venture' in the hope that someone somewhere would think to reprint it so that I could replace my much read and finally disintegrating copy. Earlier this year my wish was granted - Birlinn have just reprinted 'Harpoon at a Venture', even better a copy landed on my doorstep in a delightful and unexpected way.

I'm deeply attached to this book, I wrote about it here last year, and thought about it a lot more after reading Hebridean Sharker (also republished by Birlinn). 'Hebridean Sharker' is the book that Tex Geddes who had been part of Maxwell's crew wrote about his experience of shark fishing. Most of it takes place after his time with Maxwell and the two books compliment each other nicely. Geddes was a larger than life character and certainly a memorable element in 'Harpoon At A Venture', 'Hebridean Sharker' is full of great stories and is an entertaining book which in turn shows just how good a writer Maxwell was because 'Harpoon At A Venture' is in a different league.

I've read it many times over the years, each time finding and taking something different from it. At first I saw it basically as a tale of adventure, albeit one that ends badly, later it raised questions about conservation and the ethics of hunting, the last time I read it I thought far more about what it had to say for a generation of young men adjusting to peacetime. Maxwell was a prolific hunter during his lifetime with a youthful passion for shooting in an era where game bags reached near genocidal proportions, the impulse he acts on when he first sees a basking shark is to shoot at it (which he does, and eventually from this inauspicious beginning the idea of the shark fishery is born), even in 'Ring of Bright Water' he's having homicidal thoughts about killer whales, yet it wasn't until Maxwell's fishing operation that biologists got round to taking a really close look at basking sharks. 

It is still the war element of the book that fascinates me at the moment however. I find it hard to imagine the impact 6 years of war must have had on young men, because really what would you do with yourself if you'd come out of that to find yourself 30, with no career, and a skill set that probably doesn't fit you for office life? Shark hunting suddenly begins to look like a logical answer. For Maxwell there is also a class issue which in turn I also find fascinating; the pre and post world war for younger sons of the landed gentry must have been very different places - much of the Soay venture looks like an attempt to maintain the role of an officer and a gentleman and was likely a reason that it failed. 

'Harpoon At A Venture' brings a time and place vividly to life, regardless of how you feel about hunting sharks it's a rewarding (I think important) read. This new edition has more pictures in it than my old copy which was an unexpected bonus. It's a book I can't recommend highly enough, it's my benchmark for nature writing (and in fact for all non fiction) and is one I know I'll read many more times over the years - perhaps eventually I'll be able to write about it in a way that does it justice. 

Hebridean Sharker - Tex Geddes

After my Trollope adventure I wanted a complete change of pace and as luck would have it 'Hebridean Sharker' turned up in my letter box. A month or so back I wrote about Gavin Maxwell's 'Harpoon at a Venture' (a book I love to the point that I'm prepared to be evangelical about it), having reminded myself about  just how good that book is I was intrigued to discover that Tex Geddes, Maxwell's harpoonist, had also written a book about his experiences. Even more intriguing Birlinn were in the process of reprinting it so potentially this was going to be an opportunity to learn a little bit more about Maxwell and his Soay years from someone who was there.

As it turns out Geddes once described as a cross between Ivan the Terrible and Popeye deals mostly with the years after he left Maxwell's company - and is doubtless the better for it. Geddes isn't the writer that Maxwell was, but he has great stories to tell and proceeds to tell them in a way that makes me wish he'd written more about his life - which was nothing if not adventurous. The action opens on his wedding day in 1948, The ceremony takes place in London and after missing the sleeper north on which they have reservations they manage to make it onto another train and so on to Mallaig arriving in the teeth of a blizzard and just in time for Tex to abandon his wife to go out on a lifeboat rescue mission. After a brief pause in action to explain lifeboat construction we return to Jeanne back in Mallaig listening to the trawler wave band on the radio as the message "Oban radio calling Mallaig Lifeboat...Calling Mallaig Lifeboat... Can you here me..." goes out. No reply (the boat's radio signal has been blotted out by mountains. Happily Tex is home in time for breakfast.

There's a lot of boys own adventuring here as Tex and his shipmate Johnny pursue Sharks only fractionally smaller than their trusty boat 'Traveller' - which is often in danger of being pulled apart inconveniently far from shore but there's more to the book than that. Geddes doesn't just catch sharks, to make ends meet and keep a roof over their heads he and his wife are both working, when it's not sharks it's lobsters or ring netting. They struggle to find a house at all - it's only when Jeanne negotiates to buy Soay that they do manage to find a place of their own to live in, even then it's almost derelict and as they move in the rest of the island is being evacuated.

Tex whose early life made him ideal for the commandos was clearly drawn to a way of life not entirely risk free, but the general problems he and Jeanne face, more especially after they have their son Duncan, must have been common enough amongst ex service-men, and women, grown used to a different world and impatient of re-imposed rules. 

The all action thing isn't often my cup of tea, but this book makes it work, it's worth being reminded what lifeboat men face when they turn out at night, and salutary to realise what our grandparents were prepared to do to earn a living (I'm not thinking specifically of Tex here so much as all of the marginally less colourful people he introduces the reader to). It's a good book, and using the original jacket was a great decision, it does indeed deserve it's place as a Hebridean classic.