Loch Ness Monster Explained

Chapter 13a - MONSTROUS - Vive La Difference

[Image shows the Abbey shop.]

Running the exhibition could sometimes be great fun.

I had two stalwart assistants. One was Shiela Davenport who looked after the tills, the shop and stock, wages, rosters and other routine tasks. She was one of the first people I took on in 1980 and she was still there years after I left in 1990, the sort of member of staff which is essential to the smooth running of any modern business.

Another, Betty MacDougall (Gallagher), I had groomed to run the exhibition if ever I left, also protecting her by ensuring no one else knew how the systems worked. I had made her an essential employee, knowing how the equipment operated, how to deal with coach parties and how to deal with the press in my absence. You may say this was the more interesting side of my function.

Dealing with the coach parties was no easy task. Coach drivers were once a law unto themselves, demanding amazing perks for visiting your exhibition including payments of tens of pounds in addition to full meals and more. Today the pendulum has swung the other way and drivers and guides are treated abysmally, sometimes even having to buy a glass of milk for themselves (Urquhart Castle) or being given a voucher which is insufficient for even tea and a sandwich (Cawdor Castle). The bad old days are gone and good guides and drivers really deserve to be at least properly fed and watered these days. In the eighties, however, the drivers ruled the roost.

I remember spending a good part of one winter visiting the head offices of coach companies throughout the UK, trying to get the exhibition included in tour itineraries instead of just being selected at the drivers' discretion, which had been the main cause of the problem. This became even more important when the competing exhibition opened next door, as there was an immediate escalation in the amount paid to drivers to bring their passengers to one exhibition or the other.

If I could get the coach companies to place us on their itineraries at a specially negotiated rate, that would mean no commissions for drivers and no chance that the driver would take them to the wrong centre. In order to achieve this I had provided huge discounts to the coach companies as it was far better to have fifty entries at £2 rather than five entries at £4, and of that half going to the driver.

I had some considerable success with this strategy and the payment of commission to drivers would only be made if the driver was not on a fixed itinerary visit. Great plan? Think again.

Our first problem came when a regular driver arrived and was told by Betty that there was no commission because his group were being paid for by the coach company and were on our itinerary list.

Within minutes Betty was on the phone to me saying she had a problem.

I came down from my office and found Betty with the driver in the car park. I came over and explained how we had cut the entry price to the bone to get it on the itinerary and this meant there was no driver's commission, but if he ever came with a group who did not have us on the itinerary, then he would get an improved commission in the order of one pound for every passenger who paid to go in.

He stayed silent for a moment, then, although a rather diminutive individual, he came closer, toe to toe, looked up at me, poked me in the chest to punctuate each and every phrase while he said, "Look mate ... if I don't get my commission ... I will report back that your toilets are overflowing ... that I had passengers with food poisoning after they came out of your restaurant ... that the parking was total chaos ... that you made us late and ... I PROMISE YOU, you will never get another coach from our company, either on your fucking itinerary or independent of it."

I thought for a moment turned to Betty MacDougall and said, "Give him his commission". The itinerary project lasted just one season although I later introduced it with great success at Fort Augustus Abbey. Drivers understood that the monks couldn't pay commission as it would be seen as bribes ... well that was my excuse anyway, in fact the monks didn't mind paying commission at all.

Whether it be at the Loch Ness Centre or at Fort Augustus Abbey, we had all learned that bus loads of French schoolchildren were a disaster. Why it should be that the French children apparently had one single objective from the moment they crossed the English Channel has never ceased to amaze me. That objective? To shoplift as many items as possible wherever they went.

This became so bad at the Abbey that the monks had a rule that no French schoolchildren were allowed in the shop under any circumstances. Their teachers and supervisors were offended, but we knew from experience that they would steal hundreds of pounds worth of items.

Although extremely serious at the time, I remember with some amusement an early occasion of French child larceny from the Loch Ness Centre. Betty and Shiela called me to tell me that the children were just taking things and sticking them in their pockets with no attempt whatsoever at secrecy. Shiela even had one of them by the collar while she sought out their teachers who just ignored their behaviour.

Finally, Betty, seeing a bunch of them in the car park showing each other what they had stolen, decided that action was needed.

She told me what she was going to do. She wanted to get on the coach and refuse to allow it to leave until they had all been searched. There was no arguing with her, she was determined.

With detached amusement I came down to the coach park to watch the action.

Betty had a long conversation with the courier/teacher and told her that a lot of product had been stolen. It is amazing how quickly a teacher's understanding of English deteriorates when it is something they don't want to hear. Betty then boarded the coach with the teacher and they walked up the aisle collecting stolen items.

Betty got off the bus with about eight carrier bags stuffed with stolen items. Then I stood with her and her proud haul and watched as the bus pulled out of the car park. As it left, the kids were jumping up and down waving expensive knitwear, whole kilts, pottery, fluffy Nessies, tea towels, general souvenirs and even full size tartan blankets at us through the windows.

Monstrueux, vous devriez le croire.

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(C) 2018 Tony Harmsworth