Loch Ness, Nessie and Me

By Tony Harmsworth

Almost everyone, at some point in their lives, has wondered if there was any truth in the stories of monsters in Loch Ness? Loch Ness, Nessie and Me answers all the questions you have ever wanted to ask about the loch and its legendary beast.

In these 400 pages with more than 200 pictures and illustrations, you will find a geography of Loch Ness; a travel guide to the area; a biography of its mythical inhabitant; and an autobiography of the man who set up the Loch Ness Centre, worked with many of the research groups, and helped coordinate Operation Deepscan.

Explore the environmental and physical attributes of Loch Ness which make certain monster candidates impossible. Find detailed explanations of how pictures were faked and sonar charts, badly interpreted. Learn how Nessie has affected the people and businesses which exist in her wake, and suspend belief over the activities of the monks of Fort Augustus Abbey.

Tony Harmsworth's involvement at the Loch has lasted over forty years, having created increasingly sceptical exhibitions, dioramas and multi-media shows. This is the first comprehensive book to be penned by someone who lives overlooking the loch. It is essential for anyone interested in Loch Ness and the process of analysing cryptozoological evidence.

Now's the time to discover the truth about this mystery, once and for all. Get your copy today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harmsworth.net
• Release date: May 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393325109

Book preview

This book is dedicated to

Wendy

for putting up with the trials and tribulations of my business ideas and enjoying with me a fascinating lifetime.

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INTRODUCTION

[A word about images. Images (except B&W) are in colour if your reader shows colours. While it is possible to position images accurately in a printed book, the number of e-readers available and their required formats causes images to sometimes move from their intended locations and for extra line-spaces etc. to appear in the text. Sorry, this is unavoidable, but images will usually remain in their correct order.

[A word about grammar and spelling. I write in United Kingdom English so some spelling and grammar might seem odd if you are not a British reader. Thank you. I hope you enjoy the journey.]

The fearsome monster I encountered in the Eagle comic of 10th January 1959 was attacking space pilot Dan Dare in the swamps of Venus. This fired my imagination.

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Here, on Earth, in Britain, in Scotland, in Loch Ness, we had our very own monster. I became absorbed in Nessie’s story as a ten-year-old.

Over the years, I kept a keen eye on newspaper accounts and the various pictures and sighting reports which materialised. During my childhood, holidays in the Highlands always involved a diversion to the huge, moody loch in the hope of that elusive sighting or photograph. 

Today, it is difficult to know whether my father was as interested in the subject as me, or was just humouring his imaginative son.  Certainly, on one occasion, in 1959, perhaps less than an hour before the photograph of me beside the car was taken, I clearly recall us stopping in the long ‘Wellington‘ layby and taking pictures of three humps in the distance. That they were some six miles distant and stretched across a mile of water didn’t seem strange to me at the time.  Nor did my incredible luck strike me as unexpected! Seeing the monster within minutes of arriving at the lochside.

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Of course, as we approached, they resolved themselves into three fishing vessels making their way through the loch on their way towards Inverness.

Did my father know they were boats and was taking an opportunity to add an element of adventure to the holiday or did he really think there could be a mile-long monster in the loch?  He died in 1975 so I can only guess at the answer to that question, but it was interesting that within minutes of taking my first Loch Ness Monster photograph I had already debunked it.  Was this to be the pattern for the future?

My interest was refreshed in the seventies when the underwater photographs of a flipper-like object in Loch Ness were published.  Could there really be a lost world in the Highlands of Scotland and did plesiosaurs still swim in the world’s oceans?

During a holiday at the loch in 1975, as an adult (27 years of age) I met the infamous late Frank Searle and am ashamed to say that I was totally taken in by his faked images. Interestingly my profession at the time, in Work Study and Organisation & Methods, required me to be able to assess when I was hearing the truth, fabrication, exaggeration or lies. Perhaps because I was outside my work environment my instincts were dulled, but whatever the reason I swallowed Searle’s stories hook, line and sinker.

Searle used the classic conman’s technique. Ninety percent of what he told you was true and verifiable, so that when the lies were slipped in, they weren’t questioned.

In 1976 strange pictures were published purporting to be the carcass of a plesiosaur trawled up in the Pacific Ocean by a Japanese fishing vessel. I made enquiries, discovered who held the copyright for the photographs and ordered duplicates of them.

