Prologue
Mum and I arrived as the new owners of DartmoorWildlife Park in Devon for the first time at around six o’clockon the evening of 20 October 2006, and stepped out of thecar to the sound of wolves howling in the misty darkness.
My brother Duncan had turned on every light in the house towelcome us, and each window beamed the message intothe fog as he emerged from the front door to give me abone-crushing bear hug. He was more gentle with Mum.
We had been delayed for an extra day in Leicester with thelawyers, as some last-minute paperwork failed to arrive intime and had to be sent up the M1 on a motorbike. Duncanhad masterminded the movement of all Mum’s furniturefrom Surrey in three vans, with eight men who had anotherjob to go to the next day. The delay had meant a fraughtstandoff in the entryway to the park, with the previousowner’s lawyer eventually conceding that Duncan couldunload the vans, but only into two rooms (one of them thefetid front kitchen) until the paperwork was completed.
So the three of us picked our way in wondermentbetween teetering towers of boxes and into the flagstonedkitchen, which was relatively uncluttered and, we thought,could make a good center of operations. A huge old trestletable I had been hoarding in my parents’ garage for twentyyears finally came into its own, and was erected in a roomsuited to its size. It’s still there as our dining-room table, buton this first night its symbolic value was immense. Someboxes and carpets Duncan had managed to store in theback pantry had just been flooded, so while he unblockedthe drain outside I drove to a Chinese takeout I’d spottedon the way from Route A38, and we sat down to our firstmeal together in our new home. Our spirits were slightlyshaky but elated, and we laughed a lot in this cold, dark,chaotic house on that first night, and took inordinatecomfort from the fact that at least we lived near a goodChinese place.
That night, with Mum safely in bed, Duncan and I steppedout into the misty park to try to get a grip on what we’ddone. Everywhere the flashlight shone, eyes of differentsizes blinked back at us, and without a clear idea of thelayout of the park at this stage, the mystery of exactly whatanimals lurked behind them added greatly to theatmosphere. We knew where the tigers were, however, andmade our way over to one of the enclosures that had beenearmarked for replacement posts to get a close look atwhat sort of deterioration we were up against. With notigers in sight, we climbed over the stand-off barrier andbegan peering by flashlight at the base of the structuralwooden posts holding up the chain-link fence. We squatteddown and became engrossed, prodding and scraping atthe surface layers of rotted wood to find the harder core, inthis instance reassuringly near the surface. We decided itwasn’t so bad, but as we stood up were startled to see thatall three tigers in the enclosure were now only a couple offeet away from where we were standing, ready to spring,staring intently at us. Like we were dinner.
It was fantastic. All three beasts—and they were suchglorious beasts—had maneuvered to within pawingdistance of us without either of us noticing. Each animalwas bigger than both of us put together, yet they’d movedsilently. If this had been the jungle or, more accurately in thiscase, the Siberian tundra, the first thing we’d have knownabout it would have been a large mouth around our necks.
Tigers have special sensors along the front of their two-inchcanines that can detect the pulse in your aorta. The first biteis to grab, then they take your pulse with their teeth,reposition them, and sink them in.
As they held us in their icy glares, we were impressed.
Eventually, one of these vast, muscular cats—acknowledging that due to circumstances beyond theircontrol (i.e., the fence between us), this had been a meredress rehearsal—yawned, flashed those curved daggercanines, and looked away. We remained impressed.
We started back toward the house. The wolves begantheir eery night chorus, accompanied by the sounds of owls—there were about fifteen on site—the odd screech of aneagle, and the nocturnal danger call of the vervet monkeysas we walked past their cage. This was what it was allabout, we felt. All we had to do now was work out what todo next.
It had been an incredible journey to get there. A newbeginning, it also marked the end of a long and tortuousroad, involving our whole family. My own part of the storystarts in France.

Chapter 1 In the Beginning . . .
L’Ancienne Bergerie, June 2004, and life was good. Mywife Katherine and I had just made the final commitment toour new life by selling our London flat and buying twogorgeous golden-stone barns in the heat of the South ofFrance, where we were living on baguettes, cheese, andwine. The village we had settled into nestled betweenN?mes and Avignon in Languedoc, the poor man’sProvence, an area with the lowest rainfall in the whole ofFrance. I was writing a column on do-it-yourself homeimprovement for the weekly newspaper the Guardian, andtwo others for Grand Designs magazine, and I was alsowriting a book on humor in animals, a long-cherishedproject which, I found, required a lot of time in a conduciveenvironment. And this was it.
Our two children, Ella and Milo, bilingual and sunburnished,frolicked with kittens in the safety of a large,walled garden, chasing enormous grasshoppers together,pouncing amongst the long parched grass and seams ofwheat, probably seeded from kernels spilled from trailerswhen the barns were part of a working farm. Our huge dog,Leon, lay across the threshold of vast, rusty gates, watchingover us with the benign vigilance of an animal bredspecifically for the purpose, panting happily in his work.
It was really beginning to feel like home. Our meagersixty-five square meters of central London had translatedinto twelve hundred square meters of rural southern France,albeit slightly less well-appointed and not so handy forMarks and Spencer, the South Bank, or the BritishMuseum. But it had a summer that lasted from March toNovember, and the locally made wine, which sold for ￡8 inTesco, a British market, cost three and a half euros atsource. Well, you had to take advantage of this—it was partof the local culture. Barbeques of fresh trout and saltysausages from the Cévennes to our north, glasses ofchilled rosé with ice that quickly melted in the heavysouthern European heat. It was idyllic.
This perfect environment was achieved after about tenyears of wriggling into the position, professionally andfinancially, where I could just afford to live like a peasant ina derelict barn in a village full of other much morewholesome peasants earning a living through honestfarming. I was the mad Englishman; they were the slightlybemused French country folk—tolerant, kind, courteous,and yet, inevitably, hugely judgmental.
Katherine, whom I’d married that April after nine yearstogether (I waited until she’d completely given up hope),became the darling of the village. Beautiful and thoughtful,polite, kind, and gracious, she made a real effort to engagewith and fit into village life. She actively learned thelanguage, which she’d already studied at Advanced Level,to become proficient in local colloquial French, as well asher Parisian French, and the bureau-speak French of the“adminheavy” state. She could josh with the art-galleryowner in the nearby town of Uzes about the exact tax formhe had to fill out to acquire a sculpture by Elisabeth Frink—whom she also happened to have once met andinterviewed—and complain with the best of the villagemums about the complexities of the French medicalsystem. My French, on the other hand, already at OrdinaryLevel grade D, probably made it to C while I was there, as Iactively tried to block my mind from learning it in case itsomehow further impeded the delivery of my already latebook. I went to bed just as the farmers got up, and rarelyinteracted unless to trouble them for some badly expressedelementary questions about DIY. They preferred her.
But this idyll was not achieved without some cost. Wehad to sell our cherished shoebox-size flat in London inorder to buy our two beautiful barns, totally derelict, withfloors of mud trampled with sheep dung. Without water orelectricity we couldn’t move in straight away, so in the weekwe exchanged contracts internationally, we also movedlocally within the village, from a rather lovely natural-stonesummer sublet that was about to triple in price as theseason began, to a far less desirable property on the mainroad through the village. This had no furniture and neitherdid we, having come to France nearly two years before withthe intention of staying for six months. It would be fair to saythat this was a stressful time.
So when Katherine started getting migraines and staringinto the middle distance instead of being her usual tornadoof office-keeping, packing, sorting, and labeling efficiency, Iput it down to stress. “Go to the doctor’s, or go to yourparents if you’re not going to be able to help,” I saidsympathetically. I should have known it was serious whenshe cut short a shopping trip (one of her favorite activities)to buy furniture for the children’s room, and we bothexperienced a frisson of anxiety when she slurred herwords in the car on the way back from that trip. But a fewphone calls to migraine-suffering friends assured us thatthis was well within the normal range of symptoms for thisoften stress-related phenomenon.
Eventually she went to the doctor and I waited at homefor her to return with some migraine-specific pain relief.
Instead I got a phone call to say that the doctor wanted herto go for a brain scan, immediately, that night. At this stageI still wasn’t particularly anxious, as the French arerenowned hypochondriacs. If you go to the surgery with arunny nose the doctor will prescribe a carrier bag full ofpharmaceuticals, usually involving suppositories. A brainscan seemed like a typical French overreaction;inconvenient, but it had to be done.
Katherine arranged for our friend Georgia to take her tothe local hospital about twenty miles away, and I settleddown again to wait for her to come back. And then I got thephone call no one ever expects. Georgia, sobbing, tellingme it was serious. “They’ve found something,” she keptsaying. “You have to come down.” At first I thought it mustbe a bad joke, but the emotion in her voice was real.
In a daze I organized a neighbor to look after the childrenwhile I borrowed her unbelievably dilapidated Honda Civicand set off on the unfamiliar journey along the dark countryroads. With one headlight working, no third or reverse gear,and very poor brakes, I was conscious that it was possibleto crash and injure myself badly if I wasn’t careful. I overshotone turn and had to get out and push the car back down theroad, but I made it safely to the hospital and abandoned thedecrepit vehicle in the empty car park.
Inside I relieved a tearful Georgia and did my best toreassure a pale and shocked Katherine. I was still hopingthat there was some mistake, that there was a simpleexplanation that had been overlooked and would accountfor everything. But when I asked to see the scan, thereindeed was a golf-ball-size black lump nestling ominously inher left parietal lobe. A long time ago I did a degree inpsychology, so the MRI images were not entirely alien tome, and my head reeled as I desperately tried to find someexplanation that could account for this anomaly. But therewasn’t one.
We spent the night at the hospital bucking up eachother’s morale. In the morning a helicopter took Katherineto Montpellier, our local (and probably the best) neuro unitin France. After our cozy night together, the reality of seeingher airlifted as an emergency patient to a distantneurological ward hit home, hard. As I chased the copterdown the autoroute, the shock really began kicking in. Ifound my mind was ranging around, trying to get to gripswith the situation, so that I could barely make myselfconcentrate properly on driving. I slowed right down, andarrived an hour later at the car park of the enormous Gui deChaulliac hospital complex to find there were no spaces. Iended up parking creatively, French style, along a sliver ofcurb. A porter wagged a disapproving finger at me but Istrode past him, by now in an unstoppable frame of mind,desperate to find Katherine. If he’d tried to stop me at thatmoment I think I would have broken his arm and directedhim to X-ray. I was going to Neuro Urgence, fifth floor, andnothing was going to get in my way. It made me appreciatein that instant that you should never underestimate theemotional turmoil of people visiting hospitals. Normal rulesdid not apply, as my priorities were completely refocusedon finding Katherine and understanding what was going tohappen next. I found Katherine sitting up on a trolley bed,dressed in a yellow hospital gown, looking bewildered andconfused. She looked so vulnerable but noble, stoicallycooperating with whatever was asked of her. Eventually wewere told that an operation was scheduled in a few days’
time, during which high doses of steroids would reduce theinflammation around the tumor so that it could be taken outmore easily.
Watching her being wheeled around the corridors, sittingup in her backless gown, looking around with quiet,confused dignity, was probably the worst time. The logisticswere over, we were in the right place, the children werebeing taken care of, and now we had to wait for three daysand adjust to this new reality. I spent most of that time at thehospital with Katherine or on the phone in the lobbydropping the bombshell on friends and family. The phonecalls all took a similar shape: breezy disbelief, followed byshock and often tears. After three days I was an old hand,and guided people through their stages as I broke thenews.
Finally Friday arrived, and Katherine was prepared forthe operation. I was allowed to accompany her to a waitingarea outside the operating room. Typically French, it wasbeautiful, with sunlight streaming into a modern atriumplanted with trees whose red and brown leaves picked upthe light and shone like stained glass. There was not muchwe could say to each other, and I kissed her goodbye notreally knowing whether I would see her again, or if I did, howbadly she might be affected by the operation.
At the last minute I asked the surgeon if I could watch theprocedure. As a former health writer I had been inoperating rooms before, and I just wanted to understandexactly what was happening to her. Far from beingperplexed, the doctor, one of the best neurosurgeons inFrance, was delighted. I am reasonably convinced that hehad high-functioning Asperger’s syndrome. For the first,and last, time in our conversation, he looked me in the eyeand smiled, as if to say, “So you like tumors too?” andexcitedly introduced me to his team. The anaesthetist wasmuch less impressed with the idea and looked visiblyalarmed, so I immediately backed out, as I didn’t wantanyone involved under performing for any reason. Thesurgeon’s shoulders slumped and he resumed hisunsmiling efficiency.
In fact the operation was a complete success, and when Ifound Katherine in the intensive care unit a few hours later,she was conscious and smiling. But the surgeon told meimmediately afterward that he hadn’t liked the look of thetissue he’d removed. “It will come back,” he warned. Bythen I was so relieved that she’d simply survived theoperation that I let this information sit at the back of myhead while I dealt with the aftermath of family,chemotherapy, and radiotherapy for Katherine.
Katherine received visitors, including the children, on theimmaculate lawns studded with palm and pine treesoutside her ward building—at first in a wheelchair, but thenperched on the grass in dappled sunshine, her headbandages wrapped in a muted silk scarf, looking asbeautiful and relaxed as ever, like the hostess of a rollingpicnic. Our good friends Phil and Karen were holidaying inBergerac, a seven-hour drive to the north, but they madethe trip down to see us and it was very emotional to see ourchildren playing with theirs as if nothing was happening inthese otherwise idyllic surroundings.
After we spent a few numbing days on the Internet, theinevitability of the tumor’s return was clear. The British andthe American Medical Associations, every global cancerresearch organization, and indeed every other organizationI contacted, had the same message for someone with adiagnosis of a grade 4 glioblastoma: “I’m so sorry.”
I trawled my health contacts for good news aboutKatherine’s condition that hadn’t yet made the literature, butthere wasn’t any. Median survival—the most statisticallyfrequent survival time— was nine to ten months fromdiagnosis. The average was slightly different, but 50percent survived one year, and 3 percent of peoplediagnosed with grade 4 tumors were alive after three years.
It wasn’t looking good. This was heavy information,particularly as Katherine was bouncing back so well fromher craniotomy to remove the tumor (given a rare 100percent excision rating), and the excellent French medicalsystem was fast-forwarding her on to its state-of-the-artradiotherapy and chemotherapy programs. The people whosurvived the longest with this condition were young, healthywomen with active minds—Katherine to a tee. And despitethe doom and gloom, there were several promisingavenues of research, which could possibly come onlinewithin the time frame of a recurrence.
When Katherine came out of the hospital, it was to aTARDIS-like, empty house in an incredibly supportivevillage. Her parents and brothers and sister were there, andon her first day back there was a knock at the window. Itwas Pascal, our neighbor, who unceremoniously passedthrough the window a dining room table and six chairs,followed by a casserole dish with a hot meal in it. We triedto get back to normal, setting up an office in the dusty attic,working out the treatment regimens Katherine would haveto follow, and working on the book of my DIY columns,which Katherine was determined to continue designing.
Meanwhile, a hundred yards up the road were our barns, anopen-ended dream renovation project that could easilyoccupy us for the next decade, if we chose. All we lackedwas the small detail of the money to restore them, butfrankly at that time I was more concerned with givingKatherine the best possible quality of life, to make use ofwhat the medical profession assured me was likely to be ashort time. I tried not to believe it, and we lived month bymonth between MRI scans and blood tests, our confidencegrowing gingerly with each negative result.
Katherine was happiest working, and knowing thechildren were happy. With her brisk efficiency she set upher own office and began designing and pasting up layouts,color samples, and illustrations around it, one floor downfrom mine. She also ran our French affairs, took thechildren to school, and kept in touch with the stream of wellwisherswho contacted us and occasionally came to stay. Icarried on with my columns and researching my animalbook, which was often painfully slow over a rickety dial-upInternet connection held together with gaffer’s tape andsubject to the vagaries of France Telecom’s “service,”
which, with the largest corporate debt in Europe, madeBritish Telecom seem user-friendly and efficient.
The children loved the barns, and we resolved to inhabitthem in whatever way possible as soon as we could, so weset about investing the last of our savings in building asmall wooden chalet—still bigger than our former Londonflat—on the back of the capacious hangar. This was waybeyond my meager knowledge of DIY, and difficult for theamiable lunch-addicted French locals to understand, so wecalled for special help in the form of Karsan, an Anglo-Indian builder friend from London. Karsan is a jack-of-alltradesand master of them all as well. As soon as hearrived, he began pacing out the ground and demanded tobe taken to the lumber yard. Working for thirty solid daysstraight, Karsan erected a viable two-bedroom dwelling,complete with running water, a proper bathroom with aflushing toilet, and electricity, while I got in his way.
With some building-site experience and four years as awriter on DIY, I was sure Karsan would be impressed withmy wide knowledge, work ethic, and broad selection oftools. But he wasn’t. “All your tools are unused,” heobserved.
“Well, lightly used,” I countered.
“If someone came to work for me with these tools I wouldsend them away,” he said. “I am working all alone. Is thereanyone in the village who can help me?” he complained.
“Er, I’m helping you, Karsan,” I said, and I was there everyday lifting wood, cutting things to order, and doing my bestto learn from this multiskilled whirlwind master builder.
Admittedly, I sometimes had to take a few hours in the dayto keep the plates in the air with my writing work—nationalnewspapers are extremely unsympathetic to delays insending copy, and excuses like “I had to borrow a cementmixer from Monsieur Roget and translate for Karsan at thebuilders’ supply” just don’t cut it, I found. “I’m all alone,”
Karsan continued to lament, and so just before the monthwas out, I finally managed to persuade a local Frenchbuilder to help, and he, three-hour lunch breaks and othercommitments permitting, did work hard in the final fortnight.
Our glamorous friend Georgia, one of the circle of Englishmums we tapped into after we arrived, also helped a lot,and much impressed Karsan with her genuine knowledgeof plumbing, high heels, and low-cut tops. They becamebest buddies, and Karsan began talking of setting uplocally, “where you can drive like in India,” with Georgiaworking as administrative assistant and translator.
