7 George Cansdale
This is George’s obituary written by Biddy Baxter, Blue Peter’s iconic editor for many years who knew him very well.
Some of what is written you may have read before, but there are lot of other snippets worth learning about.
Quite an inspiration I think you will agree.
George Soper Cansdale, zoologist and broadcaster: born Brentwoood, Essex 29 November 1909; Colonial Forest Service, Gold Coast 1934-48; Superintendent, Zoological Society of London 1948-53; married 1940 Margaret Sheila Williamson (died 1992; two sons); died Great Chesterford, Essex 24 August 1993.
FOR ANY child watching Blue Peter during the Sixties, Seventies and most of the Eighties, George Cansdale was television’s zoo man - the large, avuncular studio guest who would show the presenters how to bath six-foot pythons, produce bush-babies from his trouser pockets and tarantulas out of his turn-ups.
Children loved him because he was quirky, authoritative and uncondescending. Presenters from Valerie Singleton and John Noakes to Sarah Greene, Simon Groom and Peter Duncan admired him as an expert and a true professional. Cansdale was guaranteed to provide riveting viewing. If it crawled, slithered, flew, climbed or swam, he would bring it to the studio. Often his fingers were ominously covered with bloody bits of Elastoplast - he was intrepid when it came to handling the most dangerous animal and could never quite understand when a presenter flinched as a snake lunged or an orang-utan bared its teeth.
Generations of directors were kept on their toes because Cansdale, whose knowledge was vast, rarely did the same thing in the same order twice. During the ‘live’ transmissions there would be agonised cries: ‘He’s put the rat in the other pocket’, or ‘The skink’s going up his trousers instead of down his sleeve]’ The production team may have been reduced to jelly, but Cansdale remained imperturbable. Just what you would expect from a man who had flown from Singapore to London with poisonous snakes in his pyjamas. ‘They had to be kept warm, they were perfectly safe in my hand baggage,’ he pointed out.
George Cansdale was born in 1909 in Brentwood, Essex. The son of a clerk in a City shipping office, he won a scholarship to Brentwood School. His chief interest as a boy was ornithology, but as a student at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, reading for a forestry degree, he broadened his outlook and spent an extra couple of years doing his B Sc, followed by training for the Colonial Service.
In 1934, he was appointed Forest Officer for the Gold Coast, which was where he started collecting animals. It happened almost by chance. A friend working for Paignton Zoo begged him to bring home as many specimens as he could, on his next leave. Because his forestry work was so time-consuming, Cansdale, who was fluent in Tui, one of the main languages, enlisted the help of the local children he knew at the big government school on his station. He improvised travelling boxes from old petrol tins and their wooden containers and the 80 specimens included squirrels, hornbills, owls, touracos and snakes. This was when he had what he later described as his only ‘serious’ accident with animals - the first poisonous snake he had ever handled alive.
A boy brought him a small black snake held in the split end of a stick - not more than a third of a metre long and thinner than a finger. Although Cansdale picked it up correctly, behind the head, it bit the top of his left index finger. Unfortunately for him it was a burrowing viper - one of the very few snakes that cannot be picked up by hand as its lengthy fangs can strike however it is held.
In spite of his cutting the bite, letting it bleed and applying a tourniquet, by nightfall the fingertip had turned grey. Gradually it rotted off and the finger healed - nearly half an inch short. Cansdale felt he had
had a lucky escape and it certainly didn’t put him off collecting. He built up his own small zoos at his various jungle stations and they were so popular with the local inhabitants he had to fix regular opening hours. Whole classes of small children used to visit from schools in the towns too; most of them were seeing forest creatures alive for the first time in their lives.
Cansdale trained teams of boys to help him collect live specimens for zoos abroad and also to prepare skins for museums. They recorded many ‘firsts’ for West Africa, including two new species, a bat and a flying squirrel, eight snakes not previously recorded for the Gold Coast, and a huge black cobra found in a heap of rubbish in the office yard 8ft 8in long - nearly a foot longer than the previous best for West Africa. As well as supplying London Zoo he was able to offer animals to the Dublin and Edinburgh Zoos when they were restocking after the Second World War.
In 1940, George Cansdale married Sheila Williamson, who had been a fellow-student at Oxford, and thus began a perfect partnership that lasted almost 52 years. They first met in 1933 and as well as a mutual interest in wildlife they were both committed Christians. Sheila led a Bible study group for 30 years after returning to the UK and from 1950 to 1971 George was Churchwarden of All Souls’ Langham Place. A Vice-President of the evangelical Crusaders Union, he spoke frequently at Crusader classes, churches and other Christian groups - often accompanied by Percy and Polly, his pet python and bush-baby.
