An Old Nessie Article from 1934

I recently bought this single page online as I thought it captured some of the mood of those crazy days back in 1933 when the world was suddenly swept along in the wake of a strange creature currently being sighted in a Scottish Highland loch that one suspects the majority had never heard of. By the time 1933 and 1934 had rolled on, they certainly knew about Loch Ness and its now legendary monster. I don't know the name of the periodical or when it was published, but its words are as follows. I would suggest that the top photograph is one taken by the Edward Mountain expedition of 1934 and is not of our favourite cryptid, but most likely a pattern of interacting boat wakes as betrayed by the sequence of fading waves panning to the left of the picture.

THE LOCH NESS MONSTER

 

Tourists with field-glasses and telescopes came from all over the country in the summer of 1933, to look for a monster that was said to be swimming in the waters of Loch Ness. Hotels at Inverness filled up with visitors drawn to the best holiday attraction in the Scottish Highlands. Regularly every week came stories that the monster had been seen. Photographs like the one above were taken to prove the existence of a creature which had, said witnesses, two or three humps. Seaside artists gave their impressions of the Loch Ness Monster in the sand (below); it was a music-hall joke, a "silly-season" topic. Bertram Mills offered £20,000 to anybody who could capture it alive and deliver it to his circus - but nobody got the £20,000.