Somehow this idea was vetoed by Karsan’s wife.
When the wooden house was finished, the locals couldnot believe it. One even said, “Sacré bleu.” Some hadbeen working for years on their own houses on patches ofland around the village, which the new generation wasexpanding into. Rarely were any actually finished, however,apart from holiday homes commissioned by the Dutch,German, and English expats, who often used outside laboror micromanaged the local masons to within an inch of theirsanity until the job was actually done. This life/work balancewith the emphasis firmly on life was one of the mostenjoyable parts of living in the region, and perfectly suitedmy inner putterer, but it was also satisfying to show them acompleted project built in the English way, in back-to-backfourteen-hour days with a quick cheese sandwich and acup of tea for lunch. We bade a fond farewell to Karsan andmoved into our new home, in the back of a big open barnlooking out over another, in a walled garden where thechildren could play with their dog, Leon, and their cats insafety, and where the back wall was a full-grown adult’sFrisbee throw away. It was our first proper home sincebefore the children were born, and we relished the spaceand the chance to be working on our own house at last.
Everywhere the eye fell, there was a pressing amount to bedone, however, and over the next summer we clad thehouse with insulation and installed broadband Internet, andKatherine began her own vegetable garden, yieldingsucculent cherry tomatoes and raspberries. Figs droppedoff our neighbor’s tree into our garden, wild garlic grew inthe hedgerows around the vine-yards, and melons lay in thefields often uncollected, creating a seemingly endlesssupply of luscious local produce. Walking the sunbakeddusty paths with Leon every day, through the landscaperinging with cicadas, brought back childhood memories ofCorfu, where our family spent several summers. Twistedolive trees appeared in planted rows, rather than thehaphazard groves of Greece, but the lifestyle was thesame, although now I was a grown-up with a family of myown. It was surreal, given the back-drop of Katherine’sillness, that everything was so perfect just as it went sohorribly wrong.
We threw ourselves into enjoying life, and for me thismeant exploring the local wildlife with the children. Mostobviously different from the UK were the birds, brightlycolored and clearly used to spending more time in NorthAfrica than their dowdy UK counterparts, whose plumageseems more adapted to perpetual autumn than to the vividcolors of Marrakesh.
Twenty minutes away was the Camargue, whose ricepaddies and salt flats are warm enough to sustain a yearroundpopulation of flamingos, but I was determined not toget interested in birds. I once went on a “nature tour” of Mullthat turned out to be a bird-watchers’ tour. Frolicking otterswere ignored in favor of surrounding a bush waiting forsomething called a redstart, an apparently unseasonalvisiting reddish sparrow. That way madness lies.
Far more compelling, and often unavoidable, was theinsect population, which hopped, crawled, and reproducedall over the place. Crickets the size of mice sprang throughthe long grass entertaining the cats and the children, whocaught them for opposing reasons, the latter to try to feed,the former to eat. At night, exotic-looking and endangeredrhinoceros beetles lumbered across my path like littleprehistoric tanks, each one fiercely brandishing its utterlyuseless horns, resembling more a triceratops than therelatively svelte rhinoceros. These entertaining beastswould stay with us for a few days, rattling around in a glassbowl containing soil, wood chips, and usually dandelionleaves, to see if we could mimic their natural habitat. Butthey did not make good pets, and invariably I releasedthem in the night to the safety of the vineyards. Othernighttime catches included big fat toads, always releasedonto a raft in the river in what became a formalizedceremony after school, and a hedgehog carried betweentwo sticks and then housed in a tin bath and fed on worms,until his escape into the compound three days later. It wasonly then that I discovered these amiable but flea-riddenand stinking creatures can carry rabies. But perhaps themost dramatic catch was an unidentified snake, nearly ameter long, also transported using the stick method, andhoused overnight in a suspended bowl in the sitting room,lidded, with holes for air. “What do you think of the snake?” Iasked Katherine proudly the next morning. “What snake?”
she replied. The bowl was empty. The snake had crawledout through a hole and dropped to the floor right next towhere we were sleeping (on the sofa bed at that time)before sliding out under the door. I hoped. Katherine wasnot amused, and I resolved to be more careful about what Ibrought into the house.
Not all the local wildlife was harmless. Adders, or lesvipères, are rife, and the protocol was to call the firebrigade, or pompiers, who come and “dance around likelittle girls waving at it with sticks until it escapes,” accordingto Georgia, who has witnessed this procedure. I once sawa vipère under a stone in the garden, and wore thick glovesand gingerly tapped every stone I ever moved afterward.
Killer hornets also occasionally buzzed into our lives likemalevolent helicopter gunships, with the locals all agreeingthat three stings would kill a man. My increasingly wellthumbedanimal and insect encyclopedia revealed only thatthey were “potentially dangerous to humans.” Either way,whenever I saw one, I adopted the full pompier procedurediligently.
But the creature that made the biggest impression earlyon was the scorpion. One appeared in my office on the wallone night, prompting levels of adrenaline and panic Ithought only possible in the jungle. Was nowhere safe?
How many of these things were there? Were they in thekids’ room now? An Internet trawl revealed that fifty-sevenpeople had been killed in Algeria by scorpions in theprevious decade. Algeria is a former French colony. It wasnearby. But luckily this scorpion—dark brown and the sizeof the end of a man’s thumb—was not the culprit, andactually had a sting more like a bee. This jolt, that I wasdefinitely not in London and had brought my family to apotentially dangerous situation, prompted my first (and last)poem for about twenty years, unfortunately too expletiveriddento reproduce here.
And then there was the wild boar. Not to be outdone bymere insects, reptiles, and arthropods, the mammalianorder laid on a special treat one night when I was walkingthe dog. Unusually, I was out for a run, a bit ahead of Leon,so I was surprised to see him up ahead about twenty-fivemeters into the vines. As I got closer, I was also surprisedthat he seemed jet-black in the moonlight, whereas when I’dlast seen him he was his usual tawny self. Also, althoughLeon is a hefty eight stone, or 112 pounds, of shaggymountain dog, this animal seemed heavier and morebarrel-shaped. And it was grunting, like a great big pig. Ibegan to realize that this was not Leon, but a sanglier, orwild boar, known to roam the vineyards at night and able tomake a boar-shaped hole in a chain-link fence withoutslowing down. I was armed with a dog lead, a mechanicalpencil (in case of inspiration), and a lighted helmet, turnedoff. As it faced me and started stamping the ground, I felt Ihad to decide quickly whether or not to turn on theheadlamp. It would either definitely charge at it or it wouldfind it aversive. As the light snapped on, the gruntingmonster slowly wheeled around and trotted into the vines,more in irritation than fear. And then Leon arrived, late andinadequate cavalry, and shot off into the vine-yards after it.
Normally Leon will chase imaginary rabbits relentlessly formany minutes at a time at the merest hint of a rustle in theundergrowth, but on this occasion he shot backimmediately, professing total ignorance of anything amiss,and stayed very close by my side on the way back. Verywise.
The next day I took the children to track the boar, andthey were wide-eyed as we found and photographed thetrotter prints in the loose gray earth, and had them verifiedby the salty farmers in the Café of the Universe in thevillage. “Il était gros,” they concluded, belly laughing andfilling the air with clouds of pastis when I mimicked my fear.
So, serpents included, this life was as much like Eden asI felt was possible. With the broadband finally installed, andbats flying around my makeshift office in the empty barn,the book I had come to write was finally seriously underway, and Katherine’s treatment and environment seemedas good as could reasonably be hoped for. What couldpossibly tempt us away from this hard-won, almostheavenly niche? My family decided to buy a zoo, of course.
Chapter 2 The Adventure Begins
It was in the spring of 2005 that it landed on our doorstep:
the brochure that would change our lives forever. Like anyother brochure from a real estate agent, at first wedismissed it. But, unlike any other brochure from a realestate agent, here we saw Dartmoor Wildlife Parkadvertised for the first time. My sister Melissa had sent mea copy in France, with a note attached: “Your dreamscenario.” I had to agree with her that although I thought Iwas already living in my dream scenario, this odd offer of acountry house with zoo attached seemed even better—ifwe could get it, which seemed unlikely. And if there wasnothing wrong with it, which also seemed unlikely. Theremust have been some serious structural problems in thehouse, or the grounds or enclosures, or some fundamentalflaw with the business that was impossible to rectify.
Yet, even with this near certainty of eventual failure, theentire family was sufficiently intrigued to investigate further.
A flight of fancy? Perhaps, but it was one for which, wedecided, we could restructure our entire lives.
My father, Ben Harry Mee, had died a few months before,and Mum was going to have to sell the family home wherethey had lived for the last twenty years, a five-bedroomhouse in Surrey set on two acres, which had just beenvalued at ￡1.2 million. This astonishing amount not onlyreflected the pleasant surroundings, but also, mostimportant, its proximity to London, comfortably within theeconomic security cordon of Route M25. Twenty-fiveminutes by train from London Bridge, this was thestockbroker belt, an enviable position on the propertyladder achieved by my father, who, as the son of anenlightened Doncaster miner, had worked hard andinvested shrewdly on behalf of his offspring all his life.
Ben did in fact work at the stock exchange for the lastfifteen years of his career, but not as a broker, a position hefelt could be morally dubious. Dad was administrationcontroller, overseeing the administrative duties for theLondon Stock Exchange, and for the exchanges inManchester, Dublin, and Liverpool, plus a total of elevenregional and Irish amalgamated buildings. (At a similarstage in my life I was having trouble running my admin as asingle self-employed journalist.) So, as a family, we wererelatively well-off, though not actually rich, and with no liquidassets to support any whimsical ventures. In 2005, HalifaxBank, with one of the largest real estate agencies in Britain,estimated that there were 67,000 such properties valued atover ￡1 million in the UK, but we seemed to be the onlyfamily who decided to cash it all in and a have a crack atbuying a zoo.
It seemed like a lost cause from the beginning, but onethat we knew we’d regret if we didn’t pursue. We had a planof sorts. Mum had been going to sell the house anddownsize to something smaller and more manageable, likea two- or three-bedroom cottage, then live in peace andsecurity with a buffer of cash, but with space for only one ortwo offspring to visit with their various broods at any time.
The problem, and what we all worried about, was that thisisolation in old age could be the waiting room for a gradualdeterioration (and, as she saw it, inevitable dementia) anddeath.
The new plan was to upsize the family assets and Mum’shome to a twelve-bedroom house surrounded by astagnated business about which we knew nothing. I wouldabandon France altogether and put my book on hold,Duncan would stop working in London, and we would thenlive together and run the zoo full-time. Mum would bespared the daily concerns of running the zoo, but wouldbenefit from the stimulating environment and having herfamily around in an exciting new life looking after twohundred exotic animals. What could possibly go wrong?
Come on, Mum . . . it’ll be fine.
In fact, it was a surprisingly easy sell. Mum has alwaysbeen adventurous, and she likes big cats. When she wasseventy-three, I took her to a lion sanctuary where you couldwalk in the bush with lions and stroke them in theirenclosures; many were captive bred, descended from lionsrescued from being shot by farmers. I was awestruck by thelions’ size and frankly terrified, never quite able to let go ofthe idea that I wasn’t meant to be this close to thesepredators. Every whisker twitch triggered in me a jolt ofadrenaline that was translated into an involuntary flinch.
Mum just tickled them under the chin and said, “Ooh, aren’tthey lovely?” The next year this adventurous lady tried skiingfor the first time. So the concept of buying a zoo was notdismissed out of hand.
None of us liked the idea of Mum being on her own, sowe were already looking at her living with one of us,perhaps on a larger property with pooled resources. Whichis how the details of Dartmoor Wildlife Park, courtesy ofKnight Frank, a real estate agent in the South of England,happened to drop through Mum’s letterbox. My sisterMelissa was the most excited, ordering several copies ofthe details and sending them out to all her four brothers: theoldest, Vincent; Henry; Duncan; and me. I was in France,and received my copy with the “your dream scenario” note. Ihad to admit it looked good, but quickly tossed it onto myteetering, “soon to be sorted” pile. This was alreadycarpeted in dust from the mistral, that magnificent southernFrench wind that periodically blasted down the channel insouthwest France created by the mountains surroundingthe rivers Rh?ne and Sa?ne. And then it came right throughthe ancient lime mortar of my north-facing barn-office wall,redistributing the powdery mortar as a minor sandstorm ofdust evenly scattered throughout the office over periods ofabout four days at a time. Small rippled dunes of mortardust appeared on top of the brochure, then otherdocuments appeared on top of the dunes, and then moresmall dunes.
But Melissa wouldn’t let it lie. She wouldn’t let it liebecause she thought it was possible, and had her housevalued, and kept dragging any conversation you had withher back to the zoo. Duncan was quickly enthused. Havingspent a short stint as a reptile keeper at London Zoo, hewas the closest thing we had to a zoo professional. Now anexperienced business manager in London, he was also theprime candidate for overall manager of the project, if he,and almost certainly others, chose to trade their presentlifestyles for an entirely different existence.
Melissa set up a viewing for the family, minus Henry andVincent, who had other engagements but were in favor ofexploration. So it was agreed, and “Grandma” Amelia anda good proportion of her brood spanning three generationsarrived in a small country hotel in the South Hams district ofDevon. There was a wedding going on, steeping the placein bonhomie, and the gardens, chilly in the early-springnight air, occasionally echoed with stilettos on gravel asunderdressed young ladies hurried to their hatchbacks andback for some essential commodity missing from therevelry inside.
A full, or even reasonably comprehensive, familygathering outside Christmas or a wedding was unusual,and we were on a minor mission rather than a holiday, yetaccompanied by a gaggle of children of assorted ages.
Our party was definitely toward the comprehensive end ofthe spectrum, with all that that entails. Vomiting babies,pregnant people, toddlers at head-smash age, and childrenaccidentally ripping curtains from the wall trying toimpersonate Darth Vader. The night before the viewing, wewere upbeat but realistic. We were serious contenders, butprobably all convinced that we were giving it our best shotand that somebody with more money, or experience, orprobably both, would come along and take it away.
We arrived at the park on a crisp April morning in 2005,and met Ellis Daw for the first time. An energetic man in hislate seventies with a full white beard and a beanie hat thathe never removed, Ellis took us around the park and thehouse like a pro on autopilot. He’d clearly done this tour afew times before. On our quick trip around the labyrinthinetwelve-bedroom mansion, we took in that the sitting roomwas half full of parrot cages, the general decor had aboutthree decades of catching up to do, and the plumbing andelectrical systems looked like they could absorb a few tensof thousands of pounds to be put right.
Out in the park we were all blown away by the animalsand Ellis’s innovative enclosure designs. Tiger Mountain,so called because three Siberian tigers prowl around amanmade mountain at the center of the park, wasparticularly impressive. Instead of chain-link or wire-meshfence, Ellis had adopted a “ha-ha” system, which basicallyentails a deep ditch around the perimeter that in turn issurrounded by a wall more than six feet high on the animalside but only three or four feet on the visitor side. Thiscreates the impression of extreme proximity to these mostspectacular cats, who pad about the enclosure likemassive flame-clad versions of the domestic cats we allknow and love, making you completely reappraise yourrelationship with the diminutive predators many of usshelter indoors.
There were lions behind wire, as stunning as the tigers,roaring in defiance of any other animal to challenge themfor their territory, particularly other lions, apparently. And ithas to be said that these bellowing outputs, projected bytheir hugely powerful diaphragms for a good three milesacross the valley, have over the years proved 100 percenteffective. Never once has this group of lions beenchallenged by any other group of lions, or anything else, fortheir turf. It’s easy to argue that this is due to lack ofpredators of this magnitude in the vicinity, but one lionessdid apparently catch a heron at a reputed fifteen feet off theground a few years before, confirming that this territorialdefensiveness was no bluff.
Peacocks strolled around the picnic area, from whereyou could see a pack of wolves prowling through the treesbehind a wire fence. Three big European bears looked upat us from their woodland enclosure, and three jaguars, twopumas, a lynx, some flamingos, porcupines, raccoons, anda Brazilian tapir added to the eclectic mix of the collection.
We were awestruck by the animals, and surprisingly notdaunted at all. Even to our untutored eyes there was clearlya lot of work to be done. Everything wooden, from picnicbenches to enclosure posts and stand-off barriers, wascovered in algae that had clearly been there for some time.
Some of it, worryingly, at the base of many of the enclosureposts, was obviously having a corrosive influence.
We could see that the zoo needed work, but we couldalso see that it had until recently been a going concern, andone that would give us a unique opportunity to be nearsome of the most spectacular—and endangered—animalson the planet.
As part of our official viewing of the property, we wereasked by a film crew from Animal Planet to participate in adocumentary about the sale. The journalist in me began towonder whether this eccentric English venture might besustainable through another source. Writing and the mediahad been my career for fifteen years, and, while notproviding a huge amount of money, had given me atremendous quality of life. If I could write about the things Iliked doing, I could generally do them as well, and I wassometimes able to boost the activity itself with the medialight that shone on it. Perhaps here was a similar model. Aonce thriving project now on the edge of extinction,functioning perfectly well in its day, but now needing a littlenudge from the outside world to survive . . .
Mum, Duncan, and I were asked to stand shoulder toshoulder amongst the parrots in the living room, to explainfor the camera what we would do if we got the zoo. At theend of our burst of amateurish enthusiasm, the cameramanspontaneously said, “I want you guys to get it.” The otheroffers were from leisure industry professionals with a lot ofmoney, against whom we felt we had an outside chance,but nothing more. My skepticism was still enormous, but Ibegan to see a clear way through, if, somehow, chancedelivered it to us. Though it still felt far-fetched, like lookingaround all those houses my parents seemed to drag us towhen we were moving as kids: Don’t get too interested,because you know you will almost certainly not end upliving there.
On our tour around the park itself, Ellis finally switchedout of his professional spiel and looked at me, my brotherDuncan, and my brother-in-law Jim, all relatively strappinglads in our early to mid-forties, and said, “Well, you’re theright age for it anyway.” This vote of confidence registeredwith us, as clearly, Ellis had seen something in us that heliked. Our ambitions for the place were modest, which healso liked. He said he’d actually turned away several offersbecause they involved spending too much on theredevelopment. “What do you want to spend a millionpounds on here?” he asked us, somewhat rhetorically.
