GAVIN MAXWELL
died on this date, (b: 1914) I don't know about you, but I have always
loved otters and that love first made itself known to me in the book Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell. So it was with great delight that I discovered that this book was written by a gay man.
A Scottish naturalist and author, best known for his work with otters Gavin Maxwell wrote the wonderful book Ring of Bright Water in 1960 about how he brought an otter back from Iraq and raised it in Scotland. Ring of Bright Water sold more than a million copies and was made into a movie starring Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna in 1969. The title Ring of Bright Water was taken from a poem by Kathleen Raine, who said in her autobiography that Maxwell had been the love of her life.
Maxwell's book Ring of Bright Water describes
how, in 1956, he brought a Smooth-coated otter back from Iraq and
raised it in "Camusfearna" (Sandaig) on the west coast of Scotland. He
took the otter, called Mijbil, to the London Zoological Society, where
it was decided that this was a previously unknown sub-species of
Smooth-coated Otter. It was therefore named Lutrogale perspicillata maxwelli (or,
colloquially, "Maxwell's Otter") after him. It is thought to have
become extinct in the alluvial salt marshes of Iraq as a result of the
large-scale drainage of the area that started in the 1960s.
In his book The Marsh Arabs, Wilfred Thesiger wrote:
[I]n 1956,
Gavin Maxwell, who wished to write a book about the Marshes, came with
me to Iraq, and I took him round in my tarada for seven weeks. He had
always wanted an otter as a pet, and at last I found him a baby European
otter which unfortunately died after a week, towards the end of his
visit. He was in Basra preparing to go home when I managed to obtain
another, which I sent to him. This, very dark in colour and about six
weeks old, proved to be a new species. Gavin took it to England, and the
species was named after him.
The otter became
woven into the fabric of Maxwell's life. Kathleen Raines' relationship
with Maxwell ended in 1956 when she indirectly caused the death of
Mijbil. Raine held herself responsible not only for losing Mijbil but
for a curse she had uttered shortly beforehand, frustrated by Maxwell's
homosexuality: "Let Gavin suffer in this place as I am suffering now."
Raine blamed herself thereafter for all Maxwell's misfortunes, beginning
with Mijbil's death and ending with the cancer that took his life in
1969
Maxwell was the
youngest son of Lieutenant-Colonel Aymer Maxwell and Lady Mary Percy,
fifth daughter of the seventh Duke of Northumberland. His paternal
grandfather, Sir Herbert Maxwell, was an archaeologist, politician and
natural historian. Maxwell was raised in the tiny village of Elrig, in
south-western Scotland. Maxwell's relatives still reside in the area and
the family's ancient estate and grounds are in nearby Monreith.
During World War
II, Maxwell served as an instructor with the Special Operations
Executive. After the war, he purchased the Isle of Soay of Skye in the
inner Hebrides, Scotland. According to his book Harpoon at a Venture (1952,
since republished under various titles), bad planning and a lack of
finance meant his attempt to establish a basking shark fishery there
between 1945-48 proved unsuccessful.
In 1956, Maxwell
toured the reed marshes of Southern Iraq with explorer Wilfred Thesiger.
Maxwell's account of their trip appears in A Reed Shaken By The Wind, later published under the title People of the Reeds. It was hailed by the New York Times reviewer as "near perfect".
Maxwell next moved to Sandaig (which he called Camusfeàrna in
his books), a small community opposite Eileen Iarmain on a remote part
of the Scottish mainland. This is where his "otter books" are set.
After Ring of Bright Water (1960), he wrote The Rocks Remain (1963), in which the otters Edal, Teko, Mossy and Monday show great differences in personality. The Rocks Remain is a sequel to Ring of Bright Water,
as it demonstrates the difficulty Maxwell was having, possibly as a
result of his mental state, in remaining focused on one project and the
impact that had on his otters, Sandaig, and his own life.
In 1966, he
traveled to Morocco with a male companion, tracing the dramatic lives of
the last rulers of Morocco under the French. His account of the trip
was published as Lords of the Atlas: The Rise and Fall of the House of Glaoua 1893-1956. During the Moroccan Years of Lead, the regime there considered his book subversive and banned its importation.
In The House of Elrig (1965),
Maxwell describes his family history and his passion for the
calf-country, Galloway, where he was born. It was during this period
that he met ornithologist Peter Scott and the young Terry Nutkin, who
later became a children's television presenter. A closeted homosexual,
Maxwell married Lavinia Renton (née Lascelles) on February 1 1962. The
marriage lasted little more than a year and they divorced in 1964.
In 1968,
Maxwell's Sandaig home was destroyed by fire and he moved to the
lighthouse cottage of Eilean Bàn (White Island), another island he owned
off the coast of Skye. He invited John Lister-Kaye to join him on
Eilean Bàn and help him build a zoo on the island and work on a book
about British wild mammals. Lister-Kaye accepted the invitation, but
both projects were abandoned when Maxwell died from cancer later that
same year.
