My 600th Marilyn was Moncreiffe Hill, not Norman's Law as planned, because the weather was so bad (thick low mist).
I read Colin Crawford's contribution in Marhofn 196, and we are similar in outlook. I have done most hills alone as I don't like to encumber or be encumbered; all my Munros (203) except Ben Nevis, all my tops (89) and over half of my Marilyns; 277 were with my wife Mary and about 18 with Freda and Derek Woods, Jonathan's parents. I started seriously on Munros with Ben Lomond in 1994, to give me something to do whilst Mary was on the West Highland Way on her own (I had done it in 1993 with my son). I had to abandon Munros for Marilyns in 2001 after a second failure on Conival and Ben More Assynt, when I found that although my brain was 29, my legs were 69.
The Marilyns provide a good challenge and walks with a real purpose, as well as satisfaction in navigation and effort. However, I do agree with Rowland Bowker's comments on Swinside. We managed it in 2007 after much research as to the owner and effort in gaining permission for access. I had been all round it in 2006 trying to find a way past the 'Private' notices.
Finally, the Marilyn bagger equipped with 'camper van and wife' described by Eric Young was almost certainly me. We explained to the gamekeeper that we believed the Marilyns stemmed from Fiona Graham's time in hospital after a skiing accident, when she passed the time seeking to extend the Corbett and Graham drop criterion to all the UK hills. We also told him that we thought Fiona was later murdered in the hills before the task was complete. (AD: Fiona Graham had nothing to do with the Marilyns, which were in print well before her listing of 2000ft Highland hills appeared in TGO. The current list of Grahams is the same as that in RHB, with two additions. Fiona was murdered while staying at a B&B in Inverinate, but by then it had already been agreed with her to drop her list but to apply the name Grahams to the relevant subset of Marilyns.)
