Danny Robins Reveals New Revelations About The Curse Of Luibeilt & The Fate Of Its Former Inhabitants
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Photo: © Mark Horrell
Over Christmas Danny Robins brought us a two-part special of 'Uncanny' in which he investigated a story that took place in 1973 and involved two young climbers who spent the night in a remote cottage in the Scottish Highlands.
Both episodes are available to listen to now on BBC Sounds. In the first part we meet Phil Macneill who tells us his story. He and his friend believed the cottage to be suddenly abandoned shortly before Christmas 1973, but soon found that something very frightening lurked inside.
In the second part, we learn that this night in the haunted cottage was just the beginning for Phil, as we hear about the bizarre and terrifying incidents that have haunted Phil ever since, including in his apartment on Glasgow's Gibson Street.
The cottage in question, Luibeilt was actually a bothy, a building that provided shelter for climbers and walkers. The bothy is now in ruins, but in episode 10 of 'Uncanny' we heard from Phil about his first trip to the cottage in the 70s.
Phil said, "we understood at the time that the place was occupied by some hippies who decided to live off the land," but upon entering the remote cottage, Phil and his friend Jimmy realised that the place had seemingly been vacated very suddenly.
Phil told Danny, "the table was set for Christmas. There were Christmas crackers on the table, but Christmas hadn't happened. The place looked as if people had upped and left all of a sudden."
However, in the latest episode of Danny's hit podcast, it seems the mystery of what happened to the inhabitants of the bothy has been solved, and Danny explored some new theories, thoughts and questions sent in by listeners.
In a case update, Danny told us "we have solved one mystery", he's referring to the reason why the bothy was abandoned. Danny explained, "Phil's been obsessed with trying to work out what happened to him and recently he's been posting on online forums for climbers and the other day, he received an email from a man who'd been a friend and neighbour to the people who had been living at Luibeilt in the early 70s."
Of course Luibeilt is so remote that, according to Danny, this neighbour lived about an hour's drive away. Finally, we find out a little more about the bothy's former inhabitants, those who Phil had described as hippies. Danny said, "the people living there were a couple and they had opted out of society, but were trying to raise their family in this utterly remote place, with no electricity or heating."
Danny continues with the story, "they gave birth to another baby at Christmas and when the local doctor arrived, he gave them a stark choice, to leave this bothy for their family safety or the child would be taken from them." Of course, this all makes sense and explains why Phil described finding the bothy furnished with belongings in every single room.
Danny then addressed some listeners' questions, mainly those relating to Phil's climbing buddies. Danny said, "many of you have asked if we can speak to Phil's friend and fellow climber Jimmy Dunn. So Phil lost touch with Jimmy and the last time they spoke Jimmy said he didn't want to talk about what has happened to him anymore." However, Danny directed listeners to a Facebook post from Jimmy's daughter that confirmed the story is true.
In his original story, Phil also mentioned a friend name David Gracey, who accompanied Phil on his second trip to the bothy. Danny tells us, "Phil emailed me to say David was never the same after Luibeilt and suffered from bouts of depression. He was found dead one day in winter, having succumbed to hypothermia in unexplained conditions."
Phil also forwarded Danny an email from David's nephew, John. Danny read out the very poignant last line of John's email about David's experiences at Luibeilt, "it has stuck in all our heads."
Danny then moved on to some theories sent in by listeners that could explain the paranormal activity Phil and his friends experienced at the bothy. He read out an email from Rory and Siobhan Kavanagh, "the routes around Ben Nevis were heavily used in commando survival training. Commandos are trained to exploit their environment and I can imagine one or two of them coming across the bothy and thinking it was hilarious to spook the guys inside."
Another theory sent in by Will Fisher on Twitter is the possibility that the former residents, the hippies, left behind some psychedelic drugs. Will tweeted, "any chances of lingering hallucinogenic drug traces? They would preserve well in a cold dark environment. LSD would remain viable in this situation, and can be absorbed through the skin."
One big mystery was solved in this update, but there are still plenty of unanswered questions. Danny wraps up the update by telling us, "there is a lot more to come out about this case, not only about Luibeilt, but also about Gibson Street where Phil had his apartment. We will return to this with more revelations."
After the update on Luibeilt and an interesting new testimony on the case of Hannah Betts from episode 9, Danny moved on to the main subject of this week's episode, which is entitled 'Fatal Collision'. The episode revolves around Amanda, a delivery driver who was on her way home in the early hours when she was involved in a terrible, life-changing accident, but all was not as it seemed.
You can find out more about Amanda's story and the other cases in the series here.
More episodes of Radio 4's 'Uncanny' are available on BBC Sounds now and will also be broadcast on Saturday nights at 11:30pm on Radio 4.
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