“What’s wrong with it? On your way, I said to them.” I canimagine the color draining from his bankers’ faces whenthey heard this good news. Luckily we didn’t have a millionpounds to spend on redevelopment—or, at this stage, evenon the zoo itself—so our modest, family-based plansseemed to strike a chord with Ellis.
At about three thirty in the afternoon, our tour was overand we began to notice that the excited chattering of theadults in our group was interrupted increasingly frequentlyby minor, slightly overemotional outbursts from our children,who were milling around us like progressively more manicand fractious over-wound toys. In our enthusiasm for thepark we had collectively made an elementary, rookieparenting mistake and missed lunch, leading to Parents’
Dread: low blood sugar in under-tens. We had to find foodfast. We walked into the enormous Jaguar Restaurant, builtby Ellis in 1987 to seat three hundred people. Then wewalked out again. Rarely have I been in a workingrestaurant less conducive to the consumption of food. A thinfilm of grease from the prolific fat fryers in the kitchencoated the tired Formica tabletops, arranged in canteenrows and illuminated by harsh fluorescent strips mounted inthe swirling mess of the grease-yellowed Artex ceiling. Theheavy scent of the oil used to cook french fries gave a fairlyaccurate indication of the menu and mingled with thesmoke of hand-rolled cigarettes rising from the group ofstaff clad in gray kitchen whites sitting around the bar,eyeing their few customers with suspicion.
Even at the risk of total mass blood-sugar implosion, wewere not eating there, and asked for directions to thenearest supermarket for emergency provisions. And then,for me, the final piece of the Dartmoor puzzle fell into place,for that was when we discovered the Tesco at Lee Mill.
Seven minutes away by car was not just a supermarket, butan übermarket. In the climax of the film Monty Python andthe Holy Grail, King Arthur finally reaches a rise that giveshim a view of “Castle Aaargh,” thought to be the restingplace of the Holy Grail, the culmination of his quest. AsArthur and Sir Bedevere are drawn across the watertoward the castle by the pilotless dragon-crested ship,music of Wagnerian epic proportions plays to indicate thatthey are arriving at a place of true significance. This musicstarted spontaneously in my head as we rounded a cornerat the top of a small hill, and looked down into a man-madebasin filled with what looked almost like a giant spaceship,secretly landed in this lush green landscape. It seemed thesize of Stansted Airport, its lights beaming out theirmessage of industrial-scale consumerism into the rapidlydescending twilight of the late-spring afternoon. Hotchickens, fresh bread, salad, hummus, batteries, children’sclothes, newspapers, and many other provisions we werelacking were immediately provided. But more important,wandering around its cathedral-high aisles, I was hugelyreassured that, if necessary, I could find here a television, acamera, an iron, a kettle, stationery, a DVD, or a child’s toy.
And it was open twenty-four hours a day. As I watched thethirty-seven checkouts humming their lines of customersthrough, my final fear about relocating to the area was laidto rest. A Londoner for twenty years, I had becomeaccustomed to the availability of things like flat-screen TVs,birthday cards, or sprouts at any time of the day or night,and one of the biggest culture shocks of living in southernFrance for the last three years had been their totallydifferent take on this. For them, global consumerismstopped at 8 PM, and if you needed something urgentlyafter that, you had to wait till the next day. This Tesco, forme, meant that the whole thing was doable, and we tookour picnic to watch the sunset on a nearby beach in highspirits.
Although my mum’s house was not yet even on themarket, it had been valued at the same as the asking pricefor the park; so, with some trepidation, we put in an offer atthat price in a four-way sealed-bid auction and waitedkeenly for the outcome. But two days later we were told thatwe were not successful. Our bid was rejected by Ellis’sadvisors on the basis that we were in-experienced and hadno real money. Which we had to admit were both fairpoints. We went back to our lives with the minimum ofregrets, feeling that we had done what we could and hadbeen prepared to follow through, but now it was out of ourhands. Melissa went back to her family in Gloucestershire;Duncan was busy in London with his new business;Vincent, at fifty-four our eldest brother, had a new baby;Mum went back to the family home in Surrey, preparing toput it on the market. All relatively comfortable, successful,and rewarding. My life in particular, I felt, was compensationenough for missing out on this chance. Having spent nearlya decade maneuvering into a position of writing for a livingwith low overheads in a hot country, watching the childrengrow into this slightly strange niche, I was content with mylot and anxious to get back to it.
But after all the excitement, I couldn’t help wonderingabout what might have been. Sitting in my makeshiftPlexiglas office in the back of my beautiful derelict barn withthe swallows dipping in and out during the day and the batsbuzzing around my head at dusk, I couldn’t stop thinkingabout the life we could have built around that zoo.
Katherine was getting stronger every day, wielding myFrench pickax/mattock in her vegetable garden withincreasing vigor, and her muscle tone and body mass—wasted to its furthest extreme by the chemotherapy so thatshe went from looking like a catwalk model to an etiolatedpunk rocker, with her random tufts of hair—improvedthroughout the summer. Her neurologist, MadameCampello, a fiercely intelligent and slightly forbiddingwoman, was pleased with her progress and decided toshift her MRI scans from monthly to once every two months,which we saw as a good sign. It gave us longer betweenthe inevitable anxiety of going into N?mes to get the results,a process that both of us, particularly Katherine, foundpretty daunting.
Mme Campello was obviously compassionate, and I’msure I saw her actually gasp when she first saw Katherine,the children, and myself for Katherine’s initial postoperativeconsultation. From that moment she fast-forwarded almostevery part of the treatment, and I could see that this ladywas going to do everything she could to make sure thatKatherine survived. In her normal clinical consultations,however, Mme Campello was rather like a strictheadmistress, which made Katherine, always the good girl,feel unable to question her too closely about treatmentoptions. However, with one or two school expulsions undermy belt, I have never been overly intimidated by schoolheads, and felt quite entitled to probe. Mme Campelloturned out to be extremely receptive to this, and severaltimes I called her after speaking with Katherine once wehad got home, and we decided on an adjustment to hermedication.
My nighttime excursions with Leon continued to yieldinteresting creatures, like fireflies from impenetrablethickets that never produced the goods in daylight in front ofthe children, scorpions toward whom I was beginning tohabituate but was still jittery, and probably the mostsurprising for me, a long horn beetle. Never before or sincehave I seen such a beetle in the wild, and I was convincedhe was on the wrong continent. Long—perhaps threeinches—with iridescent wing casings, a small head, andenormous antennae, from which, I assume, he got hisname. I took great pleasure in identifying him with thechildren in our voluptuously illustrated French encyclopediabought from a book fair in Avignon, and photographing himstanding on the page next to his template self, though hewas inordinately more impressive and colorful.
Katherine was well and in capable hands, the childrenwere blooming, and I was writing about home improvementfor the Guardian and even occasionally doing some, andgradually making contact with professors around the worldon topics like chimpanzee predation of monkeys for sexualrewards, elephant intelligence, and the dolphin’s capacityfor syntax. It was close to heaven, with local friends poppingin for mandatory glasses of chilled rosé from the vines onour doorstep, and me able to adjust my working hoursaround the demands of the village and family life relativelyeasily. Apart from all that rosé.
But still I kept thinking about the zoo. The park sat on theedge of Dartmoor, surrounded by the lush woodland andbeautiful beaches of South Hams. The two days I had spentin this region of Devon would not go away. Our family hadenjoyed their stay, but it was more than that—somehowenchanting, something I could only very reluctantly let go of,even though I knew it was already lost.
Standing in my French hayloft door, free of Health andSafety Commission interference, the barn’s ancient portalsbleached like driftwood by the sun and sandblasted by themistral, with its interior and exterior dripping rusted doorfurniture, some of it reputedly dating back to the Napoleonicera, it was the zoo that kept coming back to me.
When Napoleon passed through our village ofArpaillargues in 1815, he famously killed two localdissenters, known (admittedly among a relatively select fewlocal French historians) as the Arpaillargues Two. In 2005the Tour de France passed through the village, causing nodeaths but quite a lot of excitement (though not enough forthe local shopkeeper, Sandrine, to forgo her three-hourlunch break to sell cold drinks to the hundreds of swelteringtourists lining the route). So, in two centuries, two quite bigthings had happened in the village. In between, it settledback into being baked by the sun and blasted by themistral. And, only slightly wistfully, I settled back into that,too.A year passed, with the zoo as a mournful but ebbingdistraction. Those big trees, so unlike the parched scrub ofsouthern Europe, the nearby rivers and sea, and theridiculously magnificent animals, so close to the house, sofoolishly endangered by mankind and yet right there in aready-made opportunity for keeping them alive for futuregenerations.
Partly because the whole family was in a bit of a dazeabout my father’s death, Mum’s house was still not on themarket, so we were unprepared for what happened next.
As an expat without satellite TV (that’s cheating), Inevertheless craved English news and probably visited theBBC News online two or three times a day. Suddenly, on12 April 2006, there it was again. Ellis had released astatement saying that the sale had fallen through yet again,and that many of the animals would have to be shot if abuyer wasn’t found within the next eleven days.
It didn’t give us long, but I knew exactly what I had to do. Icalled Melissa and Duncan, who had been the main driversof the previous attempt, and told them that we had to tryagain. I was not entirely surprised, however, when neither ofthem seemed quite as excited as I was. Both had delveddeeply into the machinations required for the purchase, andDuncan in particular had been alarmed at the time by ademand for a “non-refundable deposit” of ￡25,000 tosecure a place at the head of the line. “If you can get it inwriting that he will definitely sell it to us, and we can sell thehouse in time, I’ll back you up,” he said. He felt it was just anendless time-sink, but gladly gave me all the information hehad. Brother-in-law Jim too had a list of contacts andoffered his help preparing spreadsheets for a businessplan should it get that far.
Peter Wearden was the first call. As environmental healthofficer for the South Hams district, Peter was directlyresponsible for issuing the zoo license. “Can a bunch ofamateurs like us really buy a zoo and run it?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said unequivocally, “providing you have theappropriate management structure in place.” This structureconsists primarily of hiring a curator of animals, anexperienced and qualified zoo professional with detailedknowledge of managing exotic animals who is responsiblefor looking after the animals on a day-to-day basis. Petersent me a flowchart that showed the position of the curatorbeneath the zoo directors, which would be us, but still in aposition to allocate funds for animal management at his/herdiscretion. “You can’t just decide to buy a new ice-creamkiosk if the curator thinks there is a need for, say, newfence posts in the lion enclosure,” said Peter. “If you haven’tgot money for both, you have to listen to the curator.” Thatseemed fair enough. “There is, by the way,” he added, “aneed for new fence posts in the lion enclosure.” And howmuch are those? “No idea,” said Peter. “That’s where you’llhave to get professional advice. But that’s just one of many,many things you’ll need to do before you can get your zoolicense.” Peter explained a bit about the Zoo Licensing Act,and that Ellis was due to hand in his license to operate azoo within a couple of weeks, hence the eleven-daydeadline for the sale.
In fact, the animals would not have to be dispersed bythen, as they would be held under the Dangerous WildAnimals Act (DWA) as a private collection. It just meant thatvisitors were not allowed, so the park’s already seriouslyfaltering finances would reach a crunch point. But notabsolutely necessarily an eleven-day crunch point, itseemed. If we could mount a credible bid, there was everychance that we could carry on negotiating for a few weeksafter the park closed. Already, there was reason to hopethat this apparently hopeless task was not necessarilyimpossible.
“Is it viable?” I asked Peter. This time he took longer torespond. “Erm, I’m sure it is,” he said. “With the rightmanagement, a lot of money invested in the infrastructure,and a hell of a lot—and I mean a hell of a lot—of hard work,it should be viable, yes. For a long time it was one of thearea’s most popular attractions. It’s declined over the lastfew years due to lack of investment and not keeping up withthe times. But until quite recently it was a thriving business.”
I was deeply suspicious that there must be more to it thanthis, and that there was some sort of black hole in the wholefabric of the place that meant that it couldn’t work. Why hadthe other sales fallen through? So many industryprofessionals had cruised up to this project and somehownot taken the bait. Were we going to be the suckers whobought it and then discovered the truth?
Clearly, I needed professional help, which came in theform of a text message from a friend whose sister-in-lawSuzy happened to be a fairly senior zoo professional, easilyequivalent in fact to the rank of curator, currently working inAustralia. I had met Suzy once at a wedding a long timeago and liked her instantly. I was impressed with the waythat even in a cocktail dress, with her wild mane of blondehair, she managed to give the impression that she waswearing work boots, leggings, and a heavy fleece. Her jobat the time had involved educating Queensland cattlefarmers about the need for conservation of local wildlife, atough-enough sounding proposition for a bare-knuckleprize-fighter, I would have thought. But not for Suzy, whowas now working as head of animal procurement for thethree zoos in the State of Victoria, including the flagshipMelbourne Zoo where she was based. Suzy offered anyhelp she could give, and said she would even considertaking a sabbatical for year in order to act as curator. “Ican’t guarantee it,” she said. “But you can put me down asa candidate until we see how things develop. In themeantime, before you go any further, you need to get asurvey done by a zoo professional who can tell you whetherit works or not.” Suzy shared my concerns about thepossibility of a black hole, having read about Dartmoor’sdecline through the zoo community literature. Did she haveanyone in mind for this inspection? “There’s someone Iused to work with at Jersey who could give you a prettydefinitive opinion,” said Suzy. “He’s a bit too senior to dothat sort of thing now I think, but I’ll see what he thinks.”
And that’s how we came to meet Nick Lindsay, head ofInternational Zoo Programs for the Zoological Society ofLondon (ZSL), in the car park of Dartmoor Wildlife Park afew days later. This tall, slightly avuncular man shook handswith me and Melissa, who was now about eight monthspregnant, and agreed that we should walk up the drivealong the normal visitor access route to get a feel for howthe park works. We had commissioned a report from ZSLand Nick kindly agreed to carry out the inspection himself,as he too had been following the plight of the zoo, and as alocal boy had an interest in it. He even stayed with his mumdown the road so that we didn’t have to pay a hotel bill.
On the way up the drive we were as candid as we couldbe. “We know nothing about zoos, but if this really is aviable zoo, do you think it’s possible for us to do it?”
“Oh, there’s no reason for you to know about zoos inorder to buy one.” said Nick, laughing. “You’d have to be abit mad, but I assume you’ve got that part covered. Let’sjust see if it really is a viable zoo first.”
Our first stop was Ronnie the tapir, whose enclosure ranparallel to the drive. Nick bent down and called him over,and to my surprise he came. I had never seen a tapir thisclose before, and was impressed that this large, strangelookinganimal was so biddable and friendly. Resembling alarge pig with a hump on its back and a miniatureelephant’s trunk for a nose, the tapir was made, theIndonesians say, from the parts left over when God hadfinished making all the other animals.
Nick held his fingers through the mesh, and Ronniewibbled his extended proboscis onto it, and then onto ourhands, happy to make our acquaintance. With thischarming encounter, however, came the first of the thingsthat would need addressing. “This fence should have astand-off barrier,” said Nick. “We have to be sure his houseis heated in the winter, and it looks a bit muddy in there forhim. He’s an ungulate, so his feet are quite delicate.” I’dbeen determined to take notes all day to keep track of thekind of expenditure we would be looking at, but already I’drun into an unforeseen problem: tapir snot, all over my handand notepad. “Don’t worry,” said Nick. “I’ll put everything inthe report.”
The day went well, and we were halfway around the parkwhen we were intercepted by Robin, a strained-lookingman with a long gray ponytail, who introduced himself as amember of the staff, clearly prepared to undergo theunpleasantness of seeing us around the park, though notrelishing it. Though we had made an appointment to view,we should be escorted at all times, for legal and securityreasons, he told us. He was our guide for the rest of theoutside tour. It soon became clear that there was noquestion about the park that Robin could not answer.
History, attendance figures, animal diets, names of plants—he knew it all. And then something happened that gavehim a tricky one. A huge shot boomed out, echoing acrossthe valley. It could only have been a gunshot, and fromsomething big, the kind of sound you generally only hear infilms. We stopped in our tracks. “Er, bit of trouble with thetigers?” I asked. Robin paused, looked a bit more strainedbut now tinged with sadness, and said. “No, it’s one of thelionesses, actually. She had lung cancer.” He turned to leadus on and I looked at Nick, utterly agog. I had never beenanywhere where they had shot a lion within fifty meters ofwhere I was standing. Was this okay? Are they allowed todo that? Does it sound justified? Is this somehowconnected with the black hole? Nick looked slightly takenaback, but seemed to take it in his stride. “If she had lungcancer and the vet says it’s time, it’s completely justified,”
he said. And the use of a gun rather than an injection wasalso quite normal, if the animal was difficult or dangerous todart. So it was all okay, everything normal, just that a lionhad been shot. If the head of the International Zoo Programat ZSL said it was all right, it must be, but I confess I found itslightly unsettling.
So did Rob, the man who had pulled the trigger. We methim later in the Jaguar Restaurant, along with Ellis, andEllis’s sister Maureen. Ellis was also unsettled, by atoothache, he said, which was why he was holding a glassof whiskey. There was a difficult, tense atmosphere as theedifice of a once successful family business lay in ruins,creditors circled, and emotions were near the surface. Butthere were questions we and Nick needed to ask Ellis, andhe also had questions for us. Rob seemed almost close totears after his ordeal of shooting the lioness, Peggy, ananimal he had known for thirteen years, and was reluctantto come to the table at first, but Maureen persuaded himthat it might be necessary, as he now held the license tokeep the collection on site under the DWA. Ellis paced theroom, cursing, not quite under his breath.
