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Giraffes at the Zoo
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Takes me back some 55 years - I spent quite a while staying in my Uncle Vic's zoo-keeper house in Bristol Zoo. My auntie Amy nursed one of the first chimpanzees to be bred without his mother - Timothy was his name: he and Auntie Amy featured in the Daily Mirror at the time (I wonder if that archive can still be found?); I woke up in the morning to the sound of chattering gibbons, wandered the grounds before the public were admitted, met Simon the honey-bear and his inordinate fondness for pints of milk and gladiatorial challenges with Uncle Vic over a broom handle (Simon always won); communed with Ferdinand, the bison - who charged his bars at strangers but placidly allowed me to scratch his snout; and of course conversed with the giraffes - and the jackal - and hyenas - and the Mandrill (excessively fond of my mother, as he would all too obviously reveal) - and watched as the Congo gorillas very gently restrained their keeper through the bars, while whipping his cap off and playing with it: animals were less securely contained in those days - a huge paw could extend through the bars and detain you; Rosie the elephant would let you ride in an improvised howdah on her back (I never had the courage to submit to that; I had a fear of heights, and Rosie was a big gal).
I suspect you won't get a childhood like that these days, and I miss it.
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