A diver who salvaged a bottle of Scotch from the ship that inspired Whisky Galore! is hoping it will net him a fortune when it sells at auction tomorrow.
George Currie, 67, was working on a subsea cable repair in 1987 when his team decided to try to locate the wreck of the SS Politician during some time off.
The ship was packed with 28,000 cases of whisky when she sank off the Hebridean island of Eriskay in 1941.
The story of how islanders “rescued” bottles was immortalised by Compton Mackenzie in his classic novel.
George, from Kirkwall, Orkney, has told how he and his friends located No5 hold, 46 years after it was blown up by customs officials to deny looters.
The group bagged five intact bottles, of which he kept one.
Retired North Sea diver George said he had entertained family and friends with the tale so often that it was now time to pass it on to someone else.
He added: “When we found the bottles, they were already going for about £100 each but I never thought of selling mine.
“It holds a lot of memories for me of the fun and the joy we had getting them. But it’s been a talking point for 33 years and I think everybody’s probably fed up with the story now.
“It’s been in my cupboard for years, stored on its side. I sealed it with wax to stop the cork from evaporating and kept turning the bottle to keep it wet.
“You couldn’t drink the whisky but it’s a piece of history – now it’s time for someone else to have it.
“Besides, I’ve also got four sons and five grandkids and I can’t divide it.”
George entered his prized bottle into The Grand Whisky Auction’s online sale, which runs until 9pm tomorrow.
Bids from around the world have already hit £8500, despite a warning that the bottle is “not suitable for human consumption”.
George recalled: “A group of us were working on a power cable. We got the job done and had some downtime.
“We’d been speaking about the Politician the night before in the pub and when we went looking, we hit it on the first go.
“When we went, it was a beautiful day, at low tide. There wasn’t much of it left – one part of the hull standing and the other side had collapsed with sand right up to the top.
“There was a lot of glass but in one wee pocket there were bottlenecks sticking up – and there they were. We had scallop bags with us, and put the bottles we found in them.”
The 8000-ton vessel was en route to Jamaica and New Orleans with a cargo including about £3million of Jamaican banknotes as well as whisky.
Thousands of bottles were removed by islanders from under the noses of the authorities.
The hold was blown up by Customs & Excise officials in an attempt to put the drink beyond temptation.
One local famously said: “Dynamiting whisky? You wouldn’t think there’d be men in the world so crazy as that.”
The story was immortalised by Mackenzie in 1947, although he re-christened the ship the SS Cabinet Minister and the islands of South Uist and Eriskay as Great and Little Todday.
The novel inspired a 1949 film starring Gordon Jackson, Joan Greenwood and Basil Radford. It was remade in 2016 with a cast including Gregor Fisher, Eddie Izzard and James Cosmo.
