As readers will know, a digitized archive of Rip Hepple's Nessletter has been available on this blog for some years, all you do is click on "Rip Hepple Newsletter" to the right. But recently I have been talking with Isaac Koi about getting another site to run these letters. That is the Swedish Archives For the Unexplained who asked if Rip's Nessletter could also be put online.
Naturally, that required Rip's permission who I put in contact with them and he gave them the nod not too long ago. Rip also said that the remainder of his newsletters run which I have not published could be done by both of us. The current run on this blog comprises issues 1 to 120 in 1995, but I will add the rest in due time, but they can be viewed at the AFU. So, follow this link to access Rip's archive at the AFU or follow them here, that's your choice.
Thankfully, a full hard copy set of the Nessletter is also held by the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. So it looks like all the bases are covered to preserve this important work. What we now need is a subject index, which is something I have been working on and off for some time.
It is uncertain whether there will be another Nessletter, so again we thank Rip for those Ness Information Service newsletters which he faithfully produced for over forty years. They were initially written to plug the gap left by the dissolution of the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau, but they went beyond that plugging a general gap in Loch Ness Monster news and views as that generation of monster hunters disappeared and their books with them.
The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com
