Clem Skelton, a Loch Ness Monster expert, had a terrifying encounter with what he insisted was the beast when he found himself "surrounded by foamy water" with a large hump emerging next to his boat.
Skelton led an extraordinary life, leaving home at 14 to pursue his acting dreams before becoming a top RAF pilot in World War II and later joining a religious order.
He also relished his time in the limelight. His widow Alison recalled: "It was those days when companies travelled by train all over the country, and you met all your friends at Crewe Station going on to their next performance." Adopting "Clement Lister" and "Lister Skelton" as his stage names, the young actor was eventually offered the role of young King David in a Hollywood Biblical epic.
However, when war broke out and he joined the RAF, he "had to jump out of a burning plane" and "would say that he finished the war" and joked he "destroyed the same number of enemy aircraft as he did of his own side's – meaning he had seven crash landings," Alison told The Telegraph.
Post-war, his fascination with the Loch Ness monster led him to a more peaceful life and he bought a house near the famous Scottish loch where he met his wife. Despite his dedication to discovering the creature, he only encountered the mythical beast once.
His wife said: "He was rowing across the loch around midnight to service the camera on the other side, and this thing came up beside the boat, a hump shape surrounded by foamy water. It was bigger than the boat, so he rowed the hell out of there, as any sensible person would.", reports the Mirror US.
The pair first crossed paths when Alison, an American, was hiking in the area and decided to indulge in a traditional British cream tea. The spark was immediate between 47 year old Clem and 20 year old Alison.
Upon seeing her, he confidently proclaimed "that's the girl I'm going to marry."
However, he'd had an earlier potential romance with a royal. Being the son of a Royal equerry, he maintained his frequent visits to Queen Mary at Marlborough House post-war, where he encountered Princess Margaret.
"Queen Mary told him: 'You must take Margaret out to dinner.' He was a penniless actor, but he couldn't really say no to Queen Mary," Alison said.
Clem's life took another unexpected twist when he was encouraged by Alison's sister-in-law to try his hand at writing. Initially, Alison and her husband penned Gothic romances under the pseudonym Abigail Clements.
Eventually, Clem authored his own novel, Hardacre, drawing inspiration from his childhood in Yorkshire and his mother's experiences, chronicling the trials and tribulations of the Hardacre family up until the 1950s.
Alison, speaking about her husband's storytelling skills, said: "I'm probably the only wife who was delighted when her husband retold a story, because he did it so well."
His work was so successful that Clem felt compelled to write a sequel, Hardcare's Luck, a historical fiction piece focusing on a Scottish Highland regiment.
However, tragedy struck in the 1970s. Clem's promising writing career was abruptly ended when he was diagnosed with lung cancer, a result of his heavy smoking habit.
He often joked that he would "wake up in the morning and then 20 minutes later get up when he'd stopped coughing".
Clem passed away at the age of 59 in February 1979. After his death, his work faded into obscurity but was re-published in 2014, once again reaching the bestseller lists.
His sons, Alasdair and Justin, were particularly heartened by this resurgence. "I find it difficult to unravel what are memories of my father and what are memories of stories I've been told," Alasdair said.
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