Loch Ness Monster Explained

Chapter 11c - MY MONSTER - Nessie Hunt

So, my effort to regain some independence from Ronald Bremner and to do more for the Project through touring the exhibition failed and my thoughts turned to my Nessie Hunt game.

I produced another mock up and this was played with Adrian and his first wife, Jane, several times during pleasant episodes up at our croft house.

Gradually it became more refined and Adrian offered to let us use Loch Ness Project material in the game in return for a royalty. We decided to form a company, Searchglen Limited and Adrian became a consultant director too.

The game contained a large number of components, this was to be no Monopoly or Cluedo. There were 180 game cards, most printed in full colour. There were information cards which also explained some of the real research techniques. We would need plastic pieces – four men with binoculars, four plesiosaur type Nessies and one "head and neck" Nessie – a large folding game board, box and lid, a vacuum formed insert to hold all of the pieces, a dice, the rules and the unique transparent equipment sheets. Nearly 250 components in total.

What should we do with the game? Should we approach one of the large manufacturers? How could we stop them stealing the idea? Paranoia over intellectual property was really bothering me after the experience of having my exhibition stolen from me by Mr. Bremner.

We found that patents for the unique playing system were going to be very expensive and, even if we produced just 10,000 copies, it would cost a substantial sum. On top of this would be the marketing, the sales promotion, trade fairs and so on.

Certainly I could not do it alone.

A great friend of mine, John Atkins*, had been in sales all of his life after leaving the Royal Air Force. I put the project to him and he agreed to take a large chunk of the equity and to act as Sales Director. My sister Maureen took a good shareholding and other family, friends and even Ronnie Bremner, desperate not to be left out, purchased a useful few thousand pounds worth. I financed the rest.

We then went to the Bank of Scotland and secured loans under the government's small firms loan guarantee scheme**. The Highlands and Islands Development Board provided a large grant*** and low rent building, and even the graphic designers, Michael Fraser Associates, took part of their fee in shares. The funding had come together.

At the eleventh hour we discovered that some other people had invented a Nessie game too.

We had been, and still were, paranoid about other games' companies stealing or duplicating our idea. After all, a game about hunting for the Loch Ness Monster seemed to us an absolute winner compared with some of the pathetic, contrived games currently on sale.

We bought out the competitor game to prevent it competing with us.