The G.E. Taylor Film of 1938

On Steve Feltham's Facebook page, there seems to be some confusion about what is in this film. Unfortunately, the film is long lost but there is a surviving still which first featured in Maurice Burton's book "The Elusive Monster". That still is reproduced below for the clearing up of any doubts.

Regard this short blog as a "trailer" for the main "feature" as I will publish a fuller article on this film later this year. So, in the meantime, may I appeal to anyone who may have known G. E. Taylor from Durban, South Africa whether they have extra information on the man, his film or anything else related. It would be great if the film would enter the public domain and allow us all to finally see this piece of Loch Ness Monster lore.

I can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

george gavin gregory graham gerald gordon glenn gareth guy gunther gary
edward eamonn earl edgar edmond edmund elias eliott eric ethan

natal durban newcastle shepstone margate richards pietermaritzburg ladysmith kokstad

Fort Augustus Abbey School

This blog is not only interested in the Loch Ness Monster but the general history and folklore of the people and places around the loch. Unfortunately, that can also involve the darker side of human nature. I hope that whatever happens here, the truth will be found out and the necessary actions taken.

Police investigate allegations of sex abuse at Catholic boarding school

Former pupil claims monks at closed boys' school Fort Augustus Abbey committed 'systematic, brutal, awful torture'

Link to original story here.

What is in this postcard?

Here's an interesting postcard from 1916 which I noticed on eBay a while back. It was posted 17 years before the Nessie era began in 1933. The familiar backdrop of Urquhart Castle is there but what is that blob like thing in the water in front of the castle?

Is it our famous resident of Loch Ness on a jaunt or something more familiar? The castle is about 50 feet high which allows us to calculate the height of the object as about two feet out of the water and six feet wide.

Is it a rowing boat? Perhaps, but any presumed occupant of the boat is rather hard to see as are the expected oars. 

Opinions, please!

New Picture of Nessie?

A YouTube clip is now doing the rounds which shows something strange in Loch Ness. The photographer is Dan Sohan and you can view the clip below. Dan says he took the image on the 9th May or 13 days ago.

I have contacted him for further details and hope to say more but expect explanations such as it is a picture of a bird in flight in the tradition of the Jennifer Bruce picture taken in 1982. For now, I would prefer to get more info such as whether this is a still from a video clip. 

POSTSCRIPT:

Loch Ness researcher, Dick Raynor, got in touch with me and says the image was actually recorded somewhere between Onich and North Ballahulish which is over thirty miles south of Loch Ness. This is based on a comparison between the hills in the picture's background and what can be seen using Google StreetView.

Dan has also got back to me and says that the image was a single shot and he thinks he was actually driving along Loch Lochy at the time.

The Elf-Cattle of Caithness

I was going through some of my old emails when I came across this old newspaper clipping. I had found it as part of my earlier research into my book "The Water Horses of Loch Ness" but had not used it. So now is a good time a time as any to look at it. It is taken from the John O' Groats Journal dated the 31st December 1852.

Our story concerns a type of loch beast called the Water Bull of which Loch Ness itself was reputed to host one. However, this story is set in Caithness, the northernmost part of mainland Scotland (the green tip on our map below).

The lochs in question are not named, though my own research unearthed only one monster loch in Caithness and that is Loch Na Cloiche. Whether this was in mind or not, the elf-cattle pretty much follow the Water Bull type in inter breeding with land cattle but keep their abode in the waters of the loch. Other sources tell us that the hybrid product of land cows and water bulls were called "corcach" in the Gaelic whilst the aquatic beasts themselves were more docile than their more fearsome counterparts, the Water Horse and Kelpie.

The other interesting term is "elf-cattle" and one wonders if the locals were attempting to envisage a parallel world of creatures to those in the natural world. Just as there was the Cu-Sith or fairy-dog and the feline Cat Sith, was there also equivalent livestock in Scottish lochs?

Finally, you may wonder what the author means by the "much maligned development hypothesis"? It is in fact a precursor to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and pre-dates it by over ten years. You can read more about it here. As it turns out, the author of the article was arguing that the mythical beast may actually have some basis in the idea that a creature had developed in the Highland lochs from a more humble fish form.

Porpoises in Loch Ness?

It was assumed for a long time that seals never visited Loch Ness. However, it is now established that they do follow the salmon into the loch on rare occasions.