These I took to Dr. Whitehead, head of fishes at the Natural History Museum in London. He and a colleague immediately identified the object as the decomposing carcass of a basking shark ... the jaw had dropped away leaving the appearance of a long neck with a plesiosaur shaped skull at its end.

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Meeting Searle, discovering that he was a hoaxer, hearing criticism of some of the better monster pictures, the Natural History Museum’s dismissal of the plesiosaur carcass together with other factors left me very disillusioned.

In 1977, at the lochside, I met a retired librarian from Glasgow named Muir. He seriously called into question the whole existence of a monster in the loch, but before I finally washed my hands of the subject I decided that I needed to talk to Father Gregory Brusey OSB[1], one of the Benedictine monks living at Fort Augustus Abbey at the south-western end of the loch.

While accompanied by famous organist Roger Pugh[2], he had been treated to the best Nessie sighting ever. This tall gently-spoken monk had reputedly seen, from the monastery garden, a huge neck moving through the water. I resolved that if he turned out to be less than believable that would be the end of my Nessie hunting days.

On the next Highland holiday, with my wife Wendy, I remember driving into the deserted Abbey grounds. The front of these rambling buildings comprised a tasteless fifties wing, a handsome eighteenth century structure and a large modern looking church. In a small side building, there was a tiny exhibition about the Turin shroud, but no monks to be found. We parked and walked to the large oak door at the front of the Abbey and rang the bell.

Seconds turned into minutes and patience to impatience. I rang again, but barely had my finger left the bell the second time than a small wooden cover slipped to one side and an eye peered at me through a black iron grill. A gruff voice demanded, ‘What do you want?’.

I now know that this priest was Father Edward Delapine as I met him sixteen years later when I was invited to consult for the monks after their boarding school closed. With his thinning hair and protruding teeth, which I later discovered gave him the nickname ‘bunny’, he epitomised ‘monk’ to someone such as me. I’m sure the schoolboys had great fun at his expense.

I asked for Father Gregory and was told, ‘wait’.

At the time I had no idea how large these buildings were, and Father Edward had had to walk all of the way to the back of the monastery to find Fr. Gregory. It was a considerable ‘eventually’ later, that a tall, craggy monk arrived and I asked with some trepidation if he would tell us what he had seen in the loch. He began to recount his story, emphasising points with his enormous, arthritis-ridden hands.

It was captivating and so believable. My confidence was restored. I was convinced that there had to be more to the mystery at the loch than just a myth after all.

It was during holidays at the lochside in the mid-seventies that we fell in love with the beauty of the Highlands.  Perhaps this is something inspired by my Scottish roots, but I knew this was the place I would ultimately make my home.

In 1978, we moved to the Highlands and bought and renovated a croft house overlooking a large expanse of the loch. The house still has its original corrugated iron roof, although it is green today. Its large picture window and interior bathroom are among the few changes we have made to the classic Highland design.

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The move was lifestyle oriented, but the location was no accident. After being taken in by Frank Searle I was already thinking about the potential of an exhibition.

In 1979, I researched, and in 1980 set-up the Loch Ness Exhibition, which later became the Loch Ness Centre. Initially it was a fairly simple text and pictures exhibit with just a few working models to add interest.

During that decade I facilitated collaboration with the Loch Ness Project, resulting in funding from the exhibition proceeds which continues to this day.  I also went through a fascinating and gruelling learning process as people from all sides of the subject made contact. 

In particular, the Loch Ness Project helped develop my scepticism, exposed fakes and hoaxes, and raised concerns over the famous evidence. On this subject, I owe much to my long-term friendship with Project Leader Adrian Shine FRGS[3], who has assisted me by convincing me of the validity of some of the concepts I raise in this book. He has also helped me avoid glaring errors.

I ran the exhibition centre for more than a decade then, after irreconcilable arguments and disagreements stemming from an intellectual property dispute with my co-founder, I reluctantly left to pursue other business interests.

As the eighties became nineties, the plesiosaur image gradually slipped away and we have been left with ... what? It may be no surprise for readers to learn that if I hadn’t seen something myself in the loch in 1986 this book may never have been written, yet what I saw is less important to me nowadays than trying to explain the truth about the subject.

This is my attempt to tell the story of that thirty-year learning curve and to explain how the tradition of something large in Loch Ness became distorted into the Nessie image we all love so much, but inwardly suspect or fear cannot be real.

Let us take a voyage of discovery to find out if there is any truth behind the legend. I hope you find the adventure interesting and enjoyable.

