Paranormal record / 1952
December 1952. Peter McEwan and his family moved into Ardachie Lodge, a former shooting lodge near Fort Augustus and Loch Ness. He planned a pig farm. He hired a married couple, the Macdonalds, to keep house. Then the nights changed. Raps. Knocking. Footsteps crossing the landing. Late one night, Mrs Macdonald awoke to find an elderly woman crawling slowly along the upstairs corridor, carrying a candle. Two members of the Society for Psychical Research came to stay. The abbot of Fort Augustus Abbey reportedly exorcised the house. McEwan's own conclusion, in print: something genuinely paranormal may be occurring.
In late 1952 Peter McEwan, an Edinburgh-trained graduate in psychology and sociology, moved his family to Ardachie Lodge. The former shooting lodge stood near Fort Augustus, in the parish of Boleskine and Abertarff, close to Loch Ness. McEwan wanted to farm pigs. To run the house, he hired a married couple. Mr and Mrs Macdonald. Housekeeper and handyman. Mrs Macdonald, it was said, had never been out of England.