Hooptedoodle #457: A Stuffed Lion in Yorkshire

 A tale from long ago, prompted because I was discussing it with my wife recently, and I had some difficulty believing that it actually happened.

In the late 1970s, I was busily collecting information about the Napoleonic Portuguese army (as one does). I chanced upon some excellent contacts - in particular the very supportive curator at the Lisbon Museum, and a splendid old chap named Herbert, of São Paulo, who became my penfriend, and who had almost unlimited access to the old colonial archives in Brasilia, thanks to his son, Norbert, who worked there. Altogether, I stockpiled some great material on uniforms and flags, including some sumptuous watercolours by Old Herbert, who was a splendid artist; for a while I shared information and sources with Terry Wise (another splendid and generous chap), and he published some things for Osprey, sometimes working with Otto Von Pivka.

The name dropping stops at this point. For reasons I can't really remember now, I wrote a booklet on Portuguese uniforms for the Napoleonic Association. I gained nothing from the experience, apart from an invitation to their Annual Dinner in 1980, which was held at the Dower House Hotel, in Knaresborough. I drove down from Edinburgh (in my Mk.III Cortina - the worst car I ever had...) with my first wife and our 3 sons, the youngest of whom must have been 4 years old, now I come to think of it.

 

The Dower House Hotel (now the Knaresborough Inn, I believe)

The Dower House was a bit pricey for our family budget in those days, so we stayed just one night. I recall that the manager at the Dower House was a perfect doppelganger for Basil Fawlty. The dinner was loud and boozy, and the sound of axes grinding was very distinct. The re-enactment section despised the wargame section, and the main mission for the entire Association seemed to be to mock, and otherwise irritate, the deities of the wargaming establishment of the day.

To be honest, the dinner was not very memorable - I was, in any case, a total outsider, since I wasn't even a member of the wargaming section. My most vivid recollection of the night, beyond the forced laughter and the cigar smoke, was of Tim Pickles in the full - and I mean very full - dress uniform of an officer of Napoleon's Guard Chasseurs à Cheval, including sword, pelisse and fantastic plumed colpack. A spectacular production, and the quality was faultless. I recall that I and another drunken guest studied Tim's magnificent uniform in some detail, and the gold lace piping on his breeches gave rise to a fleeting joke about the Order of the Golden Haemorrhoid, which was promptly awarded to all and sundry, with copious toasts.

My wife and the kids had nothing to do with the dinner, and had very sensibly gone out on the Saturday. I promised that on the Sunday we should have a look around Knaresborough before the drive back up north.

It was suggested that we might visit the zoo. Not many people know that there was a zoo in Knaresborough; as far as I can deduce, not many people knew about it at the time, either. If you can be bothered, I recommend that you check it out in Wikipedia, which will reveal that its short history was so odd that I am confident that the story would not be believed if I told it here. 

We arrived at the zoo at about 10:30am on Sunday, and found the entrance booth closed. It said "please ring" on the door, so that is what we did. A rather harrassed-looking lady appeared, quite friendly, and she said:

"He's not here at present, he's busy somewhere. Just come in and look around - if he is here when you leave you can pay him then."

Fair enough, we went in and it was, to be sure, a small and very dilapidated zoo. The layout was confusing. There were small reptiles, and some rat-like things. There may have been a monkey. There was a lion and, in the same enclosure, there was also a stuffed lion - apparently a former resident. It seems that the previous owner had studied taxidermy as a hobby, which maybe explains why it was stuffed, but not why it was still on display. I would rather not think what psychological damage this could potentially do to the live one.

There were a few further weirdnesses about the place, but our visit was cut short. At one point, my youngest son laughed loudly at the antics of one of the small animals, and a furious lady with a clip-board appeared, and said we would have to leave at once, quietly. For a moment I thought we had finally met the Enjoyment Police, but in fact the zoo was in use that day as a set for a TV crew. There were cameras, masses of young ladies with tight sweaters and clipboards, director-type people and hangers-on, and there were even a few actors. It seems that Knaresborough was doubling for the day as Prague Zoo, for a very short scene from a contemporary British TV drama series (which, predictably, I had never heard of, though my wife at that time knew all about it). [A friend, all these years later, suggests that the scene might have been for The Sandbaggers, which was a Yorkshire TV series from this period, but I can't find sufficient clues to form an opinion!]

We were duly escorted from the premises. Since the entrance kiosk was still closed, we did not disturb the owner, or our budget, any further. [If you do look at Wiki, you may learn that the owner was also a little strange.] 

Apart from the Twilight Zone zoo, Knaresborough was a fine little town, and I am reminded now that I always promised myself a return visit, but never got around to it. We didn't have a lot of time that day, since we had to get on with our journey, to see if the Cortina could make it all the way to Scotland without boiling or forgetting how to charge its battery.

 

Passengers travel at their own risk...

I subsequently left the Napoleonic Association to get on with their squabbles. I met and liked a few of the guys who did the uniform booklets (well-intentioned amateurs, just like me). Howard Giles and Rob Mantle were very pleasant fellows, as was Peter Hofschroer (whom I'm not allowed to mention these days).

My remaining, abiding memory of the trip is that stuffed lion, pretending to be alive. There are official denials that it ever existed; I am here to tell you, my friends, that I saw it.