A later than usual blog, following a very exciting and productive week, with a couple of close encounters of the third kind; contact.
It was 40 years ago when I attended the UK premier here in Edinburgh of Close Encounters of The Third Kind. As a 14 year old boy I was mesmerised by what unfolded on screen. The premier opened at the old Odeon cinema, then an enormous space, complete with a balcony and a gigantic curtain that pulled back to reveal the screen. I miss that grand opening of films. They would show all the adverts and trailers, then the curtains would close for a few minutes, the lights would go down, people on one side of the cinema would light up their cigarettes, and the curtains would swish back to the opening overture.
Bizarrely on the opening night the Strathclyde Police Band came on to play!
On Monday last week my brother bought me a ticket to attend the remastered 4K release of Close Encounters. As a little surprise I took along my original ticket from 40 years ago. Though I knew the film off by heart it was fantastic to see it on the largest screen in Cineworld. Nice to know that it is preserved now for future generations.
Another close encounter was to occur later in the week, on Thursday 21 September.
I have been continuing my search for the two lost ferries of Ballachulish, and in recent weeks have taken on some help to try and locate one of them, the Glen Loy. This is one that, like the Close Encounters movie, has not been seen for 40 years. Hopefully something will turn up.
The other missing ferry, the Glen Duror, was supposedly on the shores of Gairlochy, north of Fort William. I went to the wreck a few months ago but I was not convinced. As time went on and I gathered further evidence, despite everyone telling me to the contrary, I knew it was not the Glen Duror from Ballachulish.
I had to find her.
By a stroke of luck I made contact with someone who had posted a random comment about her online. One thing led to another, and several people later I found myself on the Calmac ferry out of Oban on Thursday, bound for the Isle of Mull.
Over on the west shore of the island, near to Ulva, I found her. It was quite a moment when I first made physical contact with her.
She was a sorry sight, having been abandoned on the rocky shore some 35 years ago, and ravaged by the sea and storms. But it was her. I gathered several old photographs from enormously helpful locals, of the Glen Duror operating in the late 70s at Ulva, matching them up with the landscape now, and categorically proved it was the Glen Duror.
Once a movie star alongside Kirk Douglas in Catch Me A Spy, and an important part of Scotland's cultural history, it was such a shame to see her like that.
When I interviewed Kate Ward, daughter of the late Peter Mackenzie, the last ferryman of Ballachulish, he recalled "the gardeners boy" coming down to play on the ferries every spare moment. That boy was me, and on Thursday it felt right that finally, the Glen Duror, my childhood friend, lost and forgotten for all these years, was found by the gardeners boy.
Unlike the movie Close Encounters, she will not be preserved for future generations, but hopefully my film will preserve the memory of her.
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