Have you ever wondered whether or not there was some truth in the stories of monsters in Loch Ness? Here are all of the answers.
Loch Ness Monster Explained & Loch Ness Understood: The Co-Founder of the Loch Ness Centre Provides a Personal Perspecti...
[Each chapter is split into three sections, MONSTROUS dealing with anecdotes and amusing items; THE MONSTER which is the meat of the book, covering the main subject; MY MONSTER explaining how being involved in this subject has changed my life.]
So what about this Loch Ness Monster then? I'm sure many of you will have skipped forward to this point, shame on you. Go back and read the rest later.
The subject is far more complex than may be imagined. Back in 1979 when I was researching the subject for my exhibition the source material was somewhat scarce. There were a number of books of course and there were eye-witnesses I could speak to. In addition I had contact with David James MP of the Loch Ness Bureau and Dr Rines of the Academy of Applied Science in the USA. All of these were pro-Nessie advocates so I was not getting a balanced view of the subject. Surprisingly I had not heard of Adrian Shine at this time. Perhaps that is a good thing, because otherwise I may never have staged that exhibition and my life, and that of many others, may have been the poorer.
The exhibition I first produced tended to be biased towards the plesiosaur theory as that seemed to be the general consensus. At the time, though, I thought it was quite fairly presented from a semi-neutral perspective. Such a view was somewhat egotistical, but at least I have never had a problem admitting my mistakes.
Our models were fine and served their purpose, but looking back, the models were probably very amateurish.
The information panels of text and pictures were fixed to the walls. Room one of the exhibition covered the early photographs from Hugh Gray's, the earliest photograph, through to Dinsdale's film from 1960.
When Tim Dinsdale refused permission to show his film he compensated by providing specially selected still frames for our use. Interestingly not one of those frames shows the crucial object which later gave away the truth. I must say, however, that at this time I was a firm believer in the Dinsdale film and the plesiosaur theory.
When the exhibition opened on 3rd May 1980 I was confident that I had done the best I could with the material available. The Academy of Applied Science had thrown open their files, or at least the ones they wanted me to see. I had spoken to a number of key eye witnesses and I had read every book which was available at the time.
With confidence we opened the doors and in the delighted tourists flocked. Interviews with them seemed to suggest that they liked what they saw.
That first day we took £80.80 which was not bad at 80p per head for a brand new venture in early May when the tourist season is notoriously fickle. It looked as if we'd "cracked it", so to speak. [The entry price in 2016 is £7.95.]
However, shortly after we opened a number of people picked holes in the material we were displaying and, being an open-minded individual I had no problem with listening to them and making notes for later corrections. Some of the criticism, though, was a little dispiriting.
Within days of opening, an acquaintance called Richard Frere, who later wrote a book on other aspects of the Loch Ness area, walked into the exhibition for a look at "what we had been doing at the back of the Drumnadrochit Hotel". [Loch Ness – Richard Frere published by John Murray Ltd 1998]
He later asked to see me and advised me that the Lachlan Stuart picture (below) was a deliberate fake. When I asked him how he knew this he told me he had actually watched it being staged.
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