It was while he was home on leave in 1947 that George Cansdale was headhunted by the Zoological Society of London. He was asked if he would take over as Superintendent from Dr Gwynne Vevers, who was about to retire. It was an inspired choice, for, in addition to his lifelong study of animals, as a Forest Officer Cansdale had added accounting, publicity, staff management, building, roadmaking and the care of trees to his skills. He held this post for five years from May 1948, but they were far from happy ones. He was quick to discover a hornet’s nest of mismanagement and dishonesty and his efforts to stop the malpractices met with robust opposition from nearly all quarters.
His detective work began with the turnstile staff. He soon realised their style of living was vastly above their weekly wage packets. One man had a palatial house in Bedford and would take taxis to and from the station to the zoo. Cansdale estimated at least 10 per cent of London Zoo’s income was being fiddled away by the turnstile cheats. When he changed the system there was an uproar.
On querying bills for the animals’ food he discovered most of the keepers thought taking home bags full of fresh fruit and vegetables a legitimate perk. One man even had a profitable line in selling off the zoo’s bedding- out plants - he supplied the best fuchsias in Camden and made a considerable income.
One of Cansdale’s most extraordinary pieces of detection happened quite by chance. He was very much a ‘hands on’ Superintendent, spending just as much time out and about in the zoo as in his office. Late one night he decided to visit the reptile house. It was pitch dark and when he switched on the light he discovered the whole floor area obliterated by a seething mass of cockroaches. Appalled by this lack of hygiene he ordered an immediate de-infestation. To his amazement the keepers objected to any kind of clean-up. ‘Oh well,’ he was eventually told by the one security officer who was on his side, ‘they’re selling ’em for sixpence each]’ The reptile house at London Zoo had been turned into a very lucrative cockroach breeding centre.
‘There was no support from the Duke of Devonshire, President of the Council,’ Cansdale said ruefully, years later. ‘They didn’t want a fuss.’ And the Council took a time- honoured easy way out, by abolishing
the post of Superintendent in 1953. Greatly to his credit, Cansdale was not bitter about his shabby treatment. But he was distressed that dishonesty had won the day and saddened that one of the world’s most prestigious zoos appeared doomed to remain inefficiently managed.
It was during his years as Superintendent that Cansdale began to broadcast, for television, from the BBC’s Alexandra Palace studios and later Lime Grove: he was a household name in the Fifties long before his Blue Peter appearances. His series of animal programmes included Popular Animal Fallacies, Heads, Tails and Feet, Looking at Animals and All About Animals. These last two series won him the Royal Television Society’s Silver Medal in 1952. There were outside broadcasts from the zoo itself (Wynford Vaughan Thomas was bitten by a large Indian gecko, during a relay from the reptile house.) For radio too, Cansdale was a regular contributor to Children’s Hour.
In the 1990s, with its plethora of wildlife programmes offered by all channels, this may seem unremarkable, but they all owe a debt to George Cansdale. He was a pioneer of scientific broadcasting and a tribute to his work in this field was paid by Sir David Attenborough in 1992, in his presidential address at the AGM of the British Association. ‘A lot of thinking people, in those early days, took a fairly lofty view of television, regarding it as so populist as to be beneath their notice.’ But natural history programmes started off with a thoroughly scientific base and Attenborough said it was thanks to Cansdale’s bringing animals to the studios from London Zoo ‘that a great many people, young and old, acquired their first insights into taxonomy and comparative anatomy from what he said. He spoke good natural science.’
In addition to broadcasting, Cansdale lectured and wrote many books. Early titles included Animals of West Africa (1946), Animals and Man (1952), George Cansdale’s Zoo Book (1953), Belinda the Bushbaby (written with Sheila, 1953), Reptiles of West Africa (1955) and Behind the Scenes at a Zoo (1965). West African Snakes published in 1961, remains the standard work on the subject and was reprinted in 1992. Animals of Bible Lands (1965) entailed a study of every animal name in the Bible’s Hebrew and Greek texts from the ‘moving creature’ of Genesis I to the figurative ‘dogs’ of Revelation 22. Cansdale described it as ‘a fascinating task’, but he was the first writer for over a century to attempt such a colossal project. His wife was an invaluable ally in this enterprise and in 1960 they spent a month wandering through the Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel and toured Israel again in 1962.
