Back in July of 1983, my grandparents (frequent visitors to Scotland) visited Loch Ness. Having travelled up with their yellow Ford Capri II 2000 with a caravan in tow they celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary before returning home with a Scottish souvenir for me, a plastic Nessie (made in China). That souvenir started me on a life long fascination with Loch Ness and its legendary beast, the interest was spurred on by Peter Maddocks’s
Family- Ness cartoon series along with any other Nessie monster related movie or series I could find. Shows such as Michael Aspel’s
Strange But True? repeats of
Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World and Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe’s
Fortean TV. When I wasn’t watching those programs I would read any book I could find on the subject (my favourite being
The World of the Unknown: Monsters by Carey Miller) along with
The Unexplained magazine. Thirty years later I would finally visit Loch Ness for myself with Mrs Jones, we cruised the loch seeking out the monster on our
honeymoon. Looking back on it all it started with that one plastic toy that my grandparents gave my four-year-old
dinosaur loving self. Sadly, the toy went missing (I suspect my mother gave it away to a jumble sale appeal- but I couldn’t prove it in a court of law) and since becoming an active eBay user I have sought out to track down another monster… But in a manner of speaking I did find another, I found this brass one… It is the exact design as the one I had before, only it has been cast in brass. The seller gave little to no information on its origins only that her father would cast items in brass and had done so with this toy back in the 1980’s. This being the case I treat it as a unique piece of artwork. A piece that reminds me of that plastic toy I once knew, the grandparents that presented it to me and the journey it took me on.
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| My grandparents at Loch Ness, July of 1983 |
Some more 'Monster Memories' and 'Prehistoric Pinings'…
Monster Memories: ‘Monsters in my Pocket'
Monster Memories: 'Spooky Chews'
Prehistoric Pining: Dinosaur Books and Publications
Prehistoric Pining: Dinosaur World, Colwyn Bay
©
Arfon Jones 2015. All images are copyrighted throughout the world.
What a wonderful piece of both happenstance and memorabilia, even it's not the original plastic one, Arfon.
ReplyDeleteIt is rather nice isn't it? I was delighted when he arrived :)
DeleteAnd one day you may even find a duplicate plastic replacement for the one you had as a kid. That'd be nice.
ReplyDeleteI haven't given up, living in hope Kid! I've seen one on Google image and that's it with little no information about them otherwise. Oh, I've seen one at the International Cryptozoology Museum in the States. Let me know if you spot one wont you? ;)
DeleteWill do.
DeleteWhat a great find - a brass Nessie.
ReplyDeleteAs a child I thought I'd been really careless with my belongings and couldn't understand how I kept losing stuff, and it was only a few years ago that I twigged my mum had binned loads of things whenever we moved house! Probably explains why I'm such a hoarder now...
forgot to add that we also have Nessie horse brass hanging above the fireplace!
DeleteWhenever I can’t find something I blame others, my need to hoard everything and my nature to be nostalgic about practically everything rules me out as a suspect! I’ll never forget the time I visited a jumble sale (aged 8) and to my horror found my toys amongst the jumble. So what did I do? Bought them back! (On reflection that was a precursor for eBay) my grandmother would often recount the tale of how the lady manning the table asked my young self “you don’t want to buy this Mickey Mouse do you? He’s missing a leg?” and I answered, “its ok I have the other leg at home”….
Have you still got Mickey, and did you re-attach his leg? I worry about these things.
DeleteI did eventually reattach the leg and I believe that both he (and Minnie) are in storage. If not I will assume that my mother had another go at re-homing them!
Delete