Monday 9 August 2021

Tim Dinsdale and the Oxbridge Students

 


Fellow Nessie fan, Gary, sent me a Youtube link to an old newsreel item entitled "Look at Life" which the Rank Organisation churned out for British cinemas in the 1960s. This one was called "Out for a Catch" and featured the man himself, Tim Dinsdale. The video is below and though it mainly is concerned with British angling, for some reason it begins and ends at Loch Ness.



The scene opens with Tim surveying the loch from his deckchair at a spot I think is on Foyers beach, beside the small island on the right I have before dubbed "Dinsdale Island". During the mid-1960s, Tim used this river inlet as a base of operation for a while, setting up a hide for observation. This is all downhill from where he took his famous film in April 1960. As you can see, he uses those small binoculars he was well known for as he looks for a sight of his quarry, the Loch Ness Monster.




The scene switches to Tim helping out a group of young people, examining a map of sightings and pointing this way and that as they also survey the loch. The narrator tells us they are Cambridge University students and that pretty much sums up these short segments. The question is when was this film footage shot? A look at the Wikipedia entry for "Look at Life" says this particular reel was shot in 1960, so who were these university students? 



The answer is they were one of the first expeditions to the loch in the frenetic era that spanned 1960 to 1980. A search of the newspaper archives gives us more details. For example, the clipping below from the Birmingham Post dated 12th July 1960, tells us they were a group of students from Britain's top two universities, Oxford and Cambridge on a camera surveillance trip led by Dr. Richard Tucker, formerly of the British Museum.



Interestingly, two weeks later, the Sunday Pictoral for the 24th July offers more information by stating that they had been there the past month and they numbered more than a dozen students. However, they are stated as being led by twenty three year old Peter Baker and not Richard Tucker. The only theme this lightweight article can focus on is the menace of the biting midges. Now I wondered who this Richard Tucker was who was formerly of the British Museum?



There is the controversial Dr. Denys Tucker who was sacked around this time for declaring his belief in the monster after seeing a hump moving across the loch during a visit. This led to his sacking by the Natural History Museum (though the alternate explanation was his eccentric behaviour). But then again it could more credibly be Dr. Dennis Tucker, another zoologist from the Natural History Museum, who did sonar work at the loch in the 1960s. Or is there a third Tucker called Richard? It is all a bit confusing and readers are invited to offer an explanation as to who Richard Tucker may or may not be.

What is not confusing is the fact that this newsreel was filmed only two or three months after Tim Dinsdale shot his hump film. One could argue this is the earliest footage of a young looking Tim Dinsdale and is an important part of the record of the Loch Ness hunt (I think he was forty years old).

That year was a busy one as another former employee of the Natural History Museum was there in June. His name was Maurice Burton who was on the cusp of becoming a Loch Ness Monster sceptic and would head south to his home in England to write the first sceptical book on the monster. It was titled "The Elusive Monster" and was published the following year as Tim published his very pro-Nessie book, "Loch Ness Monster".

This was all a prelude to the formation of the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau which would mount annual expeditions to the loch from 1962 and for the next ten years. An era which is receding in the rear view mirror as its participants pass away and we look to more complex techniques to finally solve this mystery.


The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com





42 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing, Roland! Excellent to see some HQ footage of early 60's monster hunting, as well as the loch itself in all its splendour. The fact that this is so soon after Dinsdale's film and just before the LNIB era makes it interesting for sure, even if the focus on Nessie is brief. It's cool seeing those famous binoculars in action too! And yes - always watch out for those midgets!

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    1. His binoculars featured in a BBC programme not so long ago:

      https://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/2020/04/tim-dinsdales-binoculars-get-repaired.html

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    2. was Maurice Burton al;ways a skeptic though, as thought I had read in the past some book of his pro nessie?

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    4. Now, JesusFan, where did you pick that up? Sounds like Ronald Binns talking.

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    5. To be fair to JesusFan, Maurice Burton was once a believer. Although he had largely completed the journey to becoming a sceptic by the time he wrote The Elusive Monster, there is still within the book, among all his scepticism, the faintest suggestion he had not completely given up all belief. He later went on to become a total and very blinkered sceptic. When I first read his book, shortly after publication, I wondered if there might have been a bit of personal jealousy involved regarding the publicity garnered by Dinsdale's film.
      Chris Morris.

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    6. I agree ,having read that 1961 book,there was a hint of an original believer there.
      As to what transformed him into a total sceptic remains unanswered.
      It could well have been jealousy arising from Dinsdales film and maybe that's why he refused to release the 1938 Taylor colour sequence.
      It just didn't compare with Dinsdale. Despite several people insisting it showed an animate object Burton insisted it was nothing more than a dead cow.

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    7. he did seem to indeed believe in nessie, or at least open to her, but later on became firm skeptic!

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    8. I just checked his own words in his own book, he did not believe in Nessie.

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    9. He seemed to be at least open to the idea of there being a nessie for awhile!

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    10. Yes before he wrote his book.

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  2. As late as 1959 Burton professed belief in the LNM in letters to a prominent newspaper or magazine. Holiday, Costello and even Binns discuss this in their books.

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    1. Yes, he was touting plesiosaurs into 1960 but then there was a sudden volte face after the Dinsdale film. I do not think the two are unconnected.

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  3. I don't want to be too pedantic about this, GB,but Burton could not quite bring himself to complete abandon his previous belief in an unknown animal in Loch Ness when he wrote The Elusive Monster. I haven't got the book to hand but after trotting out all his theories about vegetation mats and the like, he also hedged his bets very slightly by suggesting that there was just a faint possibility of an unknown animal in the loch. If memory serves me correctly, he even suggested the best location to look for it would be around Cherry Island.
    I feel sure his sudden conversion to sceptism was jealousy of Dinsdale but this was so recent when he wrote the book that he very slightly hedged his bets just in case new evidence emerged. Within a short time, of course, he had jettisoned even the last vestige of his earlier belief
    Chris Morris

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    1. I looked over his book yesterday, he may have offered a fig leaf but it is clear he did not believe it.