Eventually we all sat down and Nick said hello to Ellis asa teacher might greet a former student, expelled but at thereunion, as was only right. They knew each other fromvarious Zoo Federation meetings over the years, and Ellisnodded, acknowledging that here was a man with whom heneeded to cooperate. Nick began his line of questions forhis report, and everything went well until he mentioned thename of Peter Wearden, the South Hams environmentalhealth officer. “Peter Wearden? Peter Wearden? I’ll kill him,I will. I’ll cut his head off with a sword and stick it on a spikeat the top of the drive. That’ll show them what I think of him.”
He went on for a while, explaining how he had killed menbefore, in the war—”I’m good at killing men”—as well asevery kind of animal on the planet. He wouldn’t make a fussabout shooting a lion, like Rob.
At this point I interjected, and said I personally didn’t thinkit was unreasonable for Rob to be upset, but we needed totalk about Peter Wearden. “I’d kill him without a thought, justlike the lion,” he said, looking me in the eye. Not sure whatto say, I thought I’d try to claw back toward some referencesto reality. “Well, that would at least sort out youraccommodation problems for the next few years,” I said. Heweighed this remark, looked at me again and said, “I’ve gothis coffin ready for him up here before.” And it was true. Acoffin with a picture of Peter Wearden in it had been in therestaurant for a period of about six months, even while thepark was open to the public. “Now then, Ellis,” said Nick,moving seamlessly on, “what about those stand-offbarriers?”
Ellis was polite but perceptibly preoccupied as he tookus on the tour of the house again, even more briskly thanlast time, and I was surprised to see that it seemed insignificantly worse condition than I remembered it. Whetherthis was cosmetic, due to an increase in mess, or memisremembering the fabric of the place was hard to tell, butthe impression was strong enough to cause a new entry inmy mental spreadsheet of expenditures.
The first warning was the increase in the strength of theodor in the kitchen, at the front of the house. This was Ellis’sentry point, and obviously one of the key rooms he used,but it stank. Last time it stank badly, but this time the stenchwas like a fog that you felt was clinging to your clothes.
Women in Melissa’s condition are particularly sensitive tosmells, and she nearly gagged as she passed through,pressing her hand to her mouth in case she had to forciblysuppress some vomit—it is impolite after all, whensomeone is proudly showing you around their home, tothrow up in it.
The main source of the smell seemed to be a bucket inthe corner containing raw mackerel and dead day-oldchicks to be fed in the mornings to the heron and jackdawpopulation. It was an ancient, yellowed plastic vessel, andthere had to be some doubt about its structural integrity, asa large, ancient, multicolored stain rippled outward from itsbase like a sulphur bog, but more virulent. Even Ellis wasmoved to comment, “Bit whiffy in here. But you don’t have tokeep that there,” he added, gesturing toward the bucket.
“You’ll be moving things around, I suppose.” Somehow Ididn’t think that simply repositioning the bucket wouldexpunge this odor. I vowed on that threshold that, if we gotthe park, no food would ever be prepared in this roomagain.
The rest of the house seemed more dishevelled than weremembered, and we still didn’t have time to get a fullpicture of how the floor plan worked. Half the house hadbeen used for students, and this section was coated inplastic signs declaring, NO SMOKING, TURN OFF THELIGHTS, and oddly, BEING SICK ON THE STAIRS ISFORBIDDEN. But it mostly seemed like a standardrewiring, replumbing, and plastering job would make itgood. The other half of the house, with a grand galleriedstaircase and stone-flagged kitchen, was marred bydecades of clashing wallpapers and patchwork surfacerewiring that snaked wildly like the tendrils of an aggressivegiant creeper gradually taking over the house. And ofcourse the all-pervading smell coming from the frontkitchen.
The stone-flagged kitchen had not been used as such fordecades, and in the fireplace, behind a ragged, dusty sheethanging on a string nailed to the high mantel above it, lay arusted hulk of an ancient range, a door hanging off, cloggedinside with what appeared to be bird droppings from thechimney above. “My grandma used to cook on that,” saidEllis. “Bit of work would get it going again. Worth a few bob,that.” I wasn’t so sure. But this room looked out over an oldcobbled courtyard, now overgrown with weeds, whichlooked across to the cottage opposite, above the stables(read “junk depository”). Melissa, who is good at spottingpotential and visualizing a finished house, lit up. “This is thebest bit of the house,” she said. Really? “I can imaginedoing the breakfast in here, looking across the courtyard,waving to Katherine or Mum in their kitchen in the cottage.”
At that time Melissa was still seriously considering sellingup and moving in too, five kids and Jim included. It soundedgood. But in the time allowed, and with enough clutter to filla hundred rummage sales strewn about, it was hard togauge what it might be like to live in this house. Except thatit, like the park, would require a lot of (expensive) work.
We came back out of the house and met Nick in therestaurant again, thanked our hosts, and strolled down thedrive. By now our objective and impartial advisor hadbecome a little partisan. “I think it’s a great place,” enthusedNick. “Much better than I thought it would be from all thestories. You’ll need a proper site survey, to be sure, but asfar as I can see, this could be a working zoo again withouttoo much trouble.” As an advisor on zoo design, Nick alsohad a few ideas to throw in at this stage. “Get thecustomers off the drive”—which ran up the center of thelower half of the park for a fifth of a mile—“and into thepaddock next to it. You could put a wooden walkwaythrough it—meandering, so that they don’t notice the climb—and get something striking in there, like zebras, andmaybe some interesting antelopes, so that as soon as theypass through the kiosk they enter a different world.” Couldwe get zebras? I asked. “Oh, I can get you zebras,” saidNick casually, as if they were something he might pick upfor us at Tesco. This I liked. Spoken almost like a wheelerdealer:
video recorders, leather jackets, zebras, roll up, rollup. But there was more about this glimpse into theworkings of the zoo world that appealed. Nick was paintingwith the animals, as well as designing a seriouscommercial layout in his head. “You need more flamingos,”
he said. “Flamingos look good against the trees. The lakeup there with the island has trees behind it, so if you put afew more in it they’ll look marvelous when the punters reachthe top of the path. Then, having climbed that hill, they’ll behot. So that’s where you sell them their first ice cream.”
Wow. Unfortunately, flamingos are one of the few animalsthat don’t usually come free from other zoos, costinganything from ￡800 to ￡1,500 each. Which is a lot of icecream. And with the prospect of bird flu migrating over thehorizon there was the possibility of a mass culling orderfrom DEFRA (Department for Environments, Food, andRural Affairs) shortly after we took delivery of thesebeautiful, expensive birds. Our flamingo archipelago mighthave to wait.
I went back to France, Melissa went to her children inGloucester, and Nick went back to Whipsnade, where heprepared the report that was to dictate the direction of ourlives. If it was negative, it would be definitively so, and therewould be no point chasing this dream any further. In manyways, as before, I was half hoping that this would be thecase and I could finally lay the idea to rest knowingcategorically that it would be a mistake to proceed. If it waspositive, however, we knew we had to continue, and thereport itself would become instrumental in finding thebacking to make it happen.
Meanwhile, I was learning more about the zoo every day.
Ellis had once been seen as a visionary, designinginnovative enclosures, putting in disabled access on adifficult sloping site long before legislation required him todo so, and developing an aggressive outreach educationprogram, one of the first of its kind in the country and nowcopied by almost every other zoo. But he had absolute,total control. There was no one to tell him when to stop. Andwith overinvestment in expensive infrastructure like theenormous restaurant (against advice, which he overruled),an expensive divorce, and other zoos learning, copying,and developing his techniques and continually changingtheir game while he began to grind to a halt, visitornumbers declined.
My life became a series of long phone calls to lawyers,real estate agents, bankers, family members, and Ellis.
Every time I spoke to Ellis, I noticed, he inexorably steeredthe conversation toward conflict. We were frank with him.
We didn’t have the money to buy it yet, but we had assetsof equal value, which we could borrow against or sell, if hecould only hold on. “You’d think when someone offered tobuy a place they’d at least have the money to do it,” he saidonce, the type of observation that gave me an indication ofwhy so many other sales had fallen through. Apart fromanything else, Ellis was in the terrible position of having tosell his much-loved park, built largely with his own hands,the expression of his life’s vision over the last forty years,so it was no wonder he was irascible. The only other bidderleft was a developer wanting to turn it into a nursing home,and Ellis didn’t want that. So, to his enormous credit, heagreed to wait for us.
In this tense situation, I was genuinely concerned forPeter Wearden, who had become the focus of Ellis’svexation, crystallized as the deliberate, Machiavellianarchitect of his downfall. It had all started with a routineinspection several years ago, which had concluded that thehand-painted signs on the animal enclosures were illegibleand needed replacing. Ellis escorted the inspector from thepark (some say at the end of a shotgun), and refused tocarry out the directive. This activated a one-way process ofhead-on confrontation with the authorities, which escalatedinto many other areas over the years, and ultimately led tohim handing in his zoo license in April 2006. When we’dvisited that last time, after so many years of gradualdecline, it felt like we’d been to the Heart of Darkness, to aplace where a charismatic visionary had created an empireonce teeming with life and promise, but where humanfrailties had ultimately been exposed by the environment,with terrible consequences. I telephoned Peter and told himof my concerns. It was not uncommon for council officials tobe attacked in the course of their work, even occasionallykilled, and Ellis was, in my opinion, a man with his back tothe wall. The word amok, in Malay, describes a syndromewhereby someone feels they have received an intolerableinsult that has ruined their life, and that the only way toredeem their status is to kill the perpetrator, orperpetrators. The amok syndrome is a universalphenomenon, just as likely to present itself in South Hamsas in Malaysia or Southern California. And Ellis owned anelephant gun with a range of about three miles. “Oh, I’m notbothered about that.” Peter laughed, with a bravery I doubt Iwould have shown in his position.
“He does seem very difficult to deal with,” I said. “Is thereanyone else it might be possible to talk to there?” Hislawyer? Rob?
“Try Maureen, his sister,” advised Peter. “She talkssense.”
And so another vital piece fell into place for theacquisition of the park. Maureen was devoted to herbrother, and on both tours of the house we had been showna picture of her as a teenager falling out of the back of astock car during a jump Ellis was performing (among otherthings he had been a stuntcar driver). She had workedoutside the park in a hotel all her life, and understood thepressures of the outside world perhaps better than he did. Ispoke to Maureen two or three times a day as we tried topiece together a plan that would save the park.
Another key person, without whom we would never havesucceeded, was Mike Thomas. To get backing we neededa site survey, which would cost about three thousandpounds. But I knew that several (nine, in fact) such surveyshad been commissioned recently, and was reluctant to payfor another. I asked Maureen if she knew of anyone of therecent potential buyers who might be prepared to sell ustheir survey. “Try Mike Thomas,” she said. So I ended uppitching on the phone to a complete stranger that we weretrying to buy the park and had heard he had commissioneda full site survey recently. “Go on,” said a gravelly voice. Itold him everything about our inexperience and lack offunds, surprised as I continued that he didn’t put the phonedown. “You can have the survey,” he said at the end.
“Where shall I send it?” This was the first of manygenerosities from Mike, whose reassuring voice often sawme through difficult times in the months ahead.
Mike was the former owner of Newquay Zoo, which hehad turned from a run-down operation with 40,000 visitors ayear to a thriving center of excellence with about 250,000visitors, in the space of nine years. He knew what he wasdoing. His bid had foundered on the twin rocks of Ellis andMike’s business partner, but he wished the park well. Moreimportant, he had been appointed by Peter Wearden tooversee the dispersal of the animal collection to other zoos,should it be necessary. He was in daily contact with Rob,the holder of the DWA license, and Peter, and as a man onthe inside could not have been better placed. Hisunswerving support and sound advice were absolutelypivotal for us in securing the park.
Weeks dragged on, and the main positive development— apart from the arrival of Nick Lindsay’s report from ZSL,which gave a ringing endorsement to the park as a futureenterprise— was that a cash buyer was found for mymum’s house. But he was a cautious man, in no hurry, andany inclination that we desperately needed the money rightnow would have almost certainly reduced his bid. Bridgingloans—those expensive, dangerous arrangements offeredby commercial banks in the hope of snaffling all your assetsin a year—were arranged, and fell through. Commercialmortgages, likewise, were offered and withdrawn. Severalhigh-end banks let us down badly. Lloyds three timesextended the hand of friendship and then, just as we wereshaking it, pulled it away, put their thumb up to their nose,and gave it the full hand waggle. Very funny, guys. Privatebanks were similarly fickle. Perhaps eight banks altogetherpromised support in protracted negotiations on which werelied, and then we passed the good news on to thenaturally keenly interested other side, and committed morefunds on the basis of that. Then the offer would bewithdrawn. Corporate managers were generallypersuadable and good at giving you a 100 percent verbalagreement and a physical shake of the hand. But thebackroom boys with the calculators and gray suits whoconstituted what were known as risk teams, invariablybalked. Lawyers were also busy. At one point a six-acrepaddock disappeared from the map of what was includedin the price, which I made clear to Maureen was a dealbreaker, and it reemerged.
For light relief at the end of a twelve-hour day of circularphone calls, we would watch the series 24, boxed sets ofwhich were making the rounds of the English mums inFrance. Kiefer Sutherland plays Jack Bauer, a maverickCTU (counterterrorism unit) agent who, over severalepisodes, always has to save the world in twenty-fourhours, shown in real time an hour at a time. The groundshifts under his feet as he pursues, with total commitment,leads that turn out to be blind alleys. He is betrayed by hissuperiors, double agents, and miscellaneous villains, andfaces new disasters with every tick of the clock. Alliesbecome enemies, enemies become friends but then getkilled; yet he somehow adapts and finds a new line to gofor. I knew exactly how he felt. Every day there wereimpossible obstacles, which by the afternoon had beenresolved and forgotten, in preparation for the next.
But the situation at the other end seemed far moredesperate. Running costs—seven tigers, three lions, andsix keepers to feed—continued without ticket sales to coverthem, interest on debts stacked up, and creditors brushedup close with increasing frequency. Then, just as the buyerfor my mum’s house agreed to sign sooner rather thanlater, Maureen told me we had to begin paying runningcosts for the zoo in order to stop it going to the nursinghomedeveloper. By now we were pretty committed, soDuncan and I melted credit cards to pay, by whatevermeans possible, ￡3,000 a week to keep our bid open. Thiswas way beyond our means and could not last long,particularly for something that might not pay off. Luckily,Duncan conjured a donor—who wants to remainanonymous—who lent us ￡50,000, to use as a “semirefundabledeposit.” This was good news, but obviously itneeded to be paid back, win or lose, and the “lose”
scenario didn’t really have that contingency.
By agreeing to pay the semi-refundable deposit (we gothalf back if the sale fell through), we were now one of Ellis’screditors. We were going upriver to see Kurtz. We’d donethe reconnaissance. Now we had to see if we could go allthe way. All we had to remember was not to get out of theboat. Then, just as the sale of my mum’s house was finallyagreed, we had our worst moment. My brother Henry, whohad been supportive of the venture at the beginning,suddenly lost his nerve and mounted a costly legal battleagainst the rest of the family. Henry was executor for mydad’s half of the estate, so could delay the release of fundsas he saw fit. He refused to be contacted except by lettersent through the post, which in a situation changing hourlywas simply untenable for such a key player. Mum, Duncan,and I tried to go around and discuss it with him severaltimes, but he wouldn’t answer the door or phone. It waslooking bad. We felt for Henry with whatever it was he wasgoing through, but there was a bigger picture that everysingle other member of the family was in agreement on.
Finally, the whole family ended up on the doorstep of hisexpensive lawyers (paid for out of the estate), and afterbeing kept waiting for three hours, persuaded them that thiswas Mum’s wish and the wish of all the beneficiaries of mydad’s will. We all wanted to buy the zoo.
Eventually Henry agreed, as long as we all signed aclause that we wouldn’t sue him when it all went wrong, andeach sibling took the full ￡50,000 they were entitled tounder the Nil Rate Band legislation (the value of an estatethat is not subject to inheritance tax). This meant that therewouldn’t be enough to buy the zoo unless at least four of usgave the money straight back, which everyone but Henryinstantly agreed to, though in order to do so we each had toseek independent legal advice first. This meant each of usfinding another lawyer and paying for written evidence toshow that we had been made aware of the risks, which wasfun.Also, instead of the zoo being bought in the name of alimited company, a business- and tax-efficient vehicle andthe basis of all our months of negotiations, it had to bebought in Mum’s name. And no one lends a seventy-sixyear-old lady half a million pounds, however spry andadventurous she may be. Back of the envelope calculationsrevealed that if everything went according to plan, therewould be enough money to buy the zoo, pay all the legalfees, and have ￡4,000 left over, equivalent to about tendays’ running costs.
We leaped at it. Well, my two brothers, sister, and Mumdid. Katherine had remained slightly bemused by the ideathrough-out the negotiations, partly because of the inherentuncertainty about whether we would get the zoo, but alsobecause running a zoo had never featured very high on herto-do list. However, she thought about how much thechildren would enjoy it, she observed my enthusiasm, andinvestigated a role for herself doing graphics and moneymanagement. These were both well-honed skills from herdays as an art director on glossy magazines, and once shewas able to equate the whole thing to organizing a large,complicated ongoing photo shoot, she gave her cautioussupport. Now that it was becoming a reality, she knew whatshe had to do, and she was ready. The children, as you canimagine, were very enthusiastic, jumping up and down,clapping and squealing. I’m not sure they really believed it—but it was true.

Chapter 3 The First Days
From the outset, we knew that it was going to be tough.
Employ twenty staff members, when we had neveremployed staff before? Take care of two hundred wild andexotic animals? The house we had moved into was as rundownas the zoo over which it looked. Though once agrand, twelve-bedroom mansion, now its plumbinggroaned, its paper peeled, its floor-boards creaked—but itwas home. Most people, especially at Mum’s age, arelooking to downsize their lives, but we were upsizingdramatically, into an utterly unfamiliar avenue of work, andthe stakes were high. Everything, frankly, that my mum anddad had worked for over fifty years together was on thetable. And still we needed more—half a million more—justto be able to take the chance that the zoo might be able toreopen, and that when it did, it would work. Normally thislevel of uncertainty over something so important wouldseem impossibly crazy, but the late legal challenge from ourown side had forced our hand, leaving us uncertain,penniless, and paddling like mad to find some money. Yet,in the context of the last six months of negotiations, it simplyseemed like just another bad but probably weatherabledevelopment.
