Loch Ness monster

The legend of the loch may be 80 years old, but this unseen octogenarian still has a monster following, as Peter Ross discovers

‘DO NOT dally! Do not dally!” Adrian Shine – naturalist, force of nature and erstwhile monster hunter – is leading the way through the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre, which he designed, and which is home to some of the “toys” he has used in 40 years of exploring this and other lochs, including a tiny home-made submarine. He is a tall man with a hawkish profile and great white beard, striding the darkened corridors in a three-piece tweed suit and tartan tie, his mellifluous voice sounding in the murk. It is like being led around the chocolate factory by Willy Wonka, or by the Doctor showing off his Tardis.

Shine, who is 64, moved to the Highlands from his native Surrey in 1973, a restless maverick seeking “fame and glory, even in the cannon’s mouth – youth is like that”. He was part of a wave of amateur investigators each keen to find evidence that, depending on their own beliefs, the monster did or did not exist. There was something about that moment, in the late Sixties, early Seventies, as the countercultural tide lapped up against the shore of science, when anything – Atlantis, UFOs, Nessie – seemed possible, and Loch Ness became a proving ground for anyone with a working boat and a working theory.

source -- http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/heritage/loch-ness-monster-hunt-continues-80-years-on-1-2807205