Ian Mitchell is a Scottish author, who grew up mainly in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. He is the author of ''Isles of the West: a Hebridean Voyage'' and ''Isles of the North: a Voyage to the Realms of the Norse''. Both books are concerned with apparently-virtuous environmental

NGOs A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

which operate in rural

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

but which, in the point of view of the author, actually do damage to it. Mitchell is a critic of bodies like the

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a charitable organisation registered in England and Wales and in Scotland. It was founded in 1889. It works to promote conservation and protection of birds and the wider environment thr ...

and

Scottish Natural Heritage NatureScot ( gd, NàdarAlba), which was formerly known as Scottish Natural Heritage, is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government responsible for the country's natural heritage, especially its natural, genetic and s ...

, and has compared aspects of their behavior to that of the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

. Mitchell was founder and director of an organisation called "People Too," described by him as an "organisation founded to defend rural communities from the imposts of centralized bureaucracy." Mitchell has also written a book called ''The Cost of a Reputation'', about the Aldington-Tolstoy libel trial which took place in London in 1989 and concerned the claims that a controversial British Army operation in May 1945 handed back tens of thousands of Cossack and Yugoslav refugees from Stalin and Tito, for the most part illegally, to the dictators. The book mainly concerned the London trial, at which (Mitchell claims)

Lord Aldington Baron Aldington, of Bispham in the County Borough of Blackpool, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 29 January 1962 for the Conservative politician and businessman, Sir Toby Low. On 16 November 1999 he was made a ...

, who had issued the illegal orders in 1945 as Staff Brigadier, perjured himself. In this, as an ex-Deputy Chairman of the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

, he was assisted by both the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defense. Mitchell lived for fifteen years on the

Hebridean The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebri ...

island of Islay, where he has three children. He now lives in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

, where he works as a journalist and has broadcast about books on the

Voice of Russia Voice of Russia ( rus, Голос России, r=Golos Rossii), commonly abbreviated VOR, was the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service from 1993 until 2014, when it was reorganised as Radio Sputnik. Its interval signal w ...

. On 6 April 2007 he delivered a lecture "Seeing Scotland: Historical Places and Themes" at the ELE public forum in Moscow.

Publications

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References

Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Alumni of St John's College (Johannesburg) {{Scotland-writer-stub