We were also comforted by the fact that although wehadn’t done anything like this before—and we didn’t have alicense to trade nor even a particular curator in mind (Suzyin Australia was having health problems, which put her outof the picture)—at least we owned the entire place outright.
This, surely, stood us in good stead with creditors. Plus wehad a whole ￡4,000 left over.
The meticulously researched business plan I had evolvedwith Jim—or, more accurately, Jim had put intospreadsheets based on his business knowledge andrumors I’d picked up from the twenty or so leadingattractions in Devon—was now very much hypothetical. Theurgent spending that was due to commence as we arrivedwas now delayed as we searched for new lenders, whocircled again, sniffing with renewed interest, since, asholders of actual assets, we had lurched to a new statuswith their backroom boys.
As it turned out, the backroom boys remained less thanimpressed. We could hear their collective eyebrows creakup, releasing small puffs of dust, but the calculators werequickly deployed, and though some offers were tentativelymade, all were swiftly withdrawn. This problem was goingto catch up with us fast, so with phones glued to our ears,we set about trying to solve immediate crises on the groundwithout actually spending any money. In those first few dayswe walked in wonder around the park, meeting the animals,gathering information, marveling at the bears, wolves, lions,and tigers, getting to know the keepers, and grinning wildlyover our new life.
The first time I met Kelly I got a surprise. As with Hannah,she was one of the two dedicated cat keepers who hadstayed on against the odds to look after the animals,sometimes not being paid, and having to pay for vitaminsupplements for the animals (and rudimentary sundries—like flashlight batteries and toilet paper) out of their ownpockets. “Are you the new owner?” she asked, wide-eyedand intense, to which I replied I was one of them. “Can youplease do something about the situation with these tigers?”
I had no idea what situation Kelly was talking about, but shesoon filled me in.
The top tiger enclosure is a moated range of 2,100square meters called Tiger Rock, after the enormousStonehenge-like boulder construction that is itscenterpiece. It contained three tigers: Spar, at nineteen theelderly patriarch of the park; and two sisters, Tammy andTasmin, ten and eleven. But only two tigers were ever out inthe enclosure at any one time. This was because Spar,though old, was still a red-blooded male, and occasionallytried to mate with the two girls, even though his back legswere arthritic and wobbly and they were hisgranddaughters. Five years earlier, Tammy and Tasminwere given contraceptive injections to prevent inbreeding(and because Ellis was not allowed to breed tigersanymore, having recently been prosecuted for thirty-twocounts of illegal tiger breeding). The unfortunate result ofthis hormonal change in the two sisters was that theysuddenly hated each other and began to fight, and fightingtigers are very difficult to separate; it could only end indeath. So, one of the sisters was always locked in the tigerhouse for twenty-four hours at a time while the other playedfondly with her granddad. Then the other tiger would belocked away for twenty-four hours, allowing her sister adaylong taste of freedom. As Kelly explained this to me,she drew my attention to the arrhythmic banging comingfrom the tiger house, which I had assumed was somemaintenance work. In fact it was Tammy, frustrated by herconfinement in a two-by-three-meter (six-by-twelve-foot)cell, banging on the metal door to get out. Kelly was on thebrink of tears as she told me that this had been going on forfive years, causing enormous suffering to the tigers (andkeepers), and making them much more dangerous tohandle. “It’s unacceptable in a modern zoo,” Kelly ended,somewhat unnecessarily, as even an amateur like me couldappreciate this. I immediately promised her that we woulddo whatever was necessary to rectify the situation, whichturned out to be finding one of the warring sisters a newhome. A new tiger enclosure was expensive and unfeasible(we already had two), and would have meant permanentisolation for one of the girls. I asked Kelly to research newhomes for whichever tiger was most suitable to pass on,and walked away from the encounter amazed that such anongoing systemic problem had not arisen in thenegotiations to buy the zoo. On the bright side, it was a bigimprovement we could make for almost no cost, but it wasone we hadn’t been expecting, and it was worrying that wehadn’t known about it before we bought the zoo. Why hadPeter Wearden or Mike Thomas not told me about this?
What else would emerge?
It was all the more surprising given that Peter and Mikehad not been shy about throwing me in at the deep end withdifficult animal-management decisions already. On thephone from France, probably about three months before webought the park, Peter sprang something on me as the lastbidder planning to run the place as a zoo. “What are yougoing to do about the two female jaguars?” he asked. Er,they’re lovely. What’s the problem? “The house fails to meetwith industry standards and there is a serious concernabout the possibility of an escape.” Can’t it be rebuilt, orrefurbished? “It’s been patched up too many times already,and rebuilding it with the animals in the enclosure isunfeasible. They have to be moved. If you’re going to be thenew owner, you have to decide now what you are going todo.”
Standing barefoot in my hot, dusty, French barn office,looking out over sun-drenched vineyards throbbing withcicada song seven hundred miles away from this unfamiliarproblem, I was taken aback. I wriggled for a bit, suggestingwe rehouse them in the puma enclosure and move the lessdangerous pumas elsewhere, desperately searching for away of keeping these two gorgeous big cats on the site.
Hand-reared from cubs, they were particularly responsiveto humans, answered to their names and rubbed up againstthe wire like epic versions of domestic house cats.
Sovereign, the male jaguar housed separately, only got onwith one of the females, who could be tried with him, but thesister cats were inseparable from birth and would pine foreach other. As a keeper of cats (albeit domestic ones)since childhood, I understood the very real suffering thiswould cause, and instinctively shied away from that option.
In the end I realized that this was a test, and the correctresponse was to roll with it, however uncomfortable it felt.
For the good of the animals, and in the interests ofdemonstrating a break from the past to the council, I askedPeter what he recommended. “Donate them permanently toanother zoo as soon as you take over,” he said. “MikeThomas will organize it for you.” I canvassed Mike and Rob,the head keeper currently responsible for the jags, and theyboth said the same thing: To prevent the very real risk of anescape, we should donate them as soon as possible. Witha very deep sigh, I eventually agreed. “That’s the rightanswer,” said Mike. “For that, you can probably get acouple of those zebras you’ve been on about, some waydown the line, when you’re ready to receive them. Andprobably a breeding female for Sovereign later on.” This Iliked—spots for stripes—and it made me feel a little closerto the zoo world, knowing I had made a tough decisioneveryone approved of and was building credibility.
But with two prime big cats going, the Tammy/Tasminquestion loomed large. In the first few days it also came outthat a wolf and three of the seven vervet monkeys had alsobeen ostracized by their groups and needed rehousing.
Would we have any animals left by the time we reopened?
One well-meaning relative called to helpfully explain that Ihad made an elementary blunder with the jaguars. “If you’regoing to run a zoo, it has to have animals in it,” she said.
The sense of siege from all sides was tightening, but I wassure that I’d made the right decision with all the informationavailable to me on the ground, and it only made me moredetermined.
In these very early days a lot of time was spent clearingout the house and grounds of junk, and burning it on a hugefire in the yard. This was cathartic for us and the park as awhole, but must have been hard for relatives of Ellis, likeRob, his grandson, who had to help haul the nowdilapidated furniture that he had grown up with onto thepyre. I’d already agreed that Rob could stay in the run-downcottage on site, and offered him anything he wanted tosalvage, but generally, he seemed relieved by the process.
Rob was extremely positive and helpful toward us.
But then, four days after we took over Dartmoor WildlifePark, while chatting with Rob about what to do with oursurplus stock, the unthinkable happened. In a catastrophicblunder, a junior keeper accidentally let one of the mostdangerous animals on the park, Sovereign, out of hisenclosure. At about 5:30 PM I was sitting with Rob in thekitchen when Duncan burst in, shouted, “ONE OF THE BIGCATS IS OUT! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!” and then ran offagain. Now, Duncan doesn’t normally shout or get agitated,but here he was, clearly doing both. Rob disappeared likea puff of smoke, and I knew he’d gone to get the guns andorganize the staff’s response. I sat for an increasinglysurreal moment and then decided that, as a director of azoo, I probably ought to go and see exactly what was goingon. I started making my way toward the part of the parkwhere the big cats are kept. This was one of the strangestmoments of my life. All I knew was that a big cat—a lion, atiger?—was out, somewhere, and might be about to comebounding around the corner like an energetic Tigger but notnearly so much fun. I saw a shovel and picked it up, but itfelt like an anvil in my hand. What was the point? I thought,and dropped it, and began walking toward the sound ofscreaming. Was I about to see someone being eatenalive? I had images of someone still alive but fatallymauled, rib cage asunder, being consumed before ahorrified audience. Then a car pulled up with Duncan andRob in it. “GET IN THE CAR!” I was told, and gladlycomplied.
At the top tiger enclosure it was clear that the jaguar,Sovereign, was inside with a tiger, Tammy. Both animalswere agitated and the keepers were shouting todiscourage them from fighting. My first thought was reliefthat the animals were contained and no one was injured. Iconferred with Rob, now backed up by his brother Johnarmed with a high-powered rifle, and we began to build upa picture of what had happened. If the animals beganfighting he would have to shoot one of them, and wedecided it should be the tiger, because she was moredangerous and also the less-endangered animal, but hewould fire a warning shot first to try to separate them. Iasked that he only do this as an absolute last resort, asletting guns off would seriously up the ante for theassembled personnel, who at the moment were all tensebut calm.
Suddenly the jaguar lunged at the tiger’s hindquarters,and the tiger turned and swiped the jaguar’s head, spinninghim like a doll. At half her weight, Sovereign was instantlydiscouraged. From that point both animals stayed apart,encouraged by the coaxing of the keepers. But the tigerwas reluctant to surrender her territory. Sovereign pacedpurposefully along the right-hand perimeter, tracking akeeper who was moving up and down the fence to keep hisattention. Tammy took up a position on top of a rock andscowled and bellowed at Sovereign. Twenty minutes earlierI’d been having a nice cup of tea, and now I was witnessingan intense standoff that could only be ended by a dart froma gun. Unfortunately, the one in our gun room didn’t work,and had never worked, despite being on the inventory as aworking safety tool. We were only equipped to shoot to kill.
Soon the cat keeper Kelly ordered all available men toassemble along the bottom perimeter, and on commandwe shouted as loudly as we could at Tammy (she doesn’tlike men or shouting), while the cat keepers Kelly andHannah called her to her house. All keepers, maintenanceand ground staff, and even an IT expert, Tom, who’d beenon a site visit to give us a quote and had been with Duncanup at the lion house, got caught up in the escape. Tom hada good bellow, as depicted on the TV series being filmedat this early time. A camera crew shadowing your everymove can be a worrying thing, but we felt we had nothing tohide and, just to raise the stakes, I negotiated with Rob thatthe crew could leave the safety of their car and join us at thewall. The men commenced bellowing and the effect wasimmediate, like spraying Tammy with cold water. Her tailtwitched, her ears flattened, and after a couple of minutesshe cracked, jumped off the rock, and went into her house.
There was an enormous sense of relief, but I called MikeThomas and told him of my concerns. Although he wascontained, Sovereign was not 100 percent secure becausehe was in an unfamiliar enclosure, and agitated enough totry something desperate. Mike agreed. “I’ve seen an apejump forty feet when it was stressed,” said Mike. “Which it’snot supposed to be able to do. Luckily we caught her in theladies’ toilets.” If Sovereign got out again, we were unlikelyto be so lucky.
With all three tigers in, we decided the next obviouscourse of action was to try to lure Sovereign into the fourthtiger-house chamber, so that he really was contained.
Unfortunately, this spare chamber was in disrepair, andwas not secure. It needed lining with steel sheets andrepairs to the slats on the floor, both tasks that could becarried out in-house in a few hours with materials andpersonnel on site, but the light was fading fast. And therewas no light in the tiger house. Duncan stayed to overseethe refurbishment of the chamber, and I went off to try to buysome emergency lighting, with directions from the keepersto the nearest lighting emporium, in nearby Plympton. As Idrove off into the dusk, I noticed some workmen on themain access road unloading transits with tools, but theywaved me through and I thought little of it as I sped on in myquest.
After a couple of emergency U-turns I found a largegarden center-cum-bric-a-brac emporium, selling myriadkitsch, but which had DIY and lighting sections. I sprinted upthe stairs, grabbed an assistant, and asked for halogenfloodlights. There was a long pause. Then, as if in slowmotion, she said, “Well . . . I . . . think . . . we’ve . . . got . . .
some fairy lights—” NO, no, no. Flood-lights. Halogenfloodlights, 500 watts. Completely different. Where wouldthey be? As she drifted off to ask someone, I combed thelighting section again at emergency speed, eyes scanningsystematically up and down the rows of frilly pink bedsidelights, glass ladies holding a single bulb, and of course,fairy lights. I tried to broaden my mission statement; wouldany of this lighting detritus work as a compromise? Ipictured our grizzled team working in a dank corridor withmetal angle grinding machines, tigers in the next bay, andimagined their faces as I presented them with a Disneycharacterdesk lamp. No.
And then I found it. In an unmarked box on a bottom shelfwas a single exterior wall-mount halogen lamp, but no plugor cord. I grabbed it with both hands and shot down to theDIY section, past the emerging assistant, who was saying,“I’m sorry . . . but . . . we . . . haven’t got—” It’s okay. Gotone. Thanks.
With no one around in DIY I found a plug and some cord,and finally raised an assistant to measure it out for me. Itwas taking too long, so I decided to take the whole roll. “I’ll .
. . have . . .to . . . get . . . a price . . . for that . . . and Reg . . .
is . . . on his . . . break . . .” Okay, measure it out and roll itback, quickly please, as I’m in a bit of a hurry. He got theidea and I was soon in the checkout line, restlessly shiftingmy weight and craning over the three people in front of meto see how long they were likely to take. Now, my tolerancefor the dead time in checkout lines is minimal even whenI’m not in a hurry. Over the years I have developed zazenbreathing strategies, and trained myself not to focus on theinevitable sequence of minor ineptitudes that slow the linedown and that could be avoided. But this wasn’t working. Iwas in full emergency mode—a couple of hours before Iwas making life and death decisions for the first time in mylife, there was a volatile big cat prowling around up the roadin the wrong place, and it was going dark and I needed tocomplete this purchase so that we could continue workingto get him contained. And this was not a proficientcheckout. The cashier seemed bemused by her till, andeveryone around me was moving as slowly as molasses.
Then, as the first transaction finally meandered to itsconclusion, the departing customer stepped smartly backinto line and reached for a packet of marshmallows; “Ooh, Iforgot these,” he said. I very nearly cracked and went intomanual override. My hand was twitching toward the bag offatuous pink-and-white confectionery, and I fought the urgeto snatch it away, throw it down, and demand to beprocessed next. But I didn’t. Deep breaths. Eventually itwas over, and I was speeding back through the darknesstoward the emergency.
On the home straight an obstruction loomed in the headlights. Unbelievably, the guys in the transits I’d passedearlier had closed the road between my leaving the parkand returning. Concrete barriers were in place, and a signsaid it would be closed for the next four months to build apower station. The diversion signs weren’t up yet and mymental map of the area was scanty to say the least, and itwas an additional half hour of getting lost down identicalsingle track back lanes before I eventually tore up the driveand set off at a run for the top tiger enclosure.
A single 60-watt bulb had been rigged up, and I rapidlyset about wiring up the lamp using the Leatherman tool onmy belt. I’ve wired hundreds or so such lights in my time, butfor this one I noticed that my hands were shaking slightly,and I wasn’t doing a very good job. Doing it eighteeninches away from Spar, the elderly but massive andmenacing Siberian tiger, didn’t help. Sporting a smallbloodied cut on his ear from an earlier encounter withSovereign, Spar was naturally spooked by the afternoon’sevents, and didn’t like unfamiliar people working in hishouse at strange hours of the day. He was as unsettled bymy presence as I was by his, and kept up an impossibly lowand ominous growl, occasionally reaching a crescendo witha roar and a short lunge at the welded mesh between us,his big orange eyes wide and locked onto me at all times.
These noises travel right through you, resonating in yoursternum and sending alarm signals to your primitivemidbrain, which is already awash with worry, trying tosuppress the distressing news from the eyes, and warningof massive predator proximity and imminent death.
Perhaps understandably, in stripping the flex I cut toodeeply into the wire, and the terminal connections weremessy. But it would do.
When the light eventually flooded on, I confessed to Rob,our acting Health and Safety officer, that its wiring mighthave to be redone later under more conducive conditions.
His drawn face smiled sympathetically and he said, “It’ll dofor now.” John, Paul, and Rob worked quickly to finish theinside of the fourth chamber, with the unspoken efficiency ofmen who knew what they were doing and had workedtogether for a long time. Duncan had been exploring thedart-gun situation. The nearest zoo, Paignton, couldn’t lendus theirs because it wasn’t licensed for use off site.
Our park’s previous reputation in recent years, and ourmuch heralded inexperience, can’t have helped with theirassessment of the situation, and this sense of fiasco, thepublic perception of it, and what it might mean for ourprospects now had time to sink in.
Rob finally secured a dart gun and a licensed operator—Bob Lawrence, senior ranger at the Midlands Safari Park—who was prepared to travel immediately, but it wasdecided that because Sovereign was contained, Bobwould come down in the morning. Opinion on the groundwas, quite reasonably, that the cat was contained in anenclosure designed to contain big cats, and the risk wasminimal. We began trying to lure him into the finished fourthcat chamber by placing meat just inside the door. Thoughthe presence of meat had an almost chemical effect on thismuscular predator, bringing him to the threshold severaltimes, his instincts for self-preservation held him back. Hewas just too canny, and too spooked, to surrender his newterritory in return for a free meal in a small box.
