There is space for one or two cars at the co-ordinates below. At
about halfway there is a heavily padlocked gate, with enough 'give'
for small to medium sized dogs. (This is sheep country at both
ends.) Progress is still possible via a ladder stile.
One of the delights of late-night
television used to be the black-and-white Scales of Justice
programmes of the 1950s introduced by Edgar Lustgarten.
Britain as it used to be . . . Police cars with bells, empty roads,
steam trains, men in hats, women in aprons, and a heavy set man in
a thick black coat gravely intoning:
" It was impossible to know just how long the bones had been
mouldering there, but perhaps the greatest mystery . . ."
Not all episodes of Scales of Justice have survived. We
remember one that has never yet appeared on DVD, "The Viking
Hoard", when Lustgarten made it all the way to Scotland. Far from
his customary stamping grounds of London's Old Bailey. This case,
from about 1957 or '58, involved two ex servicemen then working as
shepherds in Glen Errochty. The glen had recently been much
disturbed and indeed changed for ever with the building of a dam as
part of the national hydro power scheme, and the rising waters of
what would become Loch Errochty.
The men, Jock McTavish and Erchie Graham, found a huge trove of
Viking coins and trade goods, a real grafsilvr, which they
split. Typically, Jock kept his share in an old ammo box, along
with his medals and paybook. The authorities never did find out
quite how large a treasure, but they recovered enough items from
Mairi Wilson, a peroxide blonde barmaid at the Struan Inn, to
commission a wide ranging hunt. Among the items Jock had lavished
on Mairi were several versions of Cresques Abraham's legendary 14th
century Mapamundi, reproduced on large metal disks, and strange
Tuareg amulets showing the southern cross.
Perhaps, perhaps Mairi was the key to the mystery of what
happened to the Viking stash. It transpires that Erchie too had
bought her favours from his share of the loot (and here we
particularly remember that Lustgarten's 1950s distaste and
prejudices were all too obvious when describing the vivacious
barmaid). The men were seen to quarrel over her at the Inn. Then
days passed and neither showed face. Mairi grew worried and
persuaded the local bobby, Fergus McCann to visit their summer camp
above the new loch.
McCann made the long trek out to the men's trailer by the sheep
pens, and found it ransacked. More worrying still was a line of
bullet holes, stitched through the side where Jock slept. And a
trail of blood leading to a fast flowing stream.
Neither Erchie nor Jock were ever seen again. Erchie was known
for both his quick temper and for the automatic pistol he had kept
after the war. It was assumed that he had shot his rival for the
lovely Mairi, and dumped Jock into the steadily rising waters of
the new loch.
However, Lustgarten finished the tale with a typical twist: the
local gamekeeper, Duncan Grant swore he saw a figure climbing
unsteadily up through the gorge a day or so later. “It looked
awfy like Jock. Aye, and hurting bad.”