The Scottish roots of Roxy Loudrige inventor of the Gifachrome technology Way up north in the highlands of Scotland, hidden deep down in the glen of the river Finnay, once lay the beautiful old house of the McGiff family. The estate was called Blue Cairn, referring to the strangely colored big rocks that set near the gate to the family’s estate. Gregor McGiff, son of Hamish McGiff and his bonny wife Mathilda, lived a happy life as a young man in the house of his parents. Being gently born, and having wealthy parents, lord Gregor had no more duties than the usual things young noblemen were supposed to do photo 2: Remnant of the blue cairn at the like for instance hunting, playing croquet and flirting Blue Cairn estate's entrance with young women trying to find a proper spouse to produce an heir for the McGiff family. Hamish and Mathilde had been granted only one child. They had three children but lost two of them as babies. So, the responsibility to procure an heir to the McGiff estate, lay solely on the shoulders of young Gregor. Gregor's parents loved their son to bits and were inclined to spoil their only child rotten. Each time he found a new dream to his future, his parents financed his infatuation. Gregor had had many infatuations, for instance once he wanted to become a famous poet and later dreamed of becoming an important painter. Both ended in a total delusion due to lack of talent. Some time later, Gregor thought of taking up science as his new passion. Though missing the proper education, he had thought of himself as becoming a famous chemist. Being aware of the growing importance of explosives in then modern warfare, Gregor set him self as a goal to invent the world's most powerful explosive. Not only would this give him most surely a proper place in British history, most of all it would make him one of the richest men in the world. Hamish and Mathilda McGiff offered Gregor one of the least used stables on the estate as a place where he could have a laboratory build and perform his experiments. They also gave him a considerable large sum of money, to buy the necessary equipment and photo 1: Gregor McGiff used trees to test his explosives chemicals.
Gregor first declined the offer of using the stable because in winter it would be too cold to work there. He also hated the idea of having to go through the rain and the snow in winter when going from the main house to the stable. He would rather use a space in the main house. But this time his parents did not give in and after a couple of weeks, Gregor settled for the stable as his laboratory. Gregor spend many hours in his laboratory trying all kinds of combinations of dangerous chemicals hoping photo 3: Gregor McGiff at work in his to make something powerful. He tried his inventions in laboratory the woods, where he blew up many trees. But after months of rather randomly trying, he still did not produce an explosive powerful enough to be competitive with existing explosives. As his parents expected, Gregor's affetuation with explosives got less over time. First he stopped going to his laboratory when it snowed and soon after that even some light rain became too much of a hurdle for him to take. This all came to a change though after Hamish and Mathilda McGiff suffered a tragic accident. Due to heavy rainfall the roads to the estate had gotten so muddy that their carriage slipped down a steep hill of the glen. Both parents and their driver were killed instantaneously. Gregor, now without guidance of his beloved parents, became completely obsessed with his dream of becoming a famous chemist. He took out a loan on what was now his estate, and had a modern photo 4: Ruin of main house chemical laboratory installed in the main house. Now, not hindered anymore by rain nor snow, he started to work on his explosives feverously. It was in the middle of summer when Gregor suffered an almost fatal incident. After working all day in his laboratory, Gregor went upstairs to his bedroom to get some sleep. He had forgotten to close all the windows of his laboratory and thus it happened that the wind tipped over a candle into the latest combination of chemicals Gregor was working on. Alas this time Gregor's combination worked in the way he wanted it to work for years. The explosion was so powerful that it ruined the house beyond repair and almost killed Gregor and his housekeeper. photo 5: Cottage where Gregor McGiff Gregor was very lucky to still be alive. He even didn't lived after selling Blue Cairn have a scratch. But since he had mortgaged the house, this incident put him into bankruptcy. He had to sell the Blue Cairn estate and move into a simple cottage. Gregor had new priorities now. The first thing he planned, was to get to some money again. He was still young enough to be an attractive partner. He also still had his gently manners and his good looks.
Surely, he thought, the name of McGiff would still mean something to many women. Thus thinking he decided that marrying a wealthy woman would be the easiest way to get wealthy again. And thus he set off to do. In the nearby town Kinlochfinnay, there was a young unmarried woman named Louise Delariche. As the name shows the Delariche family had her roots in France, yet lived in Scotland for several generations already. Old daddy Francois Delariche had come to quite some wealth as a banker and was informed on the poor financial condition of Gregor. The noble McGiff family name was important to him and he him self had thought earlier of getting the two families together through a marriage of Gregor to one of his daughters. All the Delariche daughters had found their spouse yet. Only Louise, being the least fair of them all yet the smartest, was still not married. She even hadn't been engaged once. Thus it happened that both Francois Delariche and Gregor McGiff, not knowing of eachother's intent, met in the Delariche house and, after a couple glasses of dram, ended up discussing the possibility of a union in marriage of Gregor and Louise. Francois and Gregor agreed that such a marriage might be beneficial for all parties and decided to present this proposal to Louise. The final decision would be up to her of course. Louise Delariche got the news of Gregor's proposal from her father the very next day. Being an intelligent woman, she already considered this possibility her self, knowing her father's ambitions and the delicate financial position of Gregor. She did not have to think long about what to answer. She told her father to tell Gregor that she would agree to a marriage on the condition that her money stayed in her own possession and under her control. She photo 6: Gregor, Louise and Rochelle in also demanded that the monthly allowance she was to give front of their drugstore to Gregor was under no circumstances to be use for research on military devices for she was a devoted pacifist. Gregor, with some hesitation at first, accepted the offer. The couple married and actually had a rather good marriage. Though Gregor was now in a secure financial position leading a good life in Scotland, he still felt ashamed over how he had lost the family estate due to his own fault. At the same time his now wife Louise, coming from a family of entrepreneurs, felt a bit trapped in this small Scottish community. On a cold winter evening, sitting near a big fire in the hearth of the drawing room, both confessed these feelings to each other. They decided together that they would try photo 7: graduation of Rochelle McGiff to have a go at a new life overseas in the United States of America and would move there next spring. In the USA Gregor and Louise used Louise's money to set up a drugstore. Next to working in the shop, Gregor took lessons in chemistry trying to improve his scientific skills. He had a new passion now: photography. From what he saved of his monthly allowance of Louise, he bought a camera and equipment to develop his photos. It was at this phase in Gregor's and Louise's life at the east coast of the USA that their marriage got
blessed with a daughter. They named her Rochelle, a French name like her mother's. The name also referred to the big blue rock, that stood near the entrance of the once McGiff's estate. Rochelle McGiff inherited her mother's good brains and common sense. From her father, who took her to his photo laboratory as of an early age, she got the fascination and passion for photography. Rochelle went to university and after graduation worked all her professional life on improving photography techniques. As photos became a more normal commodity Rochelle became interested in creating moving pictures. Many of her colleagues went into what we now know as the movie industry, where the illusion of movement is created by showing many slightly changing pictures at a rate of 24 frames per second. Rochelle on the other hand pursued the possibility of having moving objects in 1 picture. After many years of hard work she managed to achieve this goal. We all know Rochelle McGif now as Roxy Loudrige, the professional name that she took on in her late twenties as an homage to her mother Louise Delariche. To honor her father who inspired her so much, she named the moving image her camera and her technology produce an "animated Giff". Later the public abbreviated this into simply "gif". The camera she developed, is now know to us all as the Gifachrome camera.
photo 8: Roxy Loudrige, a.k.a. Rochelle McGiff, at work in her Gifachrome laboratory