On this day in 1962

Actor John Hannah was born in East Kilbride and achieved global fame, aged 32, when he was cast as Matthew in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. He also played Detective Inspector John Rebus in the first two series of the books’ adaptation for television. These were broadcast in 2000 and 2001, and were produced by Clerkenwell Films, co-founded by Hannah himself.

 

...and on this day in 2001

Jan Sundberg travelled to Scotland, to capture a Loch Ness Monster. He planned to lay an eel trap, catch a smaller specimen, and extract some DNA.

“Jan Sundberg, leader of the Swedish team, believes previous expeditions failed because they did not have the equipment available to his team,” said the BBC on 24 April.

CNN also covered the search on its website on the same day, revealing that Sundberg “has coordinated a 12-day mission, called Operation Cleansweep, to try to track the monster.” It explained that the crew would head out to the loch twice a day, and “cast a seven-foot net into the water and use a combined multi-beam sonar and acoustic camera in a bid to snare the creature.”

A spell to protect the monster

However, The Argus of 24 April reported that “a white witch from Sussex cast a spell over Loch Ness today in an effort to thwart a Swedish scientist’s attempts to catch the Loch Ness Monster. Kevin Carlyon from Hastings used his powers as a high priest in the British Coven of White Witches to cast a spell over the murky loch in a bid to protect the water and all creatures within it.”

The following year, Sundberg was in Ireland searching for that country’s own version of Nessie: the Lough Ree Monster in the loch of that name that straddles Westmeath and Longford. Sadly, no such monster was discovered and, on 9 October 2004, the Irish Independent reported that “Jan Sundberg says the large beast with a serpent-like head that has killed farm animals is probably just a blood-sucking Vampire eel.”