The documentary Garnet’s Gold’, re-titled ‘The Lost Gold of the Highlands’ on BBC , was a brilliantly filmed feature surrounding
the strange life and times of one Garnet Frost. A late fifty-something Londoner
who, never having married or lived with a partner, had stayed with his mum in a
state of splendid artistic dishevelment in a comfortable semi in that anonymous
London sprawl which John Betjemen referred to as ‘Metroland’.
For reasons not quite explained, Garnet had paid his first
visit to the Scottish Highlands twenty years previously and somehow found himself
wandering the midge infested bounds of Lock Arkaig where he found himself
tumbling down a ravine; coming to rest on the shores of a fast flowing small river
which would enter the Loch further down. Lodged in one of the bank side rocks was
a curious gnarled staff. It’s possible significance lost on the finder who
starving, cold and dehydrated lapsed into a state of semi consciousness;
prepared to accept the inevitability of death.
By a million to one chance he was rescued by a passing
stalker and his return to civilisation coincided with his discovery of the
legend of Prince Charlie’s Gold. During the Jacobite rebellion, funds in the
form of gold bullion was brought over from the continent to financially
underpin the campaign. However, defeat at Culloden saw the booty carted hither
and thither across the Highlands until-legend has it-it was hidden someone near
the shores of Loch Arkaig.
The bothy near Lock Arkaig: Walking Highlands
Before the focus moves oop north, Garnet’s life with his 90
year old mother and friends is developed through talking head interviews and
footage showing his predilection for beer, fags, dancing and crooning at the
local boozer. As great outdoors activists go, Garnet is just about as far away
from the norm as you can get.
Without any discernible means of income, our hero somehow
manages to get himself an old Land Rover Discovery, a small boat and a weather
balloon with a camera attachment and takes off with two friends for whom the
wilds of Scotland are as alien to their suburban comfort zone as the jungles of
the Congo!
Staying at the old bothy, Garnet takes off alone into the wild. His apparel refreshingly logo free and looking as if it was bought from an army and navy stores in the 1960's.His face quietly erupting into a midge bitten visage of swollen red skin. His bare legs inviting every tick in the area to climb aboard.
Ed Perkins captures it beautifully with some truly stunning footage; all taken apparently, on a single camera by the director himself.
Certainly well worth checking out. It might even still be on BBC iPlayer as we speak. Available in the UK only.
Ed Perkins captures it beautifully with some truly stunning footage; all taken apparently, on a single camera by the director himself.
Certainly well worth checking out. It might even still be on BBC iPlayer as we speak. Available in the UK only.