My comments made yesterday concerning the recent bridge collapses and the subject of cryptozoology, prompted several people to contact me to inquire if I could elaborate on one of the stories I referred to in my post, and that appears in my Man-Monkey book. I can indeed.
Here is a brief extract from the book that outlines part of the story:
...According to Danny, on a particular evening in January 1879, his great-great-grandfather, who had apparently suffered from some form of severe mental affliction, had committed suicide by hurling himself off of Scotland’s Tay Bridge, and right into the harsh depths of Dundee’s Firth of Tay.
Of course, the date of the suicide – January 1879 – immediately jumped out at me as being the exact same time-frame in which the Man-Monkey had been seen prowling around the countryside near the village of Woodseaves.
But there was much more to come: namely that in the immediate days that followed the family’s tragic loss, ominous reports began to quietly circulate within the close-knit confines of the neighbourhood of a shaggy-haired man-beast that was seen roaming the bridge late at night, and that came to be known locally as the ‘Shuggy’.
Danny was far from finished, however, and he drew my attention to a tragic disaster of truly epic proportions that had occurred at the same Tay Bridge in December 1879, eleven months after the unfortunate death of his great-great-grandfather.
It was an appropriately dark and stormy night on December 28, 1879 when, at around 7.15 p.m., and as a veritable storm of truly deluge-style proportions was blowing right down the length of the estuary, the central navigation spans of the Tay Bridge collapsed and plummeted into the Firth of Tay – taking with them a train and six carriages that resulted in no less than seventy-five untimely and tragic deaths.
Nick, is Dennis the only source for Shuggy on the Tay. I had never come across this before until reading 'Man Monkey' (in one sittig I may add) I was quite fascinated by it. Not being too far away from the area I would like (and will do so)to try and follow up any other accounts, stories legends etc.
ReplyDeleteHi Mark
ReplyDeleteGood to hear you enjoyed Man-Monkey. Yeah, the guy (Danny) was the only source of the Man-Monkey story at the Tay Bridge.
As you'll know from the book, that was one of the problems I stressed with most of the interviewees - they were mainly one-witness/one-person accounts.
Of course, that doesn't necessarily make the suspect, but it did severely limit me in terms of taking the stories further.
Hence why it was the shortest book I have ever written! LOL
I was meaning that I read it on one sitting, because I enjoyed it lol :)
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