But what about the dolphins and porpoises that are a tourist attraction along the Moray Firth? Is it possible that they could get into Loch Ness? Until now, it was assumed this was a task too great and there was no record of such an event. Indeed, the only possibility was the famous attempt by the Robert Rines team to deploy a couple of equipped dolphins into the loch. This project never saw the light of day when one of the dolphins died.

However, some months back, Fortean Investigator, Paul Cropper sent me a clipping which suggested otherwise (Paul is a fan of the Australian Bigfoot called the Yowie). This small paragraph is from the London Daily Mail of the 16th September 1914 (click on all subsequent clippings for sharper images).

 

So we have the incredible sight of not one porpoise but a whole school of them swimming in Loch Ness! I forwarded Paul's find to Adrian Shine at the Loch Ness Centre in Drumnadrochit and he managed to find further details from the local archives. The first clipping from the Highland News of the 5th September tells us more about what was witnessed.

So we have eight or nine porpoises in Loch Ness. Now when I pondered on all this and the improbability of it, I wondered if the correspondent had actually seen the Loch Ness Monster in its multi-hump aspect? I mused that if there was a large beast in Loch Ness, it was more probable to see that than a school of porpoises! However, a second clipping from the 19th found by Adrian puts us back in the porpoise camp. This appears to be the original correspondent replying to someone who was incredulous of the whole event. Here we read how the familiar "blowing" activity of porpoises was observed (a habit never reported in monster reports).

The article continues to quote an as yet untraced article which speaks of a journalist going out to investigate the matter. Indeed, it seems our witness was as much believed as a modern day Nessie witness as the journalist concluded it was merely a shoal of fish skimming along the surface of the water.

So what do we make of this possibly unique event? The first is that so far we only seem to have one person claiming to have seen these animals. Considering the active surface life of porpoises, one would presume others must have seen them. This muddies the waters somewhat and (according to Adrian Shine) the Inverness Courier does not seem to have run the story.

Secondly, could it have been dolphins rather than porpoises? Now, how you can tell the difference between the two from distance is not clear to me but the porpoise has in its favour that they can be half the size of a Bottlenose dolphin and hence could negotiate a river spate into Loch Ness more easily. But whatever the species, it no lessens this remarkable event.

Thirdly, it may be asked whether there were any claimed stories about the Loch Ness Monster at that time (as told retrospectively by people after 1933)? There were actually two stories of something seen in 1914, but there were in July and I suspect may have been the same sighting.

All in all, it is a strange tale in its own right. Almost 100 years on, the implication is that there is a mass of porpoise skeletons lying at the bottom of Loch Ness somewhere, doubtless covered in silt by now.

How did they meet their end? Did they encounter the loch's most famous denizen and will such an event ever be witnessed again? It all adds to the lore and fascination of Scotland's most mysterious loch.

POSTSCRIPT

Adrian Shine sent me another clipping from the Northern Chronicle for the 16th September 1914 which adds one or two more details to this uniquely recorded event.

Loch Ness Trip Report April 2013

It was off to Loch Ness once more on the 12th April on what is becoming a regular Easter trip to the abode of the Loch Ness Monster. I was there for five days and have already covered some of the activities which were part of the "Nessie at 80" festivities. This article covers what I got up to at other times in the great pursuit of the monster (of which you see a representation below).

The three to four hour drive up to the loch from Edinburgh was pleasant enough and we even managed to avoid getting stuck behind tractors on the mainly single carriageway road. Arriving at Fort Augustus in the late afternoon, we turned into the camping site that is just beyond the old Monastery (which has been residential flats for some years now).

The campsite is cheap enough, but being a 100% born and bred Scotsman, one is always looking out for a better deal to save a pound or two. As it turns out, "wild camping" is allowed along many parts of the loch's shores. Apart from the obvious advantage of paying nothing, you are right up besides the loch and never far away from the action (whereas the campsite is a 5-10 minute walk from the loch shoreline).

In fact, whilst engaged in Nessie activities, I stumbled upon such a tent near Invermoriston on the shore beyond the roadside bushes and well out of sight. However, the disadvantage of such a camping tactic became clear as the beach was only really big enough to accommodate a one man tent. I had a bigger tent which would have no chance of being pitched in such a place.

There may be other wider spots but the other disadvantage is what happens if Nessie takes to land near your tent? Now I know the chances of this happening are very rare (one land sighting reported every four years) but you never know. One apocryphal tale from the 1970s tells of some teenagers camped out somewhere near Fort Augustus who heard loud animal noises outside their tent at night.