I have broken the story into three sections. These appear in each chapter headed ‘Monstrous’, ‘The Monster’ and ‘My Monster’.

‘Monstrous’ contains anecdotes and events which are indirectly related to the story line, often amusing and sometimes plain ridiculous. Many are great fun and were crying out to be recounted.

‘The Monster’ is the serious business of the book. After a brief look at the geography of the area, I provide the background to the loch and its environment. I then move into an analysis of the evidence which has been submitted to support Nessie’s case. I have written this section not for scientists, but for intelligent lay people with a desire for the truth, warts and all.

‘My Monster’ details how the Loch Ness Monster has affected our lives since I became involved. It is an integral part of the story itself. It is not, however, always a pretty story, but, given my time again, apart from being less trusting of certain individuals, I would probably have followed much the same course. It is an adventurous, but cautionary tale filled with pitfalls, mistakes, deceit and both good and bad fortune.

Tony Harmsworth, April 2019

CHAPTER ONE

MONSTROUS – INTERVIEWING EYE WITNESSES

The year was 1983. I was sitting in the lounge of the old Drumnadrochit Hotel, an ornate Victorian building with bay-windowed wings which had been added in the early twentieth century. With me were two young people who had seen something on the loch. They struck me as being in their early twenties and were from England. The table hosted a coffee pot, cups, and the obligatory plate of unimaginative hotel custard cream and bourbon biscuits.

Whenever eye-witnesses arrived at the Loch Ness Centre, the staff were told to contact me, and I suppose we dealt with five or six sightings per year in the early eighties. When this call came through, I grabbed a notepad and sighting report sheet, and met the couple at the exhibition building.

Taking people over to the centre’s hotel provided an environment more conducive to an interview than my rather cluttered office, which was above the exhibition at that time.

Until the coffee arrived, I attempted to put them at ease and chatted generally about their holiday, then gradually brought them round to what they had claimed to have seen.

Over the previous year or so I had formulated a technique for obtaining detail of sightings and used this method with them.

‘Where did your sighting occur?’

‘Just beyond the big hotel closer to Inverness.’

This established that it was in an area where the loch is just over one mile wide (near the Loch Ness Clansman Hotel) and they were clear of any bays or major river mouths. Next, I established time, midday, then I asked what they had seen.

She spoke first, ‘It was a neck sticking up some way from shore.’

‘About half way across,’ he chipped in and she nodded agreement.

‘It was moving towards Inverness ... not very fast, but steadily,’ she continued.

‘Did you see any boats or anything else on the loch?’

‘Yes, there was a yacht about half a mile behind it,’ he said.

‘Behind or beyond?’

‘Oh, about the same distance from shore, but a long way to the right of the neck,’ she said.

They were very confident in their descriptions of what they had seen. There was no nervousness or hesitation in answer to the questions. It all seemed very natural and honest.

I continued to ask questions about the sighting including asking if they had taken pictures – no because they’d run out of film – or if they’d used binoculars – no they had none.

During the interview I continued to make notes on the sighting form and then, knowing that the object was half a mile away from them when they saw it, I asked if they had seen any detail.

‘Yes,’ the girl said, ‘the eyes were greenish.’

As she said this, I glanced at him and he nodded. So, this remarkable couple had seen the eye colour of this animal at a range of perhaps half a mile.

I asked one or two further perfunctory questions and then thanked them and wished them a pleasant holiday. When I returned to my office, the sighting report went in the waste bin.

There was no point in calling them liars or making them look stupid, better let them go away with a coffee, free entry to the exhibition, and the belief that they had put one over on us.

Such stories are a fact of life when dealing with this enigma. People will be people.

THE MONSTER – SCOTLAND’S PREHISTORY

We cannot jump into the monster evidence without a more general understanding of the people and geography of the Highlands. To set the scene for our story about the monster, I need to introduce some background, particularly about the enormous valley which splits Scotland in two.

To understand the Great Glen[4], we need to travel back in time some four hundred million years. At this time Scotland was located south of the equator, perhaps around the latitude of northern Australia. Schoolchildren have grown up with the concept of continental drift since the fifties. Plate tectonics do grab our attention from time to time as adults when events such as the Asian tsunami or a shake in California occur and continental drift is the cause of most of these earthquakes, yet the land masses, or plates, only move as slowly as your growing fingernail.

When continents collide, mountain ranges are built. We can actually see this happening in the Himalayas where the Indian continent has impacted upon Asia folding up the highest mountains we currently have on our planet.