Cansdale’s energy and versatility were legendary. In the 1960s he became Director of Morecambe’s Marine Land, Chessington Zoo and Natureland in Skegness. It was whilst he was with Natureland that he pioneered a way of obtaining clean seawater by drawing it through the sand in the beach. Realising this idea could be adapted to provide clean water in developing countries, he set up SWF Filtration Ltd with his younger son, Richard, to make the necessary filters. The company won a World Business Award (the IBM Award for Sustainable Development) in 1990.
Throughout his career as a scientist, broadcaster, writer, lecturer and inventor Cansdale always empathised with and had time for children. His cottage in Essex became a magnet for the village children as well as his much-loved grandchildren. The treat was accompanying Cansdale to the Blue Peter studio - one or sometimes two at a time, so there was a lengthy waiting list and Cansdale administered a rota with typical impartiality. Nine was the magic age when he allowed his young friends to join him and assorted wildlife and a boot-full of garden produce on the journey to Television Centre. ‘Mr Cansdale, I’m nine next month - can I go with you, please’ was the constant cry.
Cansdale would always telephone in advance, and invariably the message would be the same. ‘I’ll come to the office first, I’ve a basket of windfalls - a load of beetroot and flowers. Oh yes, and there’s some chutney and marmalade for you.’ And a cornucopia of goodies would appear - enough for every member of the production team. There was never a more generous or warm-hearted contributor or one who produced more delicious jams and chutneys.
There was no so-called ‘retirement’ - even when an unlucky fall in 1991 resulted in a badly fractured femur, hospitalisation and a long and painful convalescence. His letter to the Telegraph in June of that year contributed to the debate on the current London Zoo controversy. He bitterly disagreed with the Grade I listings of the Penguin Pool and the Gorilla House - pointing out they were not designed with animals in mind. He also criticised the Snowdon Aviary and the Elephant House - in his eyes neither of them merited retention.
Cansdale triumphed over many vicissitudes, including the loss of part of his foot in the early Eighties as a result of skin cancer from his years in the tropics. But the cruellest blow of his whole life was the death, in March last year, of his beloved Sheila. Never in robust health, she had suffered from various illnesses for many years. But for the last two years of her life she was nursed devotedly by George.
He continued to live life to the full - despite problems with his broken femur that put a stop to his driving. Neighbours and his sons David and Richard and their wives, to whom George was devoted, rallied round but he was resolutely independent - accepting help with the garden but continuing with his chutney-making and his support for Inter-Care, a charity collecting medical items for African Mission hospitals. He regularly accumulated monthly parcels worth pounds 200 - typically thinking of others, rather than himself, to the very end.
Good morning, I am very frustrated. I completed this morning’s story, but when I hit the ‘Post’ button, it didn’t respond for a few moments, but then when I thought it had, the text disappeared and hasn’t been seen again. So I will just smile and start all over again…. Preamble. WALKS can take a number of different forms. Some are exploratory; you don’t quite know where they will lead, but for others you can have a guide who will point things and tell you stories along the way. I have just realised my ramblings are both, simultaneously. For me they are the former. I am delving into my memories and seeing where they lead; but you are joining me and I will share stories along the way. So hopefully this will be a win win situation for us all. Today I wanted to explore my father’s very first involvement with television. Before writing I had to do a little research to check my facts, but I am now quite confident that I have pieced the bits of the jigsaw together. 1948 was the year my father left his job as a forestry officer in the Gold Coast (which from now on I will refer to Ghana) and took up the post of Superintendent of London Zoo.
BBC had starting television broadcasting in 1936, then after a gap during the years of the Second World War, resumed again in 1946. In 1948, soon after joining the zoo George contributed to ‘Picture Post’, a programmed the BBC describe as the word’s first Magazine Programme. He showed a squirrel. I can only guess at this, but I suspect the squirrel would have been one from his animal collection in Ghana. If he had handled it since it was very young he could sure it would be well behaved. and because he knew his subject well, and was so enthusiastic, he would have been relaxed and confident and come across well. That is how within a very short time he came to be presenting his own animals for children, namely ‘Looking at Animals’ and ‘All about Animals’. In 1952 the Television Society honoured his work by awarding him their medal for the best programmes of that year. Then for a few years he did little television work, but when Blue Peter started he was the natural choice for its regular guest presenter for animal topics. He contributed numerous times to Blue Peter right up to the 1980’s. For someone else’s perspective do read the obituary Biddy Baxter, the former iconic Blue Peter editor, wrote for The Independent when George died in 1984 aged 83.