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    2. Didn't he end up holding to plants floated to service by methane gasses?

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    3. Do you think Nessie is just one type of animal, or are they maybe several different animals been seen over the years, some loch locked, others in and out from ocean?

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  4. Wasn't the camera Dinsdale used to film the 'object' borrowed from Burton?

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  5. Question for the author of the blog. Could this animal be an invertebrate that feeds on the peet in the Loch, maybe a bottom dweller like an algae eater? Or could swallow prey as it swims by. (Eels, fish) ??

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    1. I dont think enough algae are produced in the loch's peaty conditions. The detritus at the bottom of the loch may suffer from a similar deficit. The problem for me is land sightings and whether such a creature could move without a skeleton.

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    2. Octopus can. But I've only seen small ones do it. I guess slugs and snails can too - but again, they're tiny.

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  6. In regards to the question of Nessie being a peat or algae eater, posed by the reader above, I believe I saw a story either here, or elsewhere of a sighting, or was it a long lost film, seeming to portray the beast lapping, or sucking on a rock on the shore. The story also included a drawing of this behavior. Could it have been a monster eating algae off the rock as a salad side dish? Hmm...

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    1. That was the Dallas land sighting of 1936 or 37.

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    2. Ah yes, it was here I saw that drawing. Figure E. What a bizarre behavior for a supposed carnivore. And it doesn't even look like the typical Nessie description. More likely an embellishment of a sighting, if in fact it ever did occur.

      http://lochnessmystery.blogspot.com/2014/08/nessie-on-land-morphology-and-behaviour.html#comment-form

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    3. Another bit of errant nonsense. Is your supposed monster an aquatic carnivore as Roland suggests or an algae sucker or should we suggest an exceptional omnivore?

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  7. Anyone else tired of frivolous nothing Nessie sightings? Here's one of the most ridiculous ones Iv'e seen. A family from Surrey, England were on a boat cruise when they spotted a "scaly, black shape the size of a dinner plate that was higher at one end and was like a tiny slope." The size of a dinner plate! Link to story below. Photo on the The Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register. Give me a break!

    https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/new-pair-of-nessie-sightings-reported/

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    1. What would be seen as being the very best evidence for Nessie, that was not eyewitnesses?

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    2. Not this! A live or dead specimen would do the trick, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

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    3. Photo or video would work, but needs to be up close to where can really make out the creature!

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  8. Well, I guess I'm not the only one frustrated by the lack of any credible Nessie sighting or photo. This tourist went to Loch Ness expecting to see it's famous inhabitant and was sorely disappointing and sorry he went. Perhaps he thought he could pet Nessie while he was there. LOL

    https://www.coasttocoastam.com/article/tourist-pens-scathing-review-of-loch-ness-after-failing-to-spot-monster/

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    1. This is why some regard Nessue being more supernatural Beastie, as it just seems to disappear when getting ready to have movie or pictures taken!This

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    2. This line of thinking, to me, is the equivalent of giving up. Can't find it? Must be a ghost or from dimension X. I'm not against the existence of parallel dimensions, but Loch Ness is probably not the place to look for it as it makes an already derided subject matter seem even less credible.

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    3. These sightings, like too many that are accepted into the 'official' record, are absolute junk. It gives this whole endeavour a bad name. It begs the question, who's in charge here, and what criteria do they apply to 'accept' a sighting? I was trained in science and research and know what is needed, although some people just have it, and some don't. This 'register' is not good, to put it mildly.

      The awful webcam images, our new mainstay, are nowhere near acceptable as evidence, in my opinion. Intriguing, yes, but that's it. No offence to the observers, but the images have the clarity of a fogged up window. One wonders if a turn of the century webcam is about as good as we're going to leave it, to allow disbelief to be suspended.

      The Search for Morag, my favourite book on this subject, applies a very rigorous acceptance criteria for sightings. None of the sightings in the book is talked up in any way, and it is perfectly acceptable that what the witnesses have seen is an unusual phenomena. At the moment, the press and the 'official' register are treating this like a magic show.

      I've read Ted Holiday's accounts of his sightings. He was either hallucinating, lying or seeing something that did not conform to the known, at that present time (and today). There was no room for anything else, and I took him at his word. I can't remember the last time I read a recent sighting that I could say that about.

      Robert Rines (and his ego) said Nessie was dead, because he couldn't find her. Maybe he was right.

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    4. All very well said Martin. If I was a gambling man (and I am) I'd bet on the LNM (if it existed) being either a single or few creatures that died out in the late 80s/early 90s. There's a lot of extremely compelling evidence up to that point whereupon it drops away to the scientifically unacceptable evidence we get today (with a few exceptions, which I admit do keep the mystery alive for me).

      I adore this blog for GB's relentless enthusiasm, fascinating articles and the cracking chat but the press seem to have decided that the Loch is fair game and publish any old nonsense and are turning the subject into a complete laughing matter once again.

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    5. Depends upon which kind of creature this is, as some Fish, eels, and turtles can live very long !

      Also, are there creatures coming in and out from ocean here, are there more then one creatures seen thru the years? As would see it as large eels, seals, maybe other kinds of fishes!

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  9. There's another area where evidence might turn up. New discoveries are made in paleontology all the time. All it takes is one fossil of a weird marine animal from a more recent past. It wouldn't quite be proof of Nessie but it would raise some interesting questions!

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    1. Really no reason why sea based animals would have disappeared!

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