Mike advised that we keep a vigil from a car next to theenclosure, and at the first sign of trouble, such asSovereign trying to climb the wire mesh fencing, call for thefirearms. Rob went to sleep on the sofa in the keeper’scottage with the gun next to him, and I moved my mum’s caras close as I could and settled down with a flask of coffeeand a flashlight. Every half hour, Mike said, I should shinethe light and make sure Sovereign was calm—and, mostimportant, still there. “Don’t get out of the car,” warnedMike. “If he has got out, you won’t hear him, and he’ll bewaiting outside the door.” Unfortunately, as the eveningwore on, sensible Sovereign decided it was safe to sit inthe empty chamber, though he kept a watchful eye onanyone approaching the cat house. This meant I couldn’tsee him from the car, so every half hour I had to open thedoor, half expecting a hundred kilos of muscle, teeth, andclaws to come bursting in. Then, when it didn’t, I had to walka few paces into the darkness, which may or may not havecontained a large, angry jaguar, and shine the flashlight. Myconfidence grew with each sighting of the two reflectiveeyes staring back at me from the house. Sovereign wasn’tgoing anywhere, and at 5 AM Duncan relieved me in thecar. Bob Lawrence arrived at about 7:30 AM with the dartgun. With things hanging off his belt and an Indiana Joneshat, Bob was a very reassuring presence to have on site. Ifthere was a rhino loose (not that we had any), you felt hecould deal with it. The vet arrived with the necessarysedatives, and on the third attempt Sovereign wassuccessfully darted, although unfortunately, it appeared, inthe tip of his sheath, and he jumped around angrily until hebegan to slow down, scowling and prowling, glaring at usthrough the wire. You got the impression he wasmemorizing faces, so that if he got out again he’d knowwhom to punish for this indignity.
There was a danger that, drugged, Sovereign could fallinto the moat and drown, so I sent for a ladder, mainly touse to push him out with, but I secretly decided that if itlooked even remotely possible, I was prepared to climbdown the ladder into the water to drag him out. But thatwasn’t necessary. Sovereign went down like a lamb, andwe rushed into the enclosure to stretcher him out. Back inthe safety of his own house—microscopically examined forflaws that could have contributed to the incident—Sovereign got a quick dental and general health check. It’snot often you get to peer into this kind of animal’s mouthwithout it being terminal, so the vet made good use of thetime.
Carrying Sovereign on the stretcher, and touching him,was my first direct contact with any of the animals in ourcare, and it was an incredible initiation. One of the mostbeautiful as well as the most dangerous animals in thepark, he required four men to be lifted. His exotic rosettemarkings watched you like eyes as he slept, his enormouspower dormant, cloaked tight in a coat of deceptive beauty.
As Bob Lawrence and the vet hauled this vast cat by thescruff like a sack of spuds clear of the welded mesh door,stepped out, and locked it behind them, there was a hugefeeling of collective, euphoric relief. “The Code Red is nowofficially stood down,” said Rob, which seemed to be hisway of expressing it. But of course there were reports towrite, and the precise timing of the incident would becritical, combed over by experts, and ultimately put into thepublic domain. Rob and Duncan interviewed Richard, thekeeper responsible for not locking the shutter, severaltimes, and eventually our statements and report werecommended by the council as demonstrating that we hadacted responsibly and professionally. We also got anendorsement of sorts from Tom, the bellowing IT consultant,who said as he left the next day that, “That was, withoutquestion, the most exciting site visit I have ever made.”
But for now I was left with the horror, the horror of what itfelt like to have Sovereign out, even for a second, andcapable of anything. In buying the zoo, I had always thoughtthat the concept of containment was a given—already fullyunder control, dealt with by experts using failsafe systems.
The idea of one of these animals loose, marauding on thepicnic area or going down into the village, brought to mychest a new residual level of adrenaline that has remainedto this day. The prospect of a Code Red, what it feels liketo be in one, and the potential consequences if it goeswrong, are there when I wake up, go to sleep, or walk aboutthe park chatting to visitors. This level of responsibility hasto be taken seriously. It’s as though we’re looking after gunswith brains, a secured armory of assault rifles, but each onewith a decision-making cortex and a series of escapeplans. Sovereign had already successfully implementedone of his.
In fact, although we were exonerated by the subsequentcouncil report, I think that our taking over the park may wellhave had something to do with that particular incident.
Locking in the jaguar was always a two-person operation. Itturned out that the junior keeper Richard had, according tohis statement and in direct contradiction of an order to waitfor the other keeper, “taken it upon myself to try to clean outthe jag house on my own.” This, he said, was in order to tryto impress his line manager, Kelly, a notion that may or maynot have been connected to the general sense of relief overthe park’s passing on to new owners and the animals’
being saved. Of course, his line manager was notimpressed, and nor was anyone else. That was Richard’slast day. Clearly, zookeeping was not for him.
Another manifestation of this new atmosphere had struckme forcibly the day before, when I was talking to Rob out inthe park. Suddenly his head spun around in the direction ofan unfamiliar sound, with the urgency of a man used tohaving to react quickly to an escaped animal (an urgency Iwas soon to pick up). “What’s that noise?” he said, and welistened intently. Then we realized it was laughter, comingfrom the staff room. Rob relaxed and his tired face crackedinto a smile. “We haven’t heard much of that round here forquite some time,” he explained.
The day after his return to his house, Sovereign’sanaesthetic had had time to fully wear off, and the fatefulsliding gate was lifted. Sovereign, the epitome of stealth,committed his weight incrementally in ounces at a timeacross the threshold, slowly rolling forward on the lip of thesliding gate. His squat forelegs and bulky shouldersgradually bulged with the effort as he edged towards theoutside—and food—ears flicking and eyes scanning theassembled personnel for signs of a dart gun or some otherdanger. “Sovereigngate,” as it has never been known (andmust never be in the future), was over, and the ramificationswould begin. Our dream could have ended there but for thelocal council endorsement of our handling of the incident,which commented specifically on the professionalism of thekeepers. I also was greatly impressed by their composurethroughout a very difficult situation. I’ve never been in a warzone, but this definitely felt like seventeen hours on the frontline, and with people you could rely on.
But as a family, our lack of euphoria was confirmed. Infact, a period of intense anxiety would ensue, as the grimliving conditions, bad weather, and lack of money camehome to roost. Dartmoor has one of the highest rainfalls inthe country, and although we are in a slightly shelteredmicroclimate, the continual winter rain was an unwelcomecontrast to southern France. My brother and I regressed toour roles from when we lived at home in the late 1970s, aswe chopped wood for the big fireplace and jokingly did ourbest to undermine each other in front of our mum—”I pickedyou some of those flowers you like, Mum. Duncan didn’t.”
“You only did it because you’re adopted . . .”
But this became an increasingly difficult time. I swappedmy role as negotiator for the zoo for the full-time job offending off creditors and trying to raise money. We ownedthe place outright, but development funds of around￡500,000 were urgently needed. The bankers and lawyershad a great time spinning it out, asking for yet moreexpensive surveys and more detailed predictions of ourexpenditures. “Can we have a specific breakdown ofroutine maintenance costs for August 2008?” asked theRoyal Bank of Scotland, though that was more thaneighteen months away, and utterly dependent on eventsbetween now and then. We’d made provision in ourforecasts for ￡15,000 to be available for that month, butthey wanted to know if it would be spent on paint, wood,tarmac, or lawn mowers. I could have made something up,but I told the truth: that there was no way of knowing theprecise breakdown so far ahead, but that we had arrived atthe ￡15,000 figure in consultation with other zoo and leisurefacilities and with an on-site maintenance team (and relyingon my experience in the building trade and as the author ofThe “Which?” Guide to Getting the Best from YourBuilder), and that this amount would go a long way. But thisbecame their sticking point, and after six or eight weeks ofdetailed and time-consuming negotiations—during whichthey sidelined other lenders with potential offers of reducedinterest rates—they pulled out. So it was back to thebeginning with someone else.
But all this was ahead of us. We still had the first week toget through, and the excitement hadn’t stopped yet.
Driving Duncan and his business partner, Cameron, tothe park from Plymouth station at about 11:30 PM on ourseventh day, I slowed down just outside the village wherethe road narrows and is banked by stone walls, five to sixfeet high, backed by woodland. The problem seemed to bea deer in the head lights, leaning over the wall about twentyfeet away, looking like it might be about to jump. Deer aresilly enough to jump in front of a moving car, so I stopped tosee what it was going to do. It was then that all three of usnoticed simultaneously that this wasn’t a deer. It was apuma. The human visual system works initially on atemplate system, drawing up a 2.5-dimensional sketchbased on the available evidence, then finds a suitabletemplate from a huge store in the brain, based on theindividual’s previous experience and the likelihood of amatch within the context, which is why I’d thought the brownanimal ahead was a deer. This is how many illusions and“tricks of the eye” work, eliciting the wrong template untilyour more detailed double-take sorts out what is going on.
In this instance, the double-take took less than a couple ofseconds, during which the harmless deer morphed into amuscle-bound, round-headed, cat-eared puma, including adistinctive gray dusting on the reddish coat, which deer donot have. “It’s a ____ing puma,” we all said, more or lesstogether, and then it vanished into the woods. We burst outof the car and ran to the spot on the wall where it had been,in time to hear it padding off (not clip-clopping like a deer)into the undergrowth. We quickly ruled out trying to pursue itin the dark without flashlights over unfamiliar terrain, andraced back to check on our pumas. So soon after the jagescape, we were convinced of the much-talked-aboutpossibility of animal rights saboteurs cutting the wire, likethey had in the bottom deer enclosure six months before.
Heading straight into Code Red mode, we tore back tothe park half a mile away and ran to the puma enclosure,armed with our biggest flashlight. And they were both there.
But they were both definitely what we had just seen. Thereare many sightings of big cats out in the country, somecranks or mistakes—probably problems with their 2.5-Dsketch—but some, I am now convinced, are real. Probablyuniquely, we were in a position to confirm what we hadseen with two examples of the exact same animal, becausewe had access to our own pumas.
The next day I told Rob, and Robin, who also acts as avolunteer of the Big Cat Sightings Society, expecting themto laugh in my face and mark me down as delusional. “Oh,there are pumas round here,” said Robin. “You’re lucky tohave seen one so soon. I’ve been here seventeen yearsand only ever seen the tracks.” Rob had more directconfirmation. “When I was living on site sixteen years ago, Iopened the door of my caravan at about six in the morningand there sat a puma, watching me. I closed the door,opened it after a moment, and it was gone, but my God, itwas definitely there.” In captivity, pumas can live to sixteen,but in the wild the life expectancy is several years less.
Judging from the size and condition of the one we sawcompared to our more elderly females, this was a youngmale. Which means they were breeding. A crediblegroundsman a few miles away claims to have seem amother and two cubs a few years ago, and all the sightingsof big cats around Dartmoor are of pumas—not lynx,panthers, or servals, but pumas—a fact that we had no wayof knowing before the evidence morphed into one beforeour eyes. Apparently the males come in off the moor to visitour females when they are in season (last sighting in thepark was in 2003), giving us a unique opportunity to gatherevidence on these elusive animals. Cats of a similar size,the European lynx, were once indigenous in the area,feeding on rabbits, rats, birds, and fallen lambs. They neednever come into contact with humans, unless they decide toseek them out. This gave a whole new perspective towalking around the park at night. That Code Red feelingjust wasn’t going to go away. Never a dull moment in thezoo world, clearly.
Chapter 4 The Lean Months
After that hectic first week, we had a little time to reflect. Ispent my days on the phone standing on the spot in front ofthe house—a scene I had constantly imagined from France—with the walk-in enclosure sloping away in front of medown to the flamingo lake (albeit currently populated by onlytwo elderly flamingos and a couple of rickety pelicans), andthe tree line merging with the perfect rural English vista ofrolling hills beyond, stretching like an organic quilt for fivemiles in all directions. The feel-good factor was—as I hadtold myself it would be—immense. But not quite enough tocompensate for the content of those endless rounds ofphone calls. Council officials, advisors, more lawyers, morebanks and brokers, but above all, now, creditors, drip-fedmy ear with increasingly bad news. With my feet plantedfirmly on my favorite spot, the thrilling and invigorating newzoo at my back, my mind raced ahead, scanning thepossibilities and ever-decreasing options before me.
If my friends had been incredulous when I made the—admittedly surreal—announcement that my family and Iwere soon to live in and try to reinvigorate a run-down zoo,their bewilderment was nothing compared with our own inthe first weeks we introduced ourselves to our newneighbors.
Back in France, the children hadn’t quite believed it whenI’d told them what I was trying to do. With the phone stuck tomy ear I was constantly shushing them away, for six months,with the same refrain: “Quiet. Daddy’s trying to buy a zoo.” Icould see that they thought I was deluded—silly Daddymakes us live in a barn in a foreign country and now hethinks he’s buying a zoo. The trouble was, their naiveinsight struck a chord with a great many other people—pretty well everyone I knew—apart from my immediatefamily of brothers, sister, and mum. “I’ve got a really badfeeling about this zoo idea,” one close friend had called toconfide. “Are you still going on about that?” said another.
“Les tigres? Sacré bleu, c’est pas possible!” said the entirevillage, in whose eyes my eccentricity had reached newheights. The trouble was that, having finally arrived, insteadof being the smooth transition to spending our prearrangedmortgage on clearly defined objectives, we were crisismanaging on a shoestring.
But when the children eventually got there, after a coupleof days of tiptoeing wide-eyed around the place, theyadjusted much more quickly and fully than I did to the newlife. Katherine brought them over from France after acouple of weeks, stayed for two days of huge culture shock(I already felt like a relatively old hand by this stage), andthen had to leave for Italy for two weeks to be with hersister, Alice, who was having her first baby there. At first thechildren were tentative, and frankly a little afraid. Iremember leaving them in the office playing with someremaindered stock toys while I cleared rubbish, and as Ilooked in at them through the window they were bothsquare mouthed, howling with fear at being left alone. It wasquite a scary place at first, particularly for them. But theysoon adapted.
When I decided to gently break the news to Milo that, oneday, the park would be open and we’d have to share all thiswith hundreds of visitors, he replied, “Yes, but Daddy, they’llpay to come round.” At last that naive insight was workingwith me.
My mum’s two domestic cats, Pandit and Jow-jow, bigblack Bengals imported from Surrey, however, took muchlonger to see the wonder in our new life. Could it be thehowling of wolves that troubled them? The bellowing ofSolomon, our huge African lion, whose roar has beenknown to strike fear into golfers happily playing their courseover two miles away? Or perhaps it was the time that theyjumped up on a wall to discover the slobbering faces ofthree big brown bears staring back? Exploding into puffballparodies of frightened cats, they shot off back to thehouse at full speed.
Duncan, who had brought the cats down in his car, saidthat their first sighting of an ostrich was a uniqueopportunity to watch a process firsthand: their small,complacent brains burst with an overload of new stimuli asthey desperately tried to adjust to the new concept of a birdbigger than a man. “Their necks stretched out as far as I’veever seen them go, and they darted their heads from sideto side urgently scanning for as much information as theycould gather from inside the car,” said Duncan. “I sat withthem for a while to let them get used to it, but they were stilljust as agitated twenty minutes later, when I took them intothe house.” The twenty or so peacocks who roam thegrounds presented another psychological problem for thecats, who quickly developed a tactic of total denial of theexistence of all these unsettlingly large and confidentexamples of a class of creatures they had only ever knownas prey.
Of all the animals, my favorites initially became the threehand-reared Siberian tigers, Blotch, Stripe, and big Vlad, amale, and at more than three hundred kilos one of thebiggest cats in the country. As I went around the back of thehouse in their enclosure for the first time, all three came upto try to cadge a stroke through the fence. No chance!
Tigers don’t growl or roar, they chuff, which is a noisethat sounds a bit like blowing a raspberry using just your toplip. But if you chuff at them, they chuff back, and having athree-hundred-kilo cat a foot away trying to be friendly is auniquely uplifting experience.
For Milo and Ella, it was the otters that captured theirimagination. Quickly they became smitten with thecreatures, who make the most ridiculous squeaky-toynoises whenever you go past. This, naturally, elicitedequally high-pitched squeals of delight from the children,who jumped up and down with glee until the otters realizedthey didn’t have any food and scampered away.
Sometimes the children do help feed them, but it’s hard tofit in with the routines, which are varied to prevent theanimals from habituating. The ferrets, Fidget and Wiggle,however, fit around the children. Katy, our first educationofficer, was getting them used to being handled, and soseveral times a week she fitted them with dinky little ferretharnesses and walked them around the park with Milo andElla.
But it was standing on my favorite spot looking outacross the valley in the first few days that I began to homein on the smell. A terrible odor hung over the park, the smellof rotting carcasses, which I recognized from occasionallyhelping drag them out of enclosures. Operating with a“skeleton crew” for so long, the amount of old bones in withthe carnivores on the park had accumulated so that everyenclosure was littered with rib cages, hooves, andmiscellaneous bits of fur and skin, which it seemed werethe root of the problem. Decomposing vegetable matterand uncleaned feces from the herbivores surely didn’t help,but in fact the source was more systemic. It was the offalbins.
For food for the carnivores, the park relies on fallen stock— calves culled by local farmers, stillborn lambs, horsesthat have been hit by cars—brought to us and oftenprepared by the local “knacker” man, Andy Goatman, in our“meat room.” This is basically a concrete loading bay with asink, backing onto a walk-in deep freezer. The carcassesare stripped expertly by Andy, often assisted by butterwouldn’t-melt-in-their-mouths cat keepers Hannah andKelly. To see these two mild-mannered, animal-loving girlsstraddling a giant carcass, boot-deep in entrails,brandishing big, bloodied knives and cheerfully chatting asthey shuffle a horse’s head into a freezer bin, was tounderstand fully that we had entered into a different world.
The bits that can’t be fed to the animals—intestines,spines, and general entrails—are classed as Type I Matterand stored in offal bins, three large stainless steel hoppers,which are collected weekly and incinerated by a locallicensed firm. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been paid for quitesome time, and wouldn’t even pick up the phone to uswithout cash up front. The last time the bins were emptiedwas six weeks before we arrived, and the stenchemanating from them was all pervading. Worse, for Hannahand Kelly, and everyone else who had to work in theyard, were the maggots. These writhing white grubs spilledout in a self-dissipating arc around the bins, crawling offtoward the decaying matter around the gullies. Opening thelids of the bins, which I did a few times while helping to loadthem, facilitated the distribution of these maggots andopened up a world that Dante would have been proud toconjure. Empty skulls swam in a blue-gray fetid mushswarming with larvae, while the stench entered your bones.
