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Sunday 7 September 2008

And another thing

Is the Loch Ness Monster heading for real celebrity?

At this time of year my thoughts often dwell on the Loch Ness Monster. Let me recapitulate what we know about this beast.

I did not like swimming in that dark and sinister Loch. There are tales of drownings, both natural and not-so-natural. From the 1930s, when the monster tales began, there is a story of an immensely rich lady who went swimming there wearing a priceless necklace of pearls. Neither the lady nor her pearls were ever seen again. And in 1952 the great racing hero John Cobb was drowned not far from Drumnadrochit in an attempt to break the world water-speed record, when his powerful craft took a header into the depths. There is a little cairn erected to his memory on the shore.
The best place to survey Loch Ness, to get a proper idea of its immensity, depth and saturnine character, is Urquhart Castle. It is a promontory which pushes itself out into the dark waters, the only one in the 20 or more miles of the Loch. This makes it a place of great strategic importance, and I imagine there has always been some kind of military fortification there. It was constantly being besieged, stormed, recaptured, ‘slighted’ and rebuilt. It changed hands four times in a single year during the period when Robert the Bruce set up his standard against the English. The records show it was repaired under the Scots King James IV, but fell in 1545 and again, to the Covenanters, in 1644. The English and their Campbell allies blew it up with gunpowder in the 1690s, at the time of the Glencoe Massacre. They must have done a thorough job because the castle then passed out of military history. I quote from a report compiled at the time of the Old Pretender’s rising in 1715: ‘The castell of Urquhart is blowen down by the last storme of wind, the south-west side thereof to the laich woult.’ It is now, and has been for nearly 300 years, a noble ruin, which I have painted several times. A desolate place, a bit scary even on a sparkling midsummer day.

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