The Maid of the Loch
Back in June 1980, my wife, I, and our young son Andrew, together with my sister-in-law Gill and her husband Tony, with their young son James, took a holiday in Scotland. The weather tended to do it's worst, and on one of the very wet days we decided to have our lunch on the Loch Lomond Steamer , "The Maid of the Isles". This was built by A.J. Inglis of Pointhouse Glasgow in 1952, partly on the Clyde and then rebuilt on Loch Lomond itself. She has suffered a lot of neglect in the past decade, but is now being restored by her new owners, the Loch Lomond Steamship Company. She was, and thankfully still is, the largest inland steamer in Britain. She is infact very similar to the sea going PS Waverley, with a similar tonnage and passenger capacity. The Maid of the Loch is now looking even more like her older compatriot, with a new paint scheme, very different to her previous all white livery.
We were staying on Loch Fyne, near Inverary, so the nearest point we could catch the boat was at Luss pier. The following photos are AgfaChrome slides all taken with my Olympus OM1, with a f1.8 lens and have subsequently been scanned in on my CanoScan 2700F slide scanner. The exception is this first picture of the the Maid arriving at Luss, which was taken on my Wife's Kodak 110 camera, and the resulting print scanned in using my Genius ColorPage -SP2 flat bed scanner.
The Maid of the Loch arriving at Luss Pier, I am the figure on the right with the large bag of camera equipment!
Leaving Luss pier, note that ther are more people on the pier, than the boat!
View from on top, including the funnel.
The engine room
The dining room; Gill and James studying the menu! This was beautifully laid out, crisp, white linen, full table settings, and fresh flowers on every table. Sad thing is, we were the only customers!
Battling into the rain.
The Maid continuing her trip into the gathering gloom, after leaving us back at Luss pier.
The Maid in full steam on the other side of the Loch after leaving Luss.
She went out of service the following year and only now is she looking like coming back into service, as reported here after a recent visit!
All images Copyright Dr. C. F. Parsons 1999