The keepers’ work in these circumstances was truly heroic,though having gradually acclimatized over several yearsthey wore their burden lightly. “This is nothing. It’s muchworse in the summer,” John reassured me. Our flimsydomestic-pressure washer was, gratefully, deployed, but anindustrial version was added to our wish list of essential butunaffordable machinery.
The dampness didn’t help, coming up through the floor ofthe house via an ancient well—the ancient hand pump forwhich was now, sadly, defunct—to form mini-lakes on theworn topography of the stone floors. Many feet over severalcenturies had eroded the stones along the well-usedpathways, and scuffed off the softer deposits to createvalleys and dips, which now became tributaries and lakesin our living area. Water, and the effects of it, waseverywhere. Overflowing cracked gutters, filled with yearsof mulch from overhanging trees, spread dampness into thewalls. Mildew and algae blanketed everything outside thehouse with a dank frosting of green grime, symbolizing, andalso actually indicating, profound decay.
And then there were the rats. “A plague of rats” would notbe an overstatement. Everywhere you looked, even indaylight, big fat, gray rats scurried out of sight, andsometimes, arrogantly, didn’t even bother. Right in front ofyour eyes they would dart into an enclosure and steal thefood left out for the monkeys. Satisfyingly, these intrudersreceived a terrible revenge exacted upon them by one ortwo of the enclosed animals, particularly Basil, thecoatimundi (an amiable South American climbing animalrelated to the raccoon), whose powerful omnivorous jawsspecialized in cracking the skulls of rats unfortunate enoughto get caught in them. But this was an imperfect solution tothe infestation. Rats carry disease, and also may bepoisoned, if not by us perhaps by a neighboring farm. A fewyears previously an otter had died from eating a poisonedrat, so we had to tackle the problem carefully. We gotquotes from three different pest-control firms, offering threedifferent methods of gassing and poisoning, but the sheerscale of our problem—at least forty well-established nestsover thirty acres, with a constant supply of food—wasprohibitively expensive to address. Nine thousand poundswas the bottom line for the most thorough and exoticanimal-friendly method, and this was money we simplydidn’t have.
Peter Wearden and others regularly reminded me thateradicating the rats was an urgent requirement for gettingour zoo license. But they didn’t have to. I like all animals,including rats, particularly the ones in pet shops or those Iworked with at university, studying social learning forchocolate rewards. Lab rats— at least the ones notexposed to vivisectionists—generally lead a happy andfulfilling life solving problems for rewards, and die with asubstantially thicker cortex than their sewer-dwellingbrethren. But wild rats give me the shudders. In my firstencounter, in a flat in Peckham, I was filled with horror ondiscovering a big, brown, plague-infested rodent in akitchen cupboard. And here they were again: in the kitchen,running over my mum’s hand on the stairs one night, andeven once jumping onto her bed. Luckily, Mum’s cats,Pandit and Jow-jow, were also on the bed at the time, andthe resulting commotion woke the entire household.
But I doubt they caught it. Those two stupid cats werenuzzling my legs one night as I moved in on some rustlingemanating from a lower kitchen cupboard. With two felinepredators at my feet I felt sure that if I flushed out a rat, theywould catch it. Species-typical pest control. But it didn’twork out like that. I crept stealthily in stocking feet on thehard-tiled floor, positioned myself carefully by the door, triedto attract the attention of the swirling, purring cats withoutalerting the rat, and then snapped the door open. The ratshot out and glanced off my leg, just as the blissfullyoblivious, moronic, purring brother cats made anothereyes-shut circumnavigation of my shins. It bolted under thedishwasher (which didn’t work due to the low waterpressure), at least revealing one of their entry points, acircular hole drilled through the two-and-a-half-foot-thickgranite wall to accommodate a flue. John blocked this offwith some balled-up chicken wire, but the rats stilloccasionally came into the house, and the effect wasdepressing. With systemic plumbing problems, sporadicelectricity, disapproving friends and relatives, creditors, nomoney, responsibility for endangered animals and keepers’
jobs, filth, decay and the smell of death wafting through thegrim weather, the rat infestation probably completed thecircle of psychological siege. It’s fair to say that those firstweeks passed like a dream. A very strange dream filledwith fighting monkeys, severed heads, and carrion shippedin from local farms—but a dream nevertheless.
But it wasn’t all bad news. For a start, we had the park.
We’d finally overcome all the obstacles, seen andunforeseen, that had stood between us and this (withhindsight) slightly bizarre objective. And for once, DonaldRumsfeld, in the news at the time over the Iraq war, madesense to me: “As we know,” he said, famously, “there areknown knowns—things we know we know. We also knowthere are known unknowns—things we know we don’tknow. But there are also unknown unknowns—things wedon’t know we don’t know.” I knew exactly what he meant,and so far, we had navigated our known and unknownunknowns successfully. I only hoped that our strategy ofsending a light force into a difficult operational area wentbetter than his.
In addition, we had got the park against odds absolutelystacked against us, against the “better judgment” andexpectation of almost everyone involved. But this feelingwas nothing compared with the invigorating thrill of actuallywalking around the park itself. The huge trees weresheathed with lush moss and ancient lichens that could onlygrow in an environment with good air quality (and highrainfall), and this pure, clean air filled our nostrils and lungs(when the wind was blowing the stench of death the otherway) like a long-lost antidote to urbanism and stress.
I felt myself really coming alive as I moved around this—yes—species-typical environment for Homo sapiens.
Merely showing a picture of a tree to an accountant in anoffice block has a small but measurable effect in reducinghis or her blood pressure. Actually moving about amongtrees soothes us far more deeply.
Howard Frumkin is a professor of Environmental andOccupational Health at the Rollins School of Public Health,in Atlanta, and in between advising local governments onthe use of public spaces, Frumkin researches the effectthat the natural environment has on us. And in metaanalysesof countless studies, Frumkin has found that thenatural world has a measurable beneficial effect on humanphysical and mental health. Prisoners in cells facing aprison courtyard, for instance, have 24 percent more sickvisits than those in cells with a view over farmland.
Postoperative patients with a view of trees need less painmedication than patients facing a brick wall, and weredischarged one day earlier.
This all stems from the Pulitzer Prize-winning scientistProfessor E. O. Wilson, founder of sociobiology andgeneral god of evolutionary thinking. Wilson’s “BiophiliaHypothesis” suggests that as a species we feel reassuredin an environment that the animal within us recognizes. “Itshould come as no great surprise to find that Homosapiens at least still feels an innate preference for thenatural environment that cradled us,” says Wilson. Over thelast few hundred thousand years this environment hasmainly been areas of sparse woodland, backing ontosavannah, which has probably hardwired us with apreference for this particular kind of setting, the one we“grew up” with. “Early humans found that places with openviews offered better opportunities to find food and avoidpredators,” says Frumkin. “But they needed water to surviveand attract prey, and groups of trees for protection.
Research has shown that people today, given the choice,prefer landscapes that look like this scenario.”
That was now our scenario. Open spaces, groups oftrees, watering holes stocked with exotic beasts. By someamazing coincidence, it turns out that almost all urbanparks contain precisely the ratio of trees to shrubs to grassas the African grasslands of our ancestry. Big trees nearby,a scattering of shrubs, and open grassland into thedistance, with occasional lakes thrown in for goodmeasure. With some small part of your brain you arelooking out for deer on the horizon, or a saber-toothed tigeramongst the trees—no wonder it heightens mentalalertness.
The most amazing thing about our new environment oftrees, open spaces, and lakes was that we actually didhave tigers, lions, and wolves peeping through the foliageat us, giving us precisely that mix our ancestors grew up in.
To be responsible for this uniquely intellectually, physically,and even spiritually invigorating environment—plus fulfill amission to open it up and share it with the public foreducational and conservation purposes (and get a freelunch in our own restaurant when it opened, as part of thedeal)—seemed like a utopian quest.
And so we began to get to know our individual animals.
Ronnie the Brazilian tapir seemed a good place to start.
Ronnie is like a big pig, with the aforementioned wibblynose, and while technically regarded as a Class 1dangerous animal—the same category as a lion—is ahuge softy. Keepers showed me photographs of otherkeepers from around the world who had been killed bythese deceptively amiable creatures. Tapir means “strong”
in Indonesian, and though usually placid, tapirs have areputation for being able to power through chain-link fencesas if they weren’t there. This ability stems from theirdefense strategy against their major predator, the jaguar,who hunt them by dropping from the trees and hanging ontothe backs of their necks. Evolution has furnished the tapirwith a large gristle-filled scruff to absorb this bite, and alsoa propensity to charge forward through anything in its pathin order to reach water to shake the jaguar off. Now,jaguars can also swim, so I have no idea how this strategyeventually plays out, but I suppose trying to fight jaguars ondry land has to be worse. Perhaps Ronnie, shouldSovereign ever get out again and decide to come for him,was planning to crash through his fence to the emu lakeand use his mini-trunk as a snorkel.
My first lengthy encounter with Ronnie was to help checkhis eyes for conjunctivitis, which he definitely had.
Expensive medication from the vet—to whom we werealready indebted by several thousand pounds—was apossibility, but so was bathing his eyes in a mild saltwatersolution, something I had done countless times over manyyears with cats, dogs, and children, with equally effectiveresults. The difference was that none of those creaturescould suddenly decide to kill me if they didn’t like it. ButRonnie was a pussycat. After we slipped him a fewbananas and cooed to him in that way he seemed to elicit,Ronnie went along with his treatment stoically, even thoughhe didn’t like it, blinking and holding his head upright untilI’d sponged the gunk from his eyes and expunged thetraces around them. The trick, I learned, was to scratch himon the side of the neck so that he turned his head to theside, or—and this is a secret—to scratch his bum until hesat down.
Up close, Ronnie reminded me of a Staffordshire bullterrier, Jasper, I’d had for fifteen years: strong and solid buthopelessly soppy. Jasper was incontrovertibly andirrefutably gay. Early on in his adulthood he pushed past abitch in heat to mount one of her male pups from a previouslitter, and thereafter demonstrated a lifelong inclination as a“friend of Dorothy.” Ronnie minced around his enclosure,which at the time was a narrow strip of almost entirelychurned mud, with periodic access to the enclosure below,which contained a lake where he liked to defecate andmingle with the emus. As an ungulate—one of the clovenhoofedpersuasion—Ronnie didn’t like treading in mud,which got stuck between his toes (Jasper was the samewith snow, and would come limping up to me, paws packedwith ice, which, once cleared, would send him speeding onhis way again). Ronnie didn’t have that option, and hisnarrow strip of an enclosure made it uncomfortable for himto walk around pretty well anywhere, except the hard earthsurrounding his meager house. Even a trip down to the emulake, which he was allowed every now and then by meansof a gate at the bottom of his enclosure, was spoiled forhim by the mud on the way there and back. I resolvedstraight away that we would give Ronnie permanent accessto the lake, though this would require planning permissionand relatively expensive new posts and fencing, and was alonger-term solution. Meanwhile, however, a simple answerwas to dismantle the fence into the adjacent enclosure,which contained six miniature muntjac deer and wasroughly twice the size of Ronnie’s. These small deer wereapproachable and friendly, and could be left to roam thepublic access walk-in enclosure (containing the flamingoand pelican lake), which at the time was populated with agreat gaggle of wild geese, strutting Bantam cockerels,and guinea fowl, who milled noisily, sticking roughly to theirethnic groups within the overall swarming population.
I asked Rob and John what they thought of this idea andthey said they’d been waiting to do it for years, and also totake the fence away from the adjacent epic turkey oak treeto increase the size of the walk-in by a similar amount. Thisbecame a common theme: thinking of an innovation andfinding that it was already on a wish list but that nobody hadsuggested it. This was basically because none of the sevenstaff we had inherited were used to being consulted—quitethe reverse, in fact: they seem to have been trained to keeptheir mouths shut. I repeatedly reiterated that we were allears, but this kind of cultural shift, naturally, takes time tosink in.
When Ronnie was let back into his new, triple-sizeenclosure, he tiptoed around exploring everythingtentatively with his highly motile hooter. He seemeddelighted, almost overawed, and it was a lovely feeling tohave been able to implement such a simple but beneficialinnovation. With fewer fences, the whole bottom area of thepark looked better too.
Ronnie’s one mishap was when he urinated on a newlypositioned strand of electric fence, receiving about seventhousand volts (at a very low current) up the stream andprobably into his bladder, via his most sensitive organ. Thepoor bloke apparently hopped and bucked around hispaddock for half a morning, but he learned well from hismistake, as he has never peed incautiously near the fenceagain. In time we would take down the bottom fence and lethim have permanent access to the flamingo lake, whichwould give him an enclosure many times the size of theindustry standard laid down by BIAZA (the British and IrishAssociation of Zoos and Aquaria, formerly the ZooFederation) for tapirs. Then we could start thinking aboutgetting him a breeding female—or, if my animal gaydarwas at all reliable, a boyfriend.
The subject of gay animals was one I had raisedtentatively from the start, even with Nick Lindsay as we didour first walk around, and with Peter Wearden and MikeThomas as I’d discussed our plans for the zoo in the earlydays. I’d read about a zoo in Holland that exclusivelyexhibited gay animals, and a recent exhibition at a museumin Oslo claims to have identified 1,500 species wherehomosexuality was clearly apparent—some opportunistic,like the notoriously randy (and highly intelligent) bonobochimpanzee and bottlenose dolphin, while many others pairfor life. Darwinian evolutionary theory has had difficulty withthe topic of homosexuality, and from a sociobiologicalperspective it seems hard to explain. This apparent voidhas left the far-right homophobes and various religiousextremists to be able to declare that it is a “crime againstnature and God.” In fact, theorists have built a compellingargument that a proportion of gay adults in a population—roughly one in seven humans, and about one in tenpenguins, for instance—actually helps with group securityand child rearing, because nonreproductive adults bolsterthe breeding efforts of the group as a whole. Two gay maleflamingos, for instance, have been shown to be able toprotect a larger territory and raise more successful chicks(albeit from pilfered eggs) than a heterosexual pair. Thisraises a tricky possibility of group, rather than “selfishgene,” selection, but what is undeniable is thathomosexuality exists almost universally across the animalkingdom. Having lived with a gay dog for fifteen years, overthe course of which I met many owners of other gay dogs(roughly 5 to 10 percent of the randomly selected caninepopulation of London parks), I am absolutely convinced thathomosexuality has at the very least a strong geneticcomponent, is perfectly natural, and nothing to get excitedabout. Unless you’re gay, of course—or a homophobe.
I was encouraged that my proposals for some gay animalexhibits, for educational purposes, were listened to politelyby all the zoo professionals I spoke to, including our ownkeepers, and not dismissed out of hand, though a bemusedsmirk often greeted them. But nobody said it couldn’t orshouldn’t be done, and several people were activelyencouraging. I think they thought that if you’re crazy enoughto want to buy a zoo, you’re going to have weird ideas. Butas long as the result was educating the public about thenatural world, it was okay.
Coco was another character who took me by surprise.
Coco is a caracara, a large bird of prey with the coloring ofa golden eagle. She stands majestically, almost haughtily,and her call is a rapid-fire staccato version of the laughingkookaburra, but delivered with an extraordinary head flip, inwhich her cranium jerks backward suddenly through 180degrees until her throat is exposed to the sky and her eyesare momentarily upside down and pointing backward. Theevolutionary origins of this call are hard to discern, otherthan that it throws the sound out in an arc above her,perhaps reaching a wider audience. All I knew was that itmade my neck ache to watch her do it.
But according to a visiting falconer, Coco was probablythe most intelligent bird in the park; she was once used inthe falconry display, but quickly learned that by ignoring herlure and flying over to the restaurant, she could make abetter living cadging french fries and sausages. Obviously,this brought her display career to a premature conclusion,but she remains a socialized and charming presence.
The falconer showed me that if you called her over shewould come to the wire and bow her head to be stroked atthe back of her skull. I wasn’t surprised that her neckneeded soothing with her surely spinally maladaptive call,but I was surprised at just how friendly and personable shewas. Birds registered pretty low on my snooty animalintelligence perspective, though crows and some otherbirds have demonstrated problem-solving abilities and tooluse that rivals the higher primates. This seems to bebecause they can deploy their entire brains onto a singleproblem, but the taxonomy of birds—which are among thefew modern descendants of dinosaurs, and the eponymousinspirers of the term birdbrain—had previously been of littleinterest to me. Peacocks are definitely named for theirbrain size, and chickens and herbivorous birds do seem tobe cursed (or blessed) with a very limited outlook on theworld. But Coco has personality, and as Samuel L.
Jackson said in Pulp Fiction, “Personality goes a longway.”
Coco’s dinosaur heritage is paradoxically coming hometo roost, as caracaras, though effortless flyers, tend to hunttheir prey by chasing them on the ground, like a mini T. rex,which is why her talons are not as pronounced as an owl’sor an eagle’s, who hunt by seizing from above. Cocospends a lot of time walking on the ground in her aviary,with delicate rather than overtly predatory feet. But her beakis formidable, curved like an Arabian dagger and designedfor plunging into the vital parts of other animals. She is araptor, pure and simple, and if you happen to be a smallground-foraging animal, she’ll get you if you stray onto herpatch. I once found her with a severed robin in her beak,chatting animatedly about it and looking pretty wild, but shestill came over for a stroke. It was disconcerting venturing adigit through the wire to stroke a bird with bloodiedevidence dangling from her beak; should she misinterpretthe stimulus, I could be down to nine. “Coco’s another onewhere you don’t have to worry about rats getting in,” saidKelly with some pride. “They don’t come out again.” Cocoalso tracks small children who run up and down in front ofher, including my four-year-old Ella. At first I thought thiswas some display of affinity, but, learning more aboutCoco, Ella probably triggers an interest less benign.