Not daring to poke their heads out to investigate (in case there was no heads to pull back in), the morning came and they discovered that the shrubbery around them was crushed. I mused to myself what I would have done in that situation.

The weather throughout the time was best described as mixed. Fortunately, the worst of the rain tended to confine itself to night time with occasional outbreaks during the days. The downside of that is the constant pitter patter of rain on the tent fabric which does not help a light sleeper such as myself! However, apart from some nice sunny spells, it was mainly a cloudy trip.

The first thing to do on the next full day was to install my trusty trap camera which stayed strapped to a tree for the duration of the trip. This time round, not too many pictures were triggered due to the relatively settled waters. The two pictures below show the different moods of the loch. Nessie being a water breather was not too inclined to make a surface appearance for the camera.

In regard to the elusiveness of a creature that does not primarily breath air and tends to haunt the sides and bottom of the loch, one calculation was on my mind. As I watched out over the vast expanse of the loch (below), I wondered what the odds were of being present at one of the sightings of the monster? Assuming a historical average of ten sightings per year, the odds came out at about 18,000 to 1 against if you were there for just one day looking at the loch for one hour.

Of course, there is a degree of simplification in all that but it reminded me that Monster Hunting was essentially a game with loaded dice. Even searching underwater in that inky darkness is no idle pursuit. Adding up the surface areas of the silted bottom and the rocky sides gives an area of over 5 million square meters. That is more than twice the size of my own city of Edinburgh. Imagine trying to find a randomly parked bus in Edinburgh at night in fog during a power cut and you get the general idea.

Apart from gazing at the loch, I like to do some investigation of old sightings. One place I returned to was Borlum Bay where Margaret Munro had her famous land sighting in 1934. I had noticed during Adrian Shine's presentation at the April Symposium that he thought she had only seen a seal.

With that in mind, I went back to the scene, did some measurements, took some photographs and came away thinking that explanation was not likely. I will present my thoughts on that at a later date. I also tracked down the place where this interesting photograph from 1992 was taken. Based on an investigation of the scene, I do not think it was a bird but then again monsters are not necessarily the explanation either. I have still to digest the pictures I took for another future article.

One final case to look into was the classic picture taken by F.C. Adams in 1934 (below). Not a lot is known about this picture and it tends to be dismissed as the dorsal fin of a dolphin. One thing I am sure of is that this is no dolphin and it was off to Urquhart Castle where the picture was allegedly taken according to a contemporary report of the time. This photo still has further light to be shed on it, but again, this awaits a future article.

I had not been to the castle for some years and certainly not since they redeveloped the area. However, in the interests of research I paid up and took the tour. Admittedly, they have done a good job on the site with the actual castle grounds being largely untouched. The film they showed was informative as were the various displays.

As I explored the various stony caverns that once functioned as rooms in a busy castle and I wondered what stories those past residents had to tell of strange sights on Loch Ness. I had a close look at the stones on display that were remnants of the final destruction of the place. I even imagined one showed a long necked creature rising from the centre right of the picture towards the centre (see picture below). Oh well, nice to imagine, but one wonders how such medieval inhabitants recorded such things since pen and paper were not exactly available or useable.

One highlight was a trip on Marcus Atkinson's high speed boat which forms part of the Cruise Loch Ness trips. Marcus is known for the strange sonar contact he got whilst one of their boats were idling in Urquhart Bay. These sleek boats can get up to 30 knots per hour and with some of the Symposium attendees, it was off on a fast hike to the Horseshoe Scree where we had a look at the sonar readings and hunted for goats on the hillside (we managed to spot one).

A mention must also be made of the exhibition at the Loch Ness Centre at Drumnadrochit. I had not been to this for a long time but I was there for a look around and it had been upgraded. Adrian's stamp is very much on the exhibition with a mix of science, history and monsters and a look at his favourite sturgeon. However, an annexe had been added which covered various events such as the retrieval of the Wellington bomber and a very nice exhibit which had audio-visual presentations of witnesses to famous Nessie sightings giving their own personal accounts such as Alastair Boyd, Ian Cameron, Father Brussey and Winifred Carey and so on. There is nothing like hearing the original witness give their own account of what they saw.

However, when all was said and done, it was nice to get a picture of at least one long necked creature swimming on the loch. I look forward to my next trip later in the Summer!