We dive into the Helensburgh Advertiser archives from Friday, August 3, 1973 and find a front page story that really left a mark...
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"Ach(s)tung!"
Police were alerted. Lawmen rushed into action.
A foreign looking gentleman had been reported performing a strange, ritual war dance near the Garelochhead tenis pavilion, on Monday evening.
As the police van sped through the village to the scene locals watched amazed whilst Marco Rechnitzer (21) of Dortmund in Germany, jumped around in a frenzy.
But the tripper who had decided to camp in the village was "gnat" kidding.
Questioned by the local bobbies he was being driven frantic by the local midges and finally he had jumped from his tent, verging on hysteria, flaying the air around him and rubbing what were certainly not "Deutsch marks" on his neck.
Rumours that it took three big policemen to arrest three midges were discounted, but villagers agreed that the local insects were nearly big enough.
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