Four hundred thousand millennia ago, the land destined to become the north of Scotland was actually part of North America which was on a collision course with Europe. When this collision began, the mountains which became the Highlands of Scotland were thrust up thousands of metres.

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This relentless impact created a huge mountain chain which today we know as the Caledonians. Those on the other side of the Atlantic know the mountains as the Appalachians. They were not just formed at the same time but are in fact the same mountains.

Whenever I mentioned this to groups of visitors, I was quite often told that the mountains of the eastern United States do look like our mountains. However, this visual similarity is irrelevant for it is only what happened to the mountains after that collision which gave them their present day characteristics. Any twenty-first century visual similarity is therefore purely superficial.

Four hundred million years ago, however, the mountains would have been very similar, all part of that single thrust and stretching into the sky, perhaps higher than the Himalayas. Little remains of those 10,000 metre (35,000 feet) peaks.

Today we like to think that we understand some of the processes which allow the continents to slide about over the earth’s mantle, but there is still a lot of speculation and theory involved.

We do know that some twenty million years later, the stresses and strains pent up in the mountains started a process whereby the northern block of the Highlands started to slide down to the south west. This geological fault line became a huge tear through the country and has become known as the Great Glen. Originally, with mountains thousands of metres high on each side, this must have become a staggeringly dramatic valley, the like of which exists nowhere in the world today.

It would not have happened suddenly, however - ‘Oh look. There go the mountains!’ - it would have taken millions of years, and it is a side-slip or strike-slip fault. Not a rift valley as has sometimes appeared in print in Inverness guide books.

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The northern landmass slipped about 65 miles (100km) to the southwest as evidenced by the Strontian granites matching similar granites at Foyers on the south side of the loch, although some geologists think it may have moved even further but then rebounded to the current position.

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Eventually the mountain building and Caledonian land movements were complete, and the continents began to rebound. Around 100 million years ago, perhaps contributing to the demise of the dinosaurs, the Atlantic began to open.

Volcanic activity on the central line forced the continents apart and created the younger mountains on the west coast of Scotland. Not all of North America drifted away, however, part of it (the upper section of the map above) remained with Europe, almost the entire mass of land north of the Glasgow/Edinburgh divide.

The continents continued to separate and drift northwards, approaching the arctic circle, perhaps contributing to the great ice ages, as lying snow reflected the sunlight. This might have happened quite rapidly.

Several times the Great Glen was buried under two or three kilometres of ice which scoured and ground down the mountains of the Highlands.

Rocks comprising old, middle and new red sandstone, limestone, granites, quartz and metamorphosed schists, all eroded with similar efficiency, carried along by the ice sheet spreading out from the central and northern Highlands.

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The legacy of this erosion is mountains rarely exceeding a thousand metres in height and multi-coloured gravel moraines representing the débris dumped at various locations when the ice rapidly melted.

Much of the material upon which modern Inverness stands was left by the ice and there are eskers[5] close to the city.

More recent ice advances finishing some 12,000 years ago sculpted and shaped these moraines. Finally, the release of an enormous lake, probably from Glen Roy which had been damned by one of the last glacial remnants of the ice age, carved a channel for the River Ness washing out the bottom of the eastern Great Glen - where Loch Ness lies today. Evidence for these glacial lakes, parallel beaches, can clearly be seen in Glen Roy today.

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Very quickly these dramatic hollows in the earth, deeper than the North Sea, filled with freshwater and today the Great Glen comprises Loch Linnhe, Loch Lochy, Loch Oich, Loch Ness and the Moray Firth. A beautiful valley linking the North Sea with the Atlantic Ocean.

The aerial view shows Loch Ness today from above the village of Fort Augustus, but the scene has changed beyond recognition since the last ice age. Understanding those changes may not directly help us to prove or disprove the Loch Ness Monster, but it is vital to understand Nessie’s environment if we are going to unravel the mystery.

These bare hills have inspired innumerable romantic notions of the Highlands of Scotland, yet everything seen in the picture above is actually the result of mankind working the land and I shall deal with that in the next chapter.

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In getting to grips with the Loch Ness Monster the natural history of the area is an important factor, but so too is the psychology of the subject and this may best be illustrated by the monster’s impact on my own life. Throughout the period since 1975 I have met and got to know many researchers including several charlatans, dozens of helpful agnostics, a number of hopeless fanatics, some deliberate liars, at least two psychopaths and just plain ordinary people who I have become involved with because of this endearing mystery.

