Former Inverness High School head from Nairn sharing passion for geography around the world
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Ritchie Cunningham, who was head of Inverness High School for 23 years, has written or co-written more than 30 publications and taken part in radio programmes.
During lockdown, he added more titles to his growing portfolio while also gaining followers on social media from as far away as India and Africa.
"I am still passionate about the subject I started teaching," said Mr Cunningham who lives with his wife, Linda, in Nairn West End.
"To me, geography is all about patterns – the patterns we see about us all around the world, in the landscape and the human environment – and it is understanding that which I find so interesting.
"It is a bit like deceiphering a mystery and questioning how things work.
"I want to understand how the world works, whether it is physical or the human environment."
During lockdown, Mr Cunningham wrote four new titles with the latest entitled Physical Geography aimed at senior high school/secondary students and including question sections for students to test themselves.
It is also intended to give any young person wishing to study geography at university a solid grounding in a wide range of physical geography topics.
The other titles are Population and Migration, Water and Behaviour Management in Schools.
"It has been very enjoyable – I have not done it for a while," he said.
"It also gives me the chance to update my knowledge – in order to write something you have to do a lot of research."
As well as publishing his books in paperback form, he has started to make them available as e-books which can be downloaded for free on a regular basis.
"I am not looking to make any money," he said. "It is a hobby and I would rather people get access to them."
Mr Cunningham, who first started writing material for his own classes back in the 1980s, also makes resources freely available for teachers on his website.
"There is no point in stuff sitting around if it can be used," he said.
He maintained geography was a particularly relevant subject today, given issues of climate change, which he first wrote about in the 1990s, and migration.
"It is always up-to-date and looking at what is going on in the world," he said.
"It will always be a relevant subject and it is popular around the world.
"I have got some lovely messages from people around the world who like accessing my free material."
He said he had more Facebook followers from India and Africa, for example than in the western world while the printed version of his books – whose costs are kept as low as possible – are now available in Australia as well as the UK and USA.
