Monster-hunting

As a child I had three great ambitions. The first was to go to the South Pole – I practised wandering off to die in a storm like Captain Oates whenever snow fell in the local park. Then there was my wish to roam the London sewers having had a tantalizing glimpse of them in a Doctor Who episode. Finally, I longed to see the Loch Ness Monster and to know for sure that it existed. Now somewhat older, I find the thought of sub-zero temperatures has put me off polar exploration, and my zest for sewers is lessened by the prospect of bad smells and rodents. It would, however, still be exciting to behold across the peaty waters of Loch Ness something strange and wonderful, but I rarely give the matter much thought.

Some people, however, remain true to their childhood dreams. From the age of 12 F. W. Holiday had an abiding interest in that most famous of Scottish mysteries. It became an all-consuming fascination and in later life led him to write an oddly titled but persuasive book on the subject – The Great Orm of Loch Ness (1968). In the 1960s Holiday was one of a number of gifted amateur monster-hunters roaming the shores of the loch. Combining fieldwork with some erudite research, he succeeded in raising the tenor of debate concerning the monster to a new level of seriousness and credibility. The Great Orm of Loch Ness is a monster-hunter’s compendium covering a diverse range of topics. From it we may learn the art of effective loch-watching, the evolutionary history of slugs, the legend of the Lambton Worm, aspects of Hittite folklore and the limitations of late 1960s echo-sounding technology. The subtitle of Holiday’s book is A Practical Inquiry into the Nature and Habits of Water-Monsters. Clearly he is no sceptic. He frequently lambasts the scientific establishment for failing to visit the loch and look into the matter. Unfortunately, the circus surrounding Nessie made it difficult for any scientist of standing to get involved and maintain their reputation. I have a collection of Loch Ness Monster postcards, and while some of them are reproductions of famous photographs, the majority are comic in tone, depicting Nessie swimming past Urquhart Castle wearing a tartan bonnet, or looking disgruntled as she is led captive through the streets of Inverness. To counteract this tendency to levity Holiday referred to the creature as an Orm. He felt the term ‘monster’ had put off professional zoologists from the start. A Great Orm, he tells us, is an old Scandinavian term for a sea-serpent. This fitted in well with his theory that the creature was a species of giant worm to be found in freshwater lakes and seas across the world. He considered the Orm to be our largest indigenous creature and worthy of a lifetime of study. This is not to say that Holiday’s own feelings about the monster were scientifically detached and objective: for him the creature was ‘nature’s ultimate horror’, the very stuff of nightmares. Loch Ness is an impressive body of water. It’s 23 miles long, averages a mile in width, and has a depth of up to 1,000 feet, making it the largest of all Scottish lochs in terms of water volume (Loch Lomond has a greater surface area). Odd creatures have been seen in and near Loch Ness for hundreds of years, most famously by St Columba in the sixth century, but the modern mystery really began in the 1930s when a new road opened the loch to public scrutiny. A sighting initially published in the Inverness Courier in 1933 made headlines across the world and marked the beginning of a stream of eye-witness reports, photographs, theories and hoaxes that continue to this day. The most gripping passages of Holiday’s book concern his own monster-hunting expeditions. These are couched in the language of adventure – as epic as any journey up the Amazon or across the snowy peaks of Tibet. ‘I entered Scotland on August 22nd 1962,’ he writes, describing his first trip to the loch, where he camped out on the shore to await developments. ‘As darkness settled over the Great Glen I began to realize what a strange place I had come to.’ Holiday was one of those lone British adventurers, usually with wartime service behind them, by nature practical but also with a visionary streak, who were quite common in the 1960s. In the same year that The Great Orm of Loch Ness was published, two other books by men of this hardy breed also appeared – Sir Alec Rose’s My Lively Lady, about his lone circumnavigation of the world, and John Hillaby’s Journey through Britain, which recorded his solo walk from Land’s End to John o’Groats. Holiday’s quest may have been rather more esoteric, but the laconic way in which he describes his wartime service puts him up there with the best of them – ‘In 1939 I joined the RAF and was kept busy until 1946.’ As a keen angler, he appreciated how movements of water and tricks of light could fool the human eye. He therefore gave particular credence to monster-sightings made by locals who knew the loch and its ways well – fellow-anglers, estate workers, foresters and waterbailiffs. Interviews with them are included in the book. Having had his own sighting of the monster during his first trip he was encouraged to continue his investigations, and his second encounter was shared with some locals who watched from the opposite bank. By now he had partially joined forces with the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau, an organization led by another intrepid adventurer, David James, author of the POW escape memoir Escaper’s Progress. This pioneering company attempted to catch the creature on film by keeping the loch under constant observation through a system of mounted camera rigs. Holiday had further sightings of the loch’s most elusive resident, but the prize of a conclusive photograph eluded him and he devotes a chapter of his book to explaining why it’s so difficult to capture a clear image of the monster. We leave our author in the summer of ’67, prowling the shores of the loch for up to fourteen hours a day. He was never to be fully successful in his quest but he has left us a gripping account of the early days of monster-research, and his book is a positive encouragement to those of us who can only make occasional trips to the loch. To watch a large body of water, he tells us, requires a great deal of concentration, and a fortnight’s effort is about as much as anyone can put in before their attention wavers. There is sound advice here for the inexperienced but hopeful monster-hunter. Go to the loch on a clear and calm day, preferably in July or August. Tor Point would be a good place to take up position – where the waters of the loch begin to flow into the River Ness and migratory salmon lure the creature up from the depths below. And if something strange should emerge from the dark waters in front of you be sure not to scream or shout, or slam your car door, as Nessie is shy and easily frightened. Be still, keep calm, and have your camera already in hand. The enigma of Loch Ness is something we can all enjoy. To lose a sense of its magic is to become a duller soul. A mystery solved of course is a mystery lost, but we may admire characters like F. W. Holiday in their dedicated efforts to pierce the veil. The Great Orm of Loch Ness stands as testimony to one man’s pursuit of the fabulous.

Extract from Slightly Foxed Issue 75 © David Fleming 2022