The thought processes, arguments and reasoning of these groups and individuals has enabled me to formulate an understanding of this convoluted and contentious subject. They are all inextricably linked with the subject itself.

When I set up the Loch Ness Monster Exhibition in 1980, I truly believed that I had carried out sufficient research to make a good attempt at presenting the material fairly. Unfortunately, the only sources available to me were the various published books, some eye witnesses and a few of the individuals involved in research.

Sadly, the bulk of those sources were, for obvious reasons, in the pro-Nessie camp and so I was not receiving a very balanced view. Nevertheless, I went ahead, opened the exhibition and saw my learning curve crash as the evidence I was portraying came under fire from sceptics who seemed to suddenly materialise from everywhere. It would be fair to say that, as with monster believers, there were some pretty fanatical disbelievers too.

As the subject and my life became increasingly intertwined, I became better at sifting the wheat from the chaff and a clearer picture evolved. That picture is what I am providing within these pages and, although its importance may not be immediately apparent, my autobiographical account of the story will help explain how I managed to reach my own conclusions and why I have been so determined to tell the world about them.

MY MONSTER – CHILDHOOD LOCH VISITS

When did my own interest in Loch Ness begin?

I have little recollection of anything to do with the Loch Ness Monster until I was about ten years old.

We regularly came to Scotland on holiday, my mother having come from Preston Pans, near Edinburgh and my father always loved the Highlands. I later discovered that there was a branch of the Harmsworths in the far north of Scotland, so my Scottish roots were stronger than I had first thought. This was reinforced when my niece, Vanessa Williams, discovered we were descended from King Robert the Bruce!

Each time we arrived in the Highlands there was that exciting drive along the side of the most famous body of freshwater in the world. Would we be lucky this time? Would Nessie lift her head and neck out of the water as we passed by? Could I take a famous picture proving the monster’s existence? I remember the emotions, but not the actual dates and routes we travelled.

I have already mentioned that fearsome monster encountered in the Eagle of 10th January 1959 by space pilot Dan Dare in the swamps of Venus. My imagination was fired by this huge animal with dragon-like attributes which was attempting to drag Flamer Spry into the depths. Could Dan Dare and his trusty colleagues save the day?

Of course they could. Dan Dare always saved the day at the last possible moment and Flamer was rescued from the beast. After the deed was done the Theron guide to Dan Dare’s expedition says, ‘So the monster really lives! It will be wise to keep away from the black lake in future, Colonel.’

In Loch Ness, I had my very own monster. I am sure this illustrated tale inspired my interest in Nessie’s story as a ten-year-old.

Over the years I kept a keen eye on newspaper accounts and the various pictures and sighting reports which materialised.

After this Eagle Nessie, my interest in our Highland visits became rather more polarised and, during the next holiday in the Highlands our diversion to the huge moody loch contained a real hope of that elusive sighting or photograph. Twenty years later, although not entirely for Nessie reasons, this led to our permanent residence on the lochside. 

I was born at 9.30am on 19th March 1948 in the Ribbentrop room of Brocket Hall near Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire about twenty or so miles north of London.

Brocket Hall was being used as a maternity hospital in the years after the war, but I had no silver spoon in my mouth. We lived in very simple rented accommodation with chickens in the backyard.

For some reason we also had the relic of a wooden boat in the garden, and I remember many invented adventures surrounding it. I’m sure some would have involved Loch Ness expeditions. Also, being some twelve years younger than my three sisters, I was left for long periods to play on my own. This must have developed my imagination and that has come to the fore in my science fiction writing since I retired.

The Scottish-ness of our family is exhibited in an early photograph of me in the kilt and sporran. I can clearly remember the toy tractor and high privet hedge, but not the Highland dancing.

I quickly developed an interest in creatures, loved the chickens and our small Jack Russell dog, Addy, who features in my Green Door novella. It went deeper than this though and I kept caterpillars, spiders, bees and many other small animals, observing them and marvelling at their tiny lives, which I regret I may have shortened inadvertently.

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My father’s business was thriving, and I thrilled at the cars we owned. In the days before every household owned a vehicle, we had a brand-new car each year. Dad loved colourful cars and I remember a Ford Consul in turquoise with the latest accessory, a chromium sun visor.

Then the Vauxhall Cresta shown in the photograph in the introduction. This was a delightful ice-cream pink and white. It was followed by a more stocky Zephyr Six, with huge wings at the rear. Great fun.

