Timothy Kay Dinsdale (27 September 1924 – 14 December 1987) was a British cryptozoologist who attempted to prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.[1][2]
This necessitated a journey along the coast and in 1935 the ship, SS Tungchow, containing 70 British and American schoolchildren, was seized by pirates. Eventually Dinsdale and the other children were rescued by HMS Hermes (95) a British Aircraft carrier.[5][6] The 10-year-old Dinsdale wrote an account of the adventure which received second prize in a competition run by a local newspaper, his first success as a writer.[7]
In 1936 he and his brother returned to Britain to attend King's School, Worcester[1][2] as boarders, and his sister was at a girls' school.[8] In 1942-3 he attended the de Havilland Aeronautical Technical School, and also volunteered in the Home Guard, where during training he sustained a bullet wound to the hand, the object not being removed for 28 years.[9] He joined the Royal Air Force becoming a pilot, and was training in Rhodesia and South Africa when the war ended so returned to complete his aeronautical training, and joining the aircraft industry.[10]
Being made redundant from the aircraft industry in 1962 he took a job as a self-employed insurance salesman, which allowed him to spend more time on a passion he had developed for proving the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, and which was to take over his life.[14] He later got income from lecturing and the sale of books.[1]
On 14 December 1987 he died of a heart attack at his home in Reading, and was cremated on 21 December.[15] He was survived by his wife and four children.[1]
Loch Ness Monster
An article "The Day I saw the Loch Ness Monster" in Everybody's magazine (21 Feb 1959)[16] caught his attention, and he began reading more about the topic.[17] In April 1960 he made a lone expedition to the Loch, with six days of watching. On the fourth day (21 April) and sixth day (23 April) he took cine film of a moving object on the surface.[18] Along with his binocular observations, he was convinced that the film of 23 April was authentic proof of the existence of the monster, so next day he got a dinghy to take a similar track which he recorded on the remaining part of the film for comparison.[19] Having shown the film to various people, he was approached by a newspaper reporter, and on 13 June the incident was reported in the Daily Mail with images and the film was shown on the BBC Panorama TV programme.[20][21] Following this, he was commissioned to write a book Loch Ness Monster which was published in 1961.
The story and subsequent comments spread through the media. According to one author
The sensational result of Dinsdale's Expedition was to inspire an extraordinary revival of the mystery and trigger two decades of intensive surveillance of the loch's baffling surface. [22]
In 1967 he received a grant from Kodak for photographic equipment to help in his search.[26]
He had other sightings including what he described as a head and neck:
My first sighting in 1970 was 10ft. of neck sticking up out of the water. At a range of half a mile, it was as thick as a telegraph post. I saw it next in 1971. I saw a 4ft.-high neck, very clearly, at about 250 yards.
Despite as many visits to the Loch as he could afford, he failed to obtain any more film footage.
In July 1987 at a two-day symposium in the Royal Scottish Museum's Natural History Department he was made an Honorary Member of the International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC) for
your many years of tireless efforts and fieldwork concerning the Loch Ness Monster. Regardless of whether such an animal exists or not, your dedication to the investigation and the honesty and integrity with which you have proceeded, is unparalleled in the field.
^"Episode 4". The Repair Shop. Series 6. 8 April 2020. BBC One. Retrieved 12 October 2022.
Bibliography
Dinsdale, Angus (2013). The Man who Filmed Nessie: Tim Dinsdale and the enigma of the Loch Ness Monster. Hancock House. ISBN978-0-88839-726-3. Pages are location in Kindle version.
Dinsdale, Tim (1961). Loch Ness Monster. Routledge & Kegan Paul. SBN7100-1279-9.1968 reprint by the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau plus postscript by the author, of the 1961 book
Binns, Ronald (1983). The Loch Ness Mystery Solved. Open Books. ISBN0-7291-0139-8.