Jimmy Hoot

The happy farmer is out demolishing the old stone walls adjoining our house, attaching chains to the old cement work and hauling them down with the tractor. It is an apt time, a time of change, pulling away the old steadings, and replacing them with new stronger walls, extending our family home. The building warrant has finally come through and things can get moving.

Though as we pull down those old crumbling walls we are struggling today, our dear friend Hoot has died. We have visited him often over the past few weeks, reminiscing about the good times, as he, as sturdy as ever, bravely began to lose his battle with cancer, a battle that has spanned some thirty years, one which for the most part he has had the upper hand. His passing is a blessing, but tinged with great sadness for all who knew him well. Hoot was another of life’s rich characters. He was part of the fittings and fixtures of the farm, and we will miss him dreadfully, but his stories, his wicked sense of humour, that twinkle in his beady eyes, his character, will remain with us always.

Hoot could usually be found in his tackety boots, cap and boiler suit, down at the fank with the happy farmer working at sheep. When the work was done, a beady eyed Hoot would sit, mug of tea in his hand, roll up between his fingers and put the day and the world to rights. He has passed many a happy day on the farm over the years, a great man with the sheep, usually with his faithful Dan dog at his heels, always offering timely advice and the wisdom of one that truly knew and understood the ways of nature and the countryside. He has fenced the length and breadth of Scotland in his time. Never a day passed when he didn’t indulge in a bit of ‘the old tail pulling’, as Hoot would call it, as he would wind someone up and watch them take the bait. A remarkable man when it came to stalking and shooting, Hoot knew the hills well, and was a great teacher in the ways of the ‘Highlands’, when the boys were younger he would take them out to the north end of the island, where they would set up camp in the caves and live off the land.

So at the weekend Hoot will go back to rest in the land he so loved, he is to be buried on his sister’s croft on Jura……