Stretchers have been around pretty much from the beginning of time, mostly used for rescuing casualties from battlefields of the world’s wars. The advent of mountaineering as a sport in the 1800s brought with it a somewhat lesser carnage though requiring a rather more specialised stretcher to deal with the harsh terrain.

The first stretcher of any repute to be specifically designed for mountain rescue rescue was created by Eustace Thomas way back in 1933, called simply the Thomas Stretcher, it reigned supreme for several decades with few equals. A surgeon and mountain rescue specialist called Donald Duff created his own version in 1945, it only enjoyed a brief spell of fame, maybe not helped by its title – ‘The Duff Stretcher’.

Hamish MacInnes was a contemporary of Donald Duff and went on to design his own stretcher in the 1960s, a move which prompted Donald’s wife, Georgina, to comment “Mr MacInnes’s stretcher seems to have many features similar to my husbands”. Nevertheless, Hamish’s stretcher became pretty much universal in Scotland, somewhat less elsewhere. There were several versions along the way, we think the one we have here in the collection is a Mk 4. This particular one was used by Lochaber MRT until newer Marks came along.