I will now post this, and also post the text of Biddy Baxter’s Obituary for your interest. Or I will TRY to! or, here is a link to it…. https://www.independent.co.uk/…/obituary-george-cansdale-14…
WAS I THE VERY FIRST THEME PARK VISITOR EVER? In the messages which followed my last posting I was asked about what I think of as the Blue Peter elephant’s water skiing incident. The baby elephant,Lulu, came from Chessington Zoo where father was a Director. I think he facilitated the elephant’s day trip to London, but he was not in the studio for the water works. When he had a Directors’ meeting at Chessington my brother David and I often accompanied him. (If you are reading this now David - don’t worry I’m not going to tell the Cockatoo story, or at least not today!) No, on this particular day, when I was about ten, I was alone. In addition to the animals there were other attractions. I remember the Hall of Mirrors, the Ghost Train, the Helter Skelter to name a few. To go into these attractions you had to pay sixpence or a shilling but Harry Snazle, the Managing Director wrote a note and told me to show to the ticket collectors. Instead of paying for every ride, I had a brilliant time going as often as I wanted on all of them. I can still remember telling Mr. Snazle what fun I had had. Had he decided to set a fixed price for visitors to allow them to go on all the rides as often as they wanted, he would have been 30 years ahead of the game. So, no, I don’t think I can seriously claim to be the first Theme Park visitor. I have just Google ‘History of Chessington Zoo’ and found this statement. “In 1987 the new park development adopted a pay-once price structure as opposed to the fairground’s former pay-per-ride format.” This was when the zoo became Chessington world of Adventures.
Walks of Life.
I had never given much thought to the expression “Different Walks of Life” before. Even during our nation’s confinement due to the Corona virus pandemic we are being urged to exercise for he sake of our health. What are we allowed to do? Cycle, run or walk I think. Some people stride out to get the heart pumping. What do they call it? Power walking. I prefer to stroll, binoculars around my neck just watching, thinking and exploring. I am so lucky to be living in Hartburn, because there is so much to see. Yesterday my friendly fox was there again. I watched him moving around and then curl up tightly against the chill wind. I see the dippers every day. I knew they nested in the rocks but it was because I have had the time to watch them this spring, I have now spotted exactly where the nest is. Yesterday I likened my writing to an exploratory walk for me, but a guided walk for you, then late last night, just before coming to bed I was delighted to discover, quite by chance, where the tame tiger my father used to stroke came from. (In my very first post I talked about the day my brother David and I climbed over the safety barrier and got much too close the tiger, and as a result got into big trouble.) I can tell you how I this came about. I went up into my study to look out some pictures to add to today’s post. Biddy Baxter, in George’s obituary referred to his controversial departure from the zoo so I thought I would include an amusing cartoon which touched on this. The caption reads “Is that the Zoo? This is Viscount Chaplin’s residence.” (Please don’t ask me to explain. Without some further research I really don’t know what the significance is at present.) While looking out the original art work for the cartoon, I found a picture of George with the tiger in question, and then with it a collection of animal stories for children. One of these is the story of Baccha the tiger cub. I suddenly remembered the tiger was not Rajah, it was BACCHA, (Pronounced Barcher.) The story explains how Baccha was found as an orphaned cub by a patrol of British Soldiers in the jungle in Malaya. It was emaciated and starving, taken back to show their colonel, and rescued from certain death. It was raised as a pet, but then sent back to London Zoo. By now it was getting quite large, but it was not thriving. It was getting thinner. It was then realised he was depressed and missed human company, but when this was rectified he recovered and did well. He then lived in the Lion House at the Zoo, but it recognised my father in crowd, who would regularly stroke him through the bars. So, perversely, as a direct result of this dreadful pandemic, I have embarked on a voyage of discovery which I may never have got round to had it not been for my involuntary self-isolation. It would be lovely to think you are enjoying reading my stories as much as I am writing them. Goodness only knows what I will discover. Or, as someone often accused of having an obsession with my stove can say “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any WOOD.”
