Loch Ness Monster Explained

Chapter 15a - MONSTROUS - Visitors

My father was a very good darts player. I still have medals of his from a major national tournament staged by the People newspaper and I have many of his sets of hand-made brass darts. In the nineteen-fifties, darts were often hand-turned out of brass or steel. Bamboo canes were then hammered into the head and flights were made from gummed paper. Some of the darts were up to ⅝ of an inch in diameter, a colossal 15mm. Today's tungsten darts are often as narrow as 5mm and precision engineered.

This may be why they did not score as many 180s as the modern players, but they still averaged over 80 per throw.

One of the modern dart players, John Lowe, was World Champion in 1979, 1987 and 1993 spanning three decades. In 1984 he achieved the first ever televised nine dart 501 score comprising two 180s and a 141 check-out.

That amazing achievement may not have occurred if I had not acted very quickly in 1982 to save that incredible right hand.

It was the most wonderful summer day and John and his manager had come up to the house to enjoy a beer or two with Wendy and me, and to watch the Goodyear Airship* working with the Loch Ness Project over Loch Ness. It was two years before his TV achievement.

I disappeared into the house to get some more beers for us and fruit juice for the manager and came back out. John had disappeared. He had wandered around the side of the house to say "hello" two our two lovely Basset Hounds.

Otto, distantly related to the famous Fredwell Varon Vandal (Fred Basset), was a lovely dog, but he could be a little temperamental when he was not roaming free. As we had visitors, he was in his compound with our other Basset, a real softy called Dexter.

Otto had once nipped my brother-in-law when we lived in the south. He had been temporarily tied up while our front door was open. My brother-in-law walked in, invading the dog's domain, and Otto gave him a bite on the leg, breaking skin, but no serious damage was done. We were therefore well aware that he needed to be watched with strangers.

This day, Otto was in his compound and this would make him extra protective against any stranger. As I reached the corner of the house, John Lowe was just about to reach in to pat Otto on the head. I saw the dog's lip curl and shouted, "no" as loud as I could. John pulled his hand back just as Otto lunged for him.

One second later and John might never had played darts again. I wonder what the insurance claim would have been?

Anyway, no harm done and John had a great afternoon with us, eventually jumping into the passenger seat of his car with the 301 UP registration number. The manager drove him back to their hotel. All's well that ends well.

I was a fair darts player myself, briefly playing to super-league standard, but had to work at it. If I did not practice daily my form would fade away. Today I would not be a threat even in the local pub, but I fondly remember the games I had with my father when we both played for the Carrier's Inn in Bude and the Buller's Arms in Marhamchurch, both in Cornwall in the nineteen-sixties.

Another personality coming to the house left us with a rather lovely memory.

In common, I am sure, with many other readers, I thoroughly enjoyed the "Notting Hill" romantic comedy.

When the video came out I decided to buy the version which came with a copy of the script and some background on the making of the film. There was a most interesting article by the writer Richard Curtis.

He described how a friend of his who knew Madonna happened to mention that he was possibly going to call round with her.

This, of course, had the effect on him and his wife of tidying the house and themselves ready for a visit of a famous personality which never actually occurred. It was this incident which inspired, for my money, the funniest sequence in the Notting Hill film, when William Thacker (Hugh Grant) arrived at his kid sister's birthday dinner without mentioning that he was bringing world famous actress Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) as his date.

The surprise of the couple hosting the dinner and the other friends is simply a charming piece of theatre, but of course there is someone there who did not realise that this was the famous Anna Scott and the ensuing situation and dialogue was simply superb.

What this has to do with Loch Ness will now become clear, for something similar happened to us just after the huge 1987 Loch Ness expedition***.

The West 57th television documentary team were at the loch obtaining some film for the new series hosted by stunning Selina Scott (interesting that the surname is the same as the fictitious character in Notting Hill). They had been staying at the Loch Ness Lodge Hotel and as Wendy and I were throwing a barbecue for a number of the Operation Deepscan helpers and Lowrance Electronics staff, we decided to invite the West 57th crew.

Because Selina Scott had a dreadful cold we did not expect her to come and had not even mentioned the possibility to our regular friends who were at the barbecue. Nevertheless she did arrive and a great evening was had by all.

As people started to drift away and we began to tidy up I wandered into the lounge to pick up glasses and plates and found Selina Scott** (extremely famous at the time in Britain through her involvement in the early days of Breakfast TV), deep in conversation with my mother who was then about 77 years old. Selina was asking her about her childhood in an orphanage in Preston Pans (near Edinburgh) after the First World War and my mother was telling her of the dreadful times she experienced in the Mary Murray's institutional home [read my SO FA LA LAND on Wattpad for some of those stories].

Suddenly she looked at Selina Scott more carefully and said that she seemed familiar. Selina said that she was a television journalist. My mother did the most wonderful double-take and said "not the Selina Scott?"

I remember this very fondly and still treasure the picture I took for my mother that night. Interestingly Selina Scott told me it was wonderful that my mother did not know who she was because that made her "open up" about her childhood. My mother, of course, like Bernie in the film Notting Hill, felt a bit of a fool for a moment, but obviously enjoyed the encounter immensely.

* An oversized blimp designed to carry several passengers.

** I know that many girls get weak at the knees over Sean Connery, well Selina Scott always had the same effect on me. I was delighted she came to the house.

*** A huge expedition which saw twenty boats, line abreast, moving a sonar curtain up and down the length of Loch Ness. Dealt with in chapter twenty.

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(C) 2018 Tony Harmsworth