May 8th 1914

The Second Sight of Rachel Cameron

Beside Loch Rannoch, near to Bridge of Gaur, in the last century lived Rachel Cameron. She had red hair and she possessed the gift of second sight. It was a gift that had been with her family for generations and was passed down through red headed daughters. It was not a gift that she desired for it often brought with it pain and exhaustion, but it was also a gift that she used to bring comfort to those in distress.

In 1896 a youth was drowned in Loch Awe but the body could not be found. A friend of the family remembering Rachel’s reputation went to visit her and seek her help. That night Rachel had a vision and awoke exhausted and bathed in sweat. She told the friend that the mother must go to a certain island and there line herself up with two other islands and a hill on the mainland.

The next day, the mother was rowed across to an island that seemed to fit the description given by Rachel. She walked along the shore until she could glimpse the hill and the other two islands. Suddenly there was a disturbance on the water and her son’s body came to the surface and floated towards her. The boy was later buried at Innischaill, the island in Loch Awe where the mother had first glimpsed the body.

Rachel herself died the following year but left a daughter, also Rachel Cameron, also red haired and also possessing the second sight. In one famous case, a farmer from Aberfeldy disappeared on his way home and was suspected of having fallen into the River Tay. But, although the river was repeatedly searched, no trace of the body could be found. In desperation Rachel Cameron the younger was consulted. She ‘saw’ the body held in a tree beneath a strange looking bridge which she sketched. It was of course Wade’s Bridge at Aberfeldy, and when divers searched they found the farmer’s body held fast among the roots of a tree beneath the bridge.

The younger Rachel Cameron died in 1914 and both mother and daughter are buried in the graveyard of Killiechonan by Loch Rannoch.