2 Preface
It was a chance encounter on a train to London that first made me think seriously about writing up some of my life’s experiences. I was sitting opposite an American Lady who was on the staff of a magazine and we started talking.
‘Do you live in London?’ she asked me.
‘No, I live in a beautiful part of Northumberland, but I lived in London until I was twenty.’
‘Oh, whereabouts did you live?’
How I replied to that question depended on whether I wanted to go on chatting. I could have just said ‘In North London’, but instead I said that from the age of one to six we lived in Regent’s Park before moving to NW2.
‘Whereabouts in Regent’s Park’ she asked. I then explained how when I was just a year old my father returned from Africa to take up a post with grand sounding title of Superintendant of London Zoo, and that our house was actually in the middle of the zoo itself.
She was incredulous but started asking me how much I could remember about my life in the zoo. ‘Well to be honest, I can remember a lot, as if it was just yesterday in fact.’ It was then as we talked she started saying what a wonderful story it could make. Curiously it was a few years before the rather bizarre story The life of Pi was published, but I did admit it was the most wonderful environment for a small child to grow up in. I can trace my interest in animals and the natural environment to those early years and didn’t even mind the taunts of my school friends about living in the monkey house. I put them down to jealousy.
David, my brother is two years older than me, so after he started school I was on my own at home. I’m pretty sure if my mother was to have done today what she did then she would have been in big trouble with Social Services, but she was happy for me to roam the zoo by myself on my tricycle during the mornings, with a note pinned to my back saying “PLEASE SEND ME HOME AT 12’o Clock for LUNCH”
I came to no harm, or at least not very often. My trike had no brakes, and if you have ever been to London Zoo you may remember how it is divided in two by a road (The Outer Circle). Two tunnels allow the public to access both side of the zoo, so for me it was great sport to come round the corner, then with legs off the pedals and wide apart, whizz down the tunnel at top speed. That was all very well until one day I came round the corner to see the tunnel was full of people. I aimed for a small gap to the left - see, I remember it well - but hit the concrete wall instead. Luckily the zoo’s electric meat wagon came upon me, scraped me up and to the first aid post.
Apparently apart from a bent nose, which I have to this day I was relatively unscathed.
Well, dear friends, that is my two penny worth for starters. If the bug gets me that might be all you’ll ever get, and I will forgive you for thinking ‘thank goodness for that’ but much as I love Bonny her conversation is somewhat limited, so this project might keep me relatively sane.