The addition of a Volkswagen Caravanette to our cavalcade, however, meant more trips to Scotland which both of my parents loved. Me? I couldn’t wait for the adventure to begin.

CHAPTER TWO

MONSTROUS – THE ABSENT-MINDED RESEARCHER

It is so important to understand the nature and characters of some of the researchers, and here I will use ‘Monstrous’ to do that.

I’d like to introduce you to Ivor Newby who had been involved in research at Loch Ness since the early sixties. A genial, handsome ex-RAF character for whom nothing was too much trouble. As a Subaru fan, we had a love of four wheel drive in common. Not the huge lumbering ‘Chelsea Tractors’ as they are sometimes called, but the sleek manoeuvrable comfortable variety.

Recently, Ivor died, but the last time we spoke, with him about 80, he told me he was now sceptical about anything at all living in the loch and just observed and enjoyed the craic of ‘being there’ now and again. He was great fun to be around and always cheerful – one of the few people I have met who never had a bad word to say about anyone.

But one fact about Ivor cannot be denied – he had the worst case of absentmindedness I have ever encountered.

The year – 1975, the place – Ivor’s home in the South-west Midlands. The telephone rings.

Adrian Shine, leader of the Loch Ness and Morar Project and another friend of Ivor, had managed to obtain a weekend’s use of some classified sonar equipment from the British government. He called to see if Ivor could collect it from near Bristol and bring it up to Loch Morar, Scotland’s other monster loch, where Adrian had decided to concentrate his research in the mid-seventies.

Ivor, his usual amenable self, with an opportunity to drive six hundred miles each way during the weekend, just jumped at the chance.

He collected the equipment on the Thursday and took it home ready for the journey on Friday.

Leaving the house, he set off early in the morning with the plan of arriving late in the day.

In those days there was not quite the full motorway network we have in Britain today so, passing through Lancashire, Ivor decided to fill up with fuel. Arriving at the filling station he jumped out and reached for his wallet from his jacket.

Horror of horrors, no wallet.

He checked his other pockets – definitely no wallet. Then he remembered that he had placed it on the coffee table ready for his departure. He could see it in his mind’s eye.

He checked his fuel gauge. Just under half full. Could he get back home on less than half a tank? There was no alternative. He pulled out of the filling station and headed south at a steady, fuel efficient 55mph.

The gauge hit red as he approached home, he was going to make it. Dreading the splutter he would recognise if the carburettor sucked air, he finally turned into his drive. He wiped his brow and breathed, ‘made it.’

Opening his front door, there was his wallet, exactly where he knew it would be, on the coffee table.

Beside it, on the floor was his suitcase and the sonar equipment.

I suppose the moral to this story is that by forgetting his wallet he avoided arriving at Loch Morar and having to face Adrian’s wrath at not having brought the equipment.

Ivor arrived at Loch Morar in time for daylight and then crashed-out for the rest of the day.

More on Ivor’s absentmindedness later ... this was certainly not a one-off.

THE MONSTER – CELTIC ORIGINS

Coming back to understanding the loch and the Great Glen, we need to return to the period after the ice shrank away, around twelve thousand years ago. The land had been scoured clear of all vegetation, flat areas were waterlogged, hilltops were boulder strewn and hillsides scraped and scarred by the ice.

Gradually the spores of lichens and fungi arrived, followed by the seeds of grasses and wild flowers. A carpet of green began to appear.

Soon the very lightest of the tree seeds arrived and took root. Colonising trees like Silver Birch struggled to survive in rocky crevices but survive some of them did.

Once you have some grasses and trees in the landscape, the birds and animals begin to migrate inwards. Animals carry seeds in their fur, bring nuts northwards and the birds carry seeds in their guts, particularly berries. The forest begins to develop with Rowan[6] trees, Holly, Hazel, Alder plus large numbers of shrubs. All the time the wind is blowing the heavier windblown seeds northwards and among these were the Scots Pine. Eventually the forests covered most of Scotland, from the glens to the highest hills. All of those bare hills in the aerial view of Loch Ness shown in the previous chapter were once covered in forest. So where did it go?

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To answer that question, we need to introduce the Scottish people, and this means taking a trip back in time to the end of the ice age.

With the bulk of the world’s water tied up in ice, sea levels towards the end of the ice age were much lower than they are today. There was a land bridge linking England with France and Belgium. Over this land bridge came many of our animals, trees and people.

It took up to ten