By ANDREW McCALLUM,
Chief Reporter
A NEW company is offering subscribers with a minimum of #500 a
sporting plunge in a venture next spring in search of Hebridean
treasure.
Directors of SS Politician plc believe the treasure is in No. 5 hold
of the wreck of the cratur-laden Politician, which ran aground off
Eriskay nearly half a century ago.
Subsequent exploits of the islanders, who helped themselves to
thousands of bottles, inspired the book, Whisky Galore, by Compton
Mackenzie.
The #1 Shares will be on offer from next Tuesday and the subscription
list will close on December 12. A minimum of #500,000 is required to be
raised and the firm has sent out 10,000 prospectuses which warn: ''S.S.
Politician plc is a new and unquoted company. Investment in the company
must be regarded as speculative and involving a higher than average
degree of risk.''
If the bid to raise the #500,000 fails, the directors will be faced
with a #65,000 bill. Investors will have their money returned.
Divers led by Mr Donald MacPhee, now a member of the company's
four-man board, brought up eight bottles of whisky two years ago. They
went for more than #4000 at auction.
His investigation persuaded the directors there could still be 24,000
bottles of whisky in the hold and six cases of Jamaican currency. The
Politician was en route to Jamaica, when she came to grief on February
3, 194l.
Director Mr Jeremy Brough, 34, said at a news conference yesterday:
''I think we want everyone to go into it appreciating the risks inherent
in the operation. We wouldn't consider it a gamble, however. It's to be
seen as a high-risk investment.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article