Good morning all, If I was to say “Good evening all!” I wonder how many of you would know whose catch phrase that was? Dixon of Dock Green was a TV police series, introduced by a character George Dixon, played by the actor Jack Warner. It was first screened in 1955 and ran for 432 episodes until 1976 amazingly. I have only just realised this, but a few of you have mentioned my preambles before I start my story of the day. That was just how the Dixon of Dock Green stories were introduced. This morning I will touch on hate mail, and how George responded to it. A curious topic you might think - but nothing new. Two evenings ago when I looked out the Tiger pictures I also found the cartoons I have included today. I particularly like the bear one. You will see there is no mention of George’s name. There was no need because by now he was such a well known face.
It is hard to credit it, but there was only one television channel at that time, and it only broadcast for a few hours a day, so no choice whatsoever. I suppose it was a bit like the Monty Python SPAM sketch. What if you don’t like spam? We all tend to warm to some people and not to others. It is a natural human instinct, but then the extreme version of this is the vile habit of on-line abuse. As I said, this phenomenon is not new but in father’s day people would write nasty anonymous letters. Father’s response was to file them under the “FUNNY LETTERS” and with much amusement quote them when the occasion arose. One of his favourites I can quote almost verbatim. (I have toned it down slightly so as not to cause offence.) It said this…… “Mr. Cansdale, Every time I see your **** features on television it makes me want to throw up. I was so sorry that the fruit bat bit your finger. I wish it had been your throat!” There must be any number of reasons why people write letters like, and I know it is really horrible to be on the receiving end of them, but father’s way of coping with them was classic. Have you wondered why I should have given my ramblings the working titled of “Third cage on the left?” I will soon be telling you how having just turned eight, I was sent to a boarding Prep school in Sussex. Sounds inhumane doesn’t it, and I was teased for having grown up in a zoo, but as I have already said, I put it down to jealousy and laughed it off. But for all the nasty letters there were countless positive ones. I think he replied to each and every one. When we moved from London Zoo, it was only a few miles to Lyndale Avenue in NW2. Number 45 is a six bedroom semi-, which allowed father to have a live-in secretary and my mother to have an au pair girl to help her. With David and me too, it was quite a busy household. So what was my father to do now? He had lost his salaried post at the zoo, so his departure offered new opportunities. I don’t think he was ever worried about any shortage of work because he now embarked on writing, lecturing and public speaking, zoo work and still some television appearances. He also had time for hobbies, charity work, and for 25 years he was a Church Warden at All Souls Langham Place. If all that doesn’t make you feel exhausted, it does me! I will stop now and have some breakfast. Just one more think. If you are able to read the letter below, look at the small print a the top of the page! One word sticks out as such a strange choice of language. See if you can spot it. I don’t know if there will be sufficient definition, but it amused me. Hang on in there every one. Grim times. Do those things you aways promised yourself you would do. That’s why I am boring you with my ramblings. Have a nice day. x
Preamble. Yesterday were were told 562 people had died from the Covid-19 virus in the previous 24 hours. We are living in such a dreadful worrying time and are all having to draw on all of our resources as individuals, as families and as a nation. I am sure there are countless others like me, who are over 70 and have been told to self-isolate, who are being supported by friends and family who are shopping for us; phoning us regularly to check we are ok, as well as trying to work if they can and looking after their own family. Thank you each and every one. That is on top of our massive debt of gratitude to the self-sacrificing work being done by our wonderful NHS staff. I started writing my personal story two and a half weeks ago after sharing coffee with my friend Pam who went down with the virus the following day. I am pleased to say she is recovering, but has had a very nasty time. I am keeping very well, so probably did not get the virus, but who knows? We are told
many have no symptoms whatsoever. I did have a very slight tight chest for a few days which I can no longer feel. Was that the virus? Some of you are dipping into these ramblings over your morning coffees today, April 2nd 2020, perhaps some are reading these words years after the Coronavirus Pandemic of 20202 has slipped into history. At this present time we have no idea what the future will hold for us or how long the pandemic will last. Just a few short weeks ago we were worried sick about global warming and what we humans have done to our beautiful planet by greed and over consumption. Today the airlines are all but grounded. The larges cities are in lock-down and our roads are silent. We are having a massive wake up call. Is this our planet revenge?
Today my story will see the family leaving London Zoo and moving to NW2. Just before we do I am attaching a photograph of some people walking through a tunnel. Can you guess where this is? A few years ago I was watching a documentary on London Zoo when I saw a clip of the tunnel in which I had my tricycle accident in 1952. I froze the picture and took a snap of it. My crash was on the left just at the start of the rounded arch. I found the photo while looking for some pictures to accompany today’s post but to save time now I will post the preamble and then post the main story hot off the press later. Keep strong and stay safe.