The “I’m being watched” feeling

You know the feeling – you’re wandering around, sort of minding your own business, and that feeling starts to build up somewhere in the back of your head…

“I’m being watched”.

The favourite is in a not quite exclusive neighbourhood – the sort of burb where the windows have net curtains as the residents aren’t quite wealthy enough to have large windows with no curtains at all, so they can display their expensively set rooms for their neighbours to see, and they can try to show off their more expensive furniture, carpets or wood floors, art on the walls, and smart TVs etc piled around the room.

It’s a phenomenon I noticed appearing a few years ago, after I started taking longer walks deeper into the surrounding streets, and noticed the two options (nets or no nets) and began to look closer, finally realising those without nets were most definitely placing their wealth on display. The curtain free windows are definitely being used to display set pieces, as I seldom see anyone in those rooms.

However, this wasn’t related to the feeling that had crept up on me this time.

Glancing around, I soon spotted the reason, and who was watching – although I didn’t recognise them.

I grabbed a quick shot in case they disappeared.

Beith Street Watcher

Still there – time for a closer look, and a chance to identify the spy.

Watching Character

No idea, but I’m guessing this is a known character to some, like the creamy rice desert below, with added strawberry goodness, being used to get a better look over the high fence below.

 

The secret cow stampede of Eilean Mor and the World War II spies

The tiny island of Eilean Mor (Mòr) in the Scottish Hebrides gets a mention in the book by Ben Macintyre, Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies (Crown, 2012).

You can see the page here, and this is the relevant section:

When six cows stampeded on the tiny island of Eilean Mor in the Scottish Hebrides, this was immediately ascribed to secret enemy activity. That the spies were invisible was merely proof of how fiendishly clever they were at disguising themselves. Even pigeons were suspect, since it was widely believed that enemy agents had secret caches of homing pigeons around the country that they used to send messages back to Germany.

Innocent cow, or spy giveaway?

While this may be easily dismissed as mere paranoia, it would be unfair to do so without reflecting on what was happening at the time, and had gone before.

It seems that in World War I, more than 100,000 carrier pigeons carried important messages, saving many lives.

And in World War II, British Intelligence used more than 250,00 pigeons, and Macintyre claims that Flight Lieutenant Richard Melville Walker (who worked for MI5), was convinced “that Nazi pigeons were … pouring into Britain, by parachute, high-speed motor launch, and by U-boat.” Such was the anti-avian frenzy of the time that “Some experts claimed to be able to identify a pigeon with a German ‘accent.'”

And there were other used that they served, saving the lives of aircrews when their normal means of communication (radios) were rendered useless. See the story of Winkie, the pigeon that saved the lives of a downed bomber crew, and won the firs Dicken medal.

Loch Long Torpedo Range lost to development

Loch Long torpedo station ruin

The historic Loch Long Torpedo Range, which operated on the loch from 1912 to 1986, and has been subject to the various attentions of vandals, arson attacks, and even a failed demolition, has finally had its fate sealed with the news that The Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority is doing its usual upstanding job of retaining the original nature of the park area, and has approved the development of a large resort on the site.

I remain singularly unimpressed by much of what this supposedly protective authority has done since it arrived, and have seen the area change more, and become more modern and commercial, with more rules and regulations than seem necessary.

But that’s just my impression – I’m probably wrong.

In January 2013, the media carried a short news item which reported that the site of the torpedo testing station near Arrochar was to be transformed into a £70 million five-star resort, following approval by the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority of the Ben Arthur Resort developer’s plans.

210 construction jobs were promised, together with 300 jobs in the 130-bed hotel to be built there.

The plans also include a 250-berth marina on the loch, and a restaurant to be created by Sir Terence Conran.

The once quiet corner of the loch may not be so quiet if the resort is a success, as it has its own helipad (I’m a fan of helicopters, as long as they’re in the right place – I recall the disturbance they used to cause on Rothesay’s pier some years ago, when a service was tried there for a while. This was the equivalent of landing in the middle of the town.)

There does not seem to be any apparent provision to provide any sort of memorial or reference to the torpedo range or its history in the plan, but I confess to not reading it in minute detail. Something like that should be easy to find… if it exists.

You can go straight to the 76-page brochure produced by the developer by following this link:

Brochure « Ben Arthur Resort

There are some interesting stories associated with the torpedo range, such as the execution in 1915 of a spy caught there during World War I, and his subsequent incarceration and execution in the Tower of London:

Secret Scotland – Loch Long Spy Executed