Loch Ness Monster Explained

Chapter 14c - MY MONSTER - The Exodus From Genesis

As I searched for my way out of the grips of Ronnie Bremner the biggest problem was that I needed to earn money and the job gave me a degree of security. I did not earn a huge sum, but enough to live comfortably.

Becoming increasingly worried about Ronnie's insatiable demands for cash, when I became managing director of the centre I put systems in place to prevent cash from being taken from the exhibition without proper accounting. This did not go down well and the pressures mounted.

My first attempt to escape was the purchase of the Great Glen Exhibition in Fort Augustus which I insisted on owning 50/50. Well so much for that. Within a few weeks of taking over a business which was going to struggle at the best of times, Bremner's accountants had advised him to lease a car for his mother and pay it from that exhibition's accounts. This was done with no consultation whatsoever and I was faced with a fait accompli.

This was just too much to bear. I went out and leased myself a vehicle too through that business, but of course it meant it could never become profitable. All I had achieved was a 50% share in a loss-making enterprise and somehow, he even managed to take my vehicle from me when he towed a boat to Spain with it. He never returned it and I never saw it again.

During the second year of this exhibition I made a lot of improvements and, instead of charging an admission, we asked for donations. We actually took more money that way. Whereas previously 5,000 people had paid 50p entry, we found that 20,000 people donated an average of 25p thus doubling the income. Extraordinary. Also the shop sales increased fourfold, roughly in line with the increased number of visitors.

Nevertheless, the business was only just wiping its nose and caused a lot of extra work for me. I did all the work, the Brem did none. Just sailed in occasionally to criticise.

When a letter arrived from the British Waterways Board wanting to terminate the lease on the buildings early, it gave a way out which resulted in us receiving a few thousand pounds each. Interestingly Bremner, smelling a rat, asked me to have a clause put in the sale that it could not be used as an exhibition in the future. That would stop the British Waterways Board leasing it to a direct competitor of the Loch Ness Centre.

Strangely the arm of the British Waterways Board responsible for acquiring the property was obviously not talking to the people who had asked them to acquire it, for almost immediately they put in plans for an exhibition. So there was a rat, just not quite the one he anticipated.

Nevertheless, an objection was lodged and they had to put the planned canal exhibition into a smaller building elsewhere and they ended up leasing the buildings out for use as a restaurant. This was actually a great pity as it meant that Fort Augustus had lost an excellent little heritage centre within some really historic buildings.

So that venture was not going to free me from the tyranny.

Nessie Hunt was the second great venture, but as explained earlier, we were undercapitalised to break in to the major board game industry. Every single game sold cost us about £3 which is not a good way to do business.

A third possibility arose.

One day a young couple from Fife arrived at the Loch Ness Centre with some hatching Nessie figurines. We had already been buying them from a manufacturer in Fife, but the girl, Carol Lynn Penny explained that she was the designer, that the manufacturer had ceased trading and they would like to sell direct to the exhibition. We had been buying this product for about 85p and selling it for £1.98 which is a normal mark up in the souvenir trade. Double the price and add tax.

I talked to Shiela Davenport who looked after shop ordering at the Loch Ness Centre and we decided to take a hundred. The ten we had bought from the defunct company had sold out in just a couple of days.