Kevin also impressed me with an apparent personalitywhere I had expected none. Kevin is a five-foot red-tailedboa constrictor whom we had moved from the unheatedreptile house into the shop, which is heated and located inbetween the offices and the restaurant. Walking past himevery day, I noticed he seemed depressed, if that’s not tooanthropomorphic. He was certainly lackluster, spending allhis time curled up in his water bowl. Once, while on hold onthe phone with some infernal institution, I asked Robin—thegray-ponytailed graphic designer, one of the seven staff wehad inherited with the park—if I could get him out. He gladlyobliged, and gave me a quick course in how to handle him.
“Hold him gently but firmly, be assertive but don’t make anysudden movements. Constrictors don’t usually bite, but ifthey do he’ll give you plenty of warning first, darting hishead around. If he starts to do that, just stay still, and thenpop him back in the vivarium.” As Robin hung Kevin overmy shoulder and free arm and made sure I wasn’t going topanic— this was the first time I had ever touched a snake—the switch-board on the other end of the phone put methrough. “And try not to let him get round your neck,” saidRobin over his shoulder as he went back to his work. So Ibegan a slightly surreal conversation with someone nodoubt suited and sitting at a desk, while I was wanderingaround draped in a snake whose muscular coils hadinstantly come to life. Kevin’s head naturally probed for thedark warm folds inside my coat, but he also responded well—surprisingly well, I thought, for a reptile—to having hischin stroked.
The call finished, I continued playing with Kevin, warminghim up under my coat and marveling at the symmetricalperfection of his head and his pure strength as he grippedmy arm. Kevin is strong enough to stop the circulation inyour hand, turning it purple, and if your hands were tiedthere is no doubt he could choke you to death. But hedoesn’t want to. He probably thought I was a tree, hisnatural habitat in the Amazon from which he hangs by hisred tail and drops onto his prey (what with jaguars and boaconstrictors falling from the trees, it sounds like the bestplace to look in the Amazon is up). Kevin’s responsivenessto handling and stroking suggested he thought I was atleast a very friendly tree. And I was surprised that after ourtwenty-minute encounter I felt elated for the rest of the day.
This could just have been the novelty of the experience,or perhaps an echo of Professor E. O. Wilson’s biophilia,our positive physiological response to nature. I preferred tothink that it was the latter. DNA analysis suggests that dogsbroke off from wolves 130,000 years ago, which meansthey were adapting to human society long before we settleddown and began practicing agriculture. During this timedogs perfected that big-eyed baleful look to help them getaway with chewing up our slippers and manipulating us intogiving them strokes and treats. This is something Kevin’slocked features could not do, but we have certainly spent aformative part of our evolution surrounded by responsive,and not so responsive, animals, and I was delighted thatthis warm feeling Kevin had given me was something wewould one day be sharing with the public. Kevin was part ofthe Animal Encounters program, Robin informed me, andneeded socializing as much as possible, to get him used tobeing handled by the children and adults, who, ideally,would be flocking around him at Easter, when we were dueto open. I was only too happy to oblige, and regularly tookKevin over to the house to warm him in front of the fire—inthe only warm room in the house—and introduced him tovisiting friends and relatives. I liked this job.
Our two biggest snakes, both pythons over ten feet long,needed at least two people to handle them, because theycould definitely get the better of you. I made severalattempts to organize a session with these snakes, but inthe fraught and hectic first few weeks, interrupting thekeepers’ routines too much seemed frivolous. Eventually,both snakes were given away to Paignton Zoo, thirty milesaway and a pillar of the zoological community. Having justbuilt a new reptile display, they had nothing to put in it andwere grateful for our donation, which also demonstratedgoodwill on our part and may help to facilitate futurereciprocity. I secretly have my eye on some of theirexpensive flamingos (straight or gay). Scales for feathers.
The big pythons had to go because we had decided toturn the sparse, cold reptile house into a workshop, and thesnakes, along with two four-foot iguanas, lived there in fourlarge built-in vivariums that could not be moved. Theconcrete floor of the building and big double doors made itideal for the large-scale heavy work that would be requiredto get the zoo back on its feet, and another barn, insulatedand with a dirt floor ripe for installing under-floor heating,was earmarked as a future reptile house. When we had themoney.
The existing workshop was simply unworkable. A cinderblockshack with a leaking, rusted corrugated iron roof, itwas strewn with miscellaneous clutter, from elderly brokenpower tools to coils of rusted wire, and many, many otherobjects that were impossible to identify beneath whatseemed like centuries of grime, the kind of rich, brown, oilbasedfilth you get beside railway tracks. And it was ratinfested. A glance inside usually revealed an arrogantrodent or two, safe in the knowledge that before you couldclamber over the detritus to get to them, they could begone, having ducked into the impromptu tunnels and nooksamong the debris that had lain long enough to sheltergenerations of foragers, and providing an important basecamp for raids on the nearby animal food preparationroom. The only tool in the whole workshop that actuallyworked was an old but serviceable bench-mounted anglegrinder, though the lack of electrical supply and the positionof the grinder, at the far end of the room across yards ofgrimy, rusting clutter, made it utterly impossible to use.
With relish we gave instructions to clean out the roomand relocate the workshop to the reptile house, whilerelocating the few reptiles to the warmth of the shop. “That’sa bloody good idea,” said John, who was now our eighthmember of staff. “I’ve always thought that room would makea good workshop.” A grandson of Ellis Daw, John hadbeen introduced to us by Rob as someone who could fixthe floor in the front kitchen of the house. This was the roomin which Ellis had for several decades stored his buckets ofmackerel and chicks for the herons and jackdaws he fed inthe mornings, the leakage from which had permeated thejoists from the entrance to the back of the room. That waswhy it stank so badly, but the floor was also unsafe, soDuncan immediately commissioned John to rip out thefloor, burn it, and replace it with new, fresh, sweet-smellingwood—which he did within a week. John was a tall,muscular, grinning man of thirty, whose four upper frontteeth were missing and replaced by a dental plate withteeth much shorter than the originals, and whose canineswere unusually long and pointed. This gave him a strikingvampiric appearance, abetted by his posture, which isunusually erect. First encountering John in the dank mistwith wolves howling in the background, I seriouslyquestioned what kind of environment I had brought mychildren into.
But John turned out to be one of the most skilled, loyal,and levelheaded employees we could have asked for inthose early days, able to do plumbing, welding, tree work,and carpentry, and also licensed for firearms, an invaluableskill on the park, and one we were to draw on several timesin the coming months. When Rob first put him forward, hesaid to me, eyes down, “I’ll tell you now, because you’rebound to find out, that John’s my half-brother.” I had noproblem with this, but it all added to the atmosphere ofsecrecy, with whisperings in the village about “things thathad happened” at the park in the past, and the generalsense that we had moved into the Wicker Man’s backyard.
John, Rob, and Paul, Ellis’s son-in-law, set aboutclearing out the old reptile house and converting it into aworkshop. Again, a big practical change that also had thebenefit of being cheap. The loft above was, as most placesin the park, crammed with clutter (and rats), but some of itwas salvageable. Old agricultural tools were put to one sideand two huge workbenches were to be extricated andlowered down, when a path had been cleared for them. Iasked John how he was anticipating bringing theseenormous objects to ground level, and he held up amassive pulley wheel in one hand. “Rig this up to the roofjoists, then call for some muscle,” he said. As a reasonablyable-bodied person, I waited for the call, but it never came.
The next time I popped my head around the door, thebenches were down and already coated with tin sheeting,ready for work. I clearly didn’t count as muscle, which, as alifelong hands-on sort of person, came as a bit of a shock. Iwas a director now, and it took a bit of getting used to. Asmall shantytown of sheds and cages containing rabbitsand two ferrets was also cleared and the animals relocatedaround the park. And suddenly we had a workshop and aclear access yard. All we needed now were some tools.
Duncan masterminded the conversion of the oldworkshop into a vegetable storeroom. Every day Paul wentoff in the van to Tesco and Sainsbury’s, collecting past-thesell-by-date fruit and vegetables in sufficient quantities toreliably feed every herbivore in the zoo. Previously theproduce had been stored alongside the meat preparationarea, where fallen calves, horses, and occasional sheepwere dismembered by Andy Goatman, the knacker man,and Hannah and Kelly, the cat keepers. The problem wasthat this is illegal, under the secretary of state’s guidelinesfor modern zoos. Total separation between meat andvegetables is essential, to minimize the risk of crosscontamination,and a site visit from the environmentalhealth officer, or worse, an inspector from DEFRA couldclose us down before we started. Duncan went into thelegislation in detail, guided by Andy, whose encyclopedicknowledge of legislation around his trade has provedinvaluable many times. A local builder repaired the roof withplastic sheeting at cost, and when the room was finallyemptied, scrubbed, rewired, and illuminated, it lookedhuge. The back wall, it turned out, was made from localstone. Rob was impressed. “I haven’t seen that wall since Iwas a little kid,” he said. The process of accumulation ofrubbish and subsequent general decline at the park hadbeen long and gradual. But now we were turning back thetide. It was fantastic to be part of it.
The children were almost immediately absorbed into thelocal school, as one of our neighbors who had us over fordrinks turned out to be one of the governors. They instantlytook to the school, which had twenty-seven pupils and wasonly half the size of the school they attended in France. Butthe best news of this period was the arrival of Katherine,who had been winding up our affairs in France and thengone on to her sister in Italy. I’d left France around two anda half months before, packing enough clothes for afortnight, in order to help my mum sell her house, and hadn’tseen Katherine, apart from her fleeting visit to deliver thechildren to the park, for that entire time. Now she arrived forgood, and it was very much as a force for good that herpresence was felt throughout the park. Her learning curvewas intense, partly through having spoken only French forso long, but also being plunged into a hectic, chaoticbusiness environment which she knew nothing about andwhere everyone else was already rushing around with, if notabsolute confidence, then at least a long way down theroad toward discovering what needed to be done. ButKatherine had been supportive of the idea of the zoo from abusiness angle since almost the very beginning. In the firstweek or so back in April, when I had begun to throw myselfinto the negotiations wholeheartedly, she had had herdoubts. This was just another of my silly dreams that were adistraction from the daily necessity of earning a living andthe writing of my book. This was her role in our relationship—I was the dreamer, she was the reality check—though Ioften argued that preparing only for the worst could becomeself-fulfilling. But generally she was right, I was wrong, and Iwas glad to have her wisdom to keep me in check.
Buying the zoo was only the second time in our thirteenyears together that I simply overrode her—the first beingthe purchase of the French barns, which had involvedselling our cherished London flat. In both cases I had anabsolute certainty of the success of the venture, and wasimpatient to overleap any naysayers, no matter how wellintentioned.
Within a couple of weeks, she confessed tofriends, she could see me acquiring new skills in dealingwith administrative problems, which were previously adespised terrain for me, and could see that I meantbusiness. She liked this new me—I think she thought thatthe life I’d engineered for myself writing in the sun withdeadlines few and far between was too cushy, particularlyfor someone with my personality (basically lazy). And asusual, she was probably right.
It’s easy to idolize someone if you love them, but, thoughunrepentantly uxorious, I was not alone in thinking thatKatherine was special. Her background was as a graphicdesigner, which, as with many professions, involves aperiod of proving oneself creatively before moving up theladder into administration. In the world of glossymagazines, this meant becoming an art director. Thoughshe went on to several other titles, ending up at Eve, thewomen’s magazine, on Men’s Health magazine, the glossywhere we met, she was in charge of several staff andfreelancers, as well as a budget, in the mid-1990s, of about￡130,000 a year. This was more money than I had evermarshaled, but she did it well and diligently. “The thingabout Katherine,” a photographer once confided to me on arare photo shoot where I was working with her, “is that she’sgood with other people’s money.” Many art directorssuccumb to the surface glamour of their industry andoverspend on things like expensive lunches or endless rollsof film for costly locations and photographers. Katherinewas different, ordering in sandwiches, partly to keep costsdown but also to keep everyone in the studio, whichcharged by the hour, so they didn’t have to be rounded upafterward. And she nurtured new talent. With an unfailingeye she could spot someone just starting out who would goon to greater things, get them cheaply, and then inspiretheir loyalty, so that they would often work for her in thefuture at reduced rates.
Her management style was simply to set an impeccableexample, which other people felt obliged to follow. Sheworked harder than anyone else, often putting in twelveandfourteen-hour days, which in our early time togetherhad been a source of conflict between us. I, the indolentfreelancer, though churning out work, would often do sofrom my “office” on a laptop on the slopes of Primrose Hillwith Jasper, my panting assistant. At the end of the day Istopped and prepared our dinner, for which Katherinewould invariably be late. I never actually left a note saying“Your dinner’s in the dog,” but many times I ferried in mealsto her at 9 or 10 PM to find her doing something likeorganizing spreadsheets for other departments so that theycould comply with new internal accountancy requirements.
“THAT’S NOT YOUR JOB,” I would rant, but it was a vitalpart of her to take up the slack where other people wereprepared to let it slide.
Katherine’s presence in the park was galvanizing—notleast for me. She cleared a space in the (would you believecluttered) office, fired up her PowerBook, in those days themost powerful computer at the park, and got down tobusiness. Her roles, we had decided, were as moneymanager (getting a frivolous purchase past Katherine, as Iknew from many years of trying, was physically impossible)and designer. Though we had a capable designer andillustrator in the form of Robin, he had other skills andpredispositions, which we were beginning to unearth, andKatherine’s unerring eye for simplicity and homogeneity, Iknew, would be key to establishing the identity of this zooas something separate from the mishmash of local touristand animal attractions. A well-designed, understated, butslick visual image, homogenous throughout the leaflets,staff uniforms, advertising material, and even the signagefor the animals, combined with my enthusiasm and that ofthe people we had with us, could make this place into aflagship twenty-first-century enterprise. Suddenly it allseemed not just possible, but inevitable, and the goals Ihad set for the future of the park loomed into the foreground as part of our business and development plans.
As success grew, the collection could be steered from itscurrent 5 percent endangered animals toward the ultimateambition of focusing on captive breeding of endangeredspecies for possible reintroduction into the wild, like atGerald Durrell’s Jersey Zoo. Free-ranging lion tamarins,rare lemurs, Grevy’s zebras, giraffes, and my personal holygrail, large primates. Bonobo chimpanzees are thesmallest and most intelligent of the great apes, and alsoendangered, but gorillas are also clever and endangered,and available to zoos that have the right track record andappropriate facilities. With their habitat under threat andindividuals still being killed for bushmeat or even apparentlysometimes out of sheer spite by psychopaths in Rwandaand the Congo, these big gentle guys urgently need safehavens. And if we played our cards right, one day (in aboutten years) we could provide one.
As an avid student of the work of Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh’s work with Kanzi the chimp and Dr. PennyPattersons’s research with Koko the gorilla, I know thesebig animals are capable of self-recognition, empathy, andarguably, humor and self-awareness. This is exactly what Iam most interested in, my genuine “dream scenario,” as mysister Melissa had first described the zoo—looking forlanguage and humor in big apes in your own garden, andcalling it work.
This scenario was still a very long way off, but I feltastonishingly fortunate to be at least on a road that couldlead to it. With Katherine on board, it felt like we could godown that road. I’d always privately called her my Born Freelady, after Virginia McKenna in the, for me, seminal filmBorn Free, about how Joy and George Adamson rearedand reintroduced Elsa, an abandoned lioness, into thewilds of Africa. That seemed to me like a very good job tohave. They lived in tents and log cabins in tropical sunshine,they were doing fascinating and worthwhile work, and theyhad a Land Rover. With a lion on the top. As a boy I’dalways hoped to do something as exciting and worthwhilewith animals in exotic locations. I could see it was a longshot, but also that I would need a special person to do itwith me, and when I first met Katherine, I knew that I’d foundsomeone who could meet that challenge. If I could createthe appropriate circumstances, I knew she would go with itand be perfect at it, even though it wasn’t, strictly speaking,in her initial life plan. After we got together I repeatedlywarned her that one day I would be dragging her offsomewhere exotic to do interesting things with animals.
France was a staging post. Now we had made it to, er,Devon. But the project was perfect, engaging andharnessing her talents as well as mine.
Having Katherine back was the best thing. Our littlefamily unit was functioning again, and here we wereworking together, in an environment in which I was fired upand Katherine was keen to engage as a business venture.
In the absence of having any money to manage, Katherineset about organizing the office and, clutching at straws fromthe past to piece together, designing our logo. One bigproblem with this, however, was that we didn’t yet have aname.
Mike Thomas, the reassuring voice of wisdom on thephone, finally materialized at the park, and ended uphelping out considerably with this. It was great to meet Mikein the flesh, to shake his hand, and thank him for all his helpin getting the park, without which it quite simply wouldn’thave been possible. Mike and his lovely wife, Jen, had thesolid, comforting air of people who knew what they weretalking about. With his white beard, ready smile, and fadeddenim shirt, Mike looked like a cross between the Britishwildlife TV programmer Bill Oddie and the BBC’s AnimalHospital host, Rolf Harris. In fact Mike’s animal pedigreewas far more impressive than those of these keenamateurs, as we were to find out.
Jen looked like a real “Born Free lady,” someone whocould bottle-feed a baby chimpanzee while getting on withher daily routine unfazed. Mike and Jen had both beenthrough a similar experience to ours, more than a decadebefore, at Newquay Zoo. Now that we had time to chat, Iasked Mike how he had managed taking over Newquaywith no experience of running a zoo, as his backgroundwas in design and teaching. “Oh, I just called Gerry, and hewas very helpful.” Gerry? “Gerald Durrell at Jersey Zoo.
You’ve heard of him, I hope?” Heard of Gerald Durrell? Oneof my heroes, as well as being a superbly evocative writer.
My Family and Other Animals alone has probablyengaged as many people with the natural world as DavidAttenborough. Durrell was the premier conservationist ofhis, or possibly any, generation. Founding Jersey Zoo in theteeth of opposition from the zoological world, Durrell thenused it to change the center of gravity of that world towardactive conservation, as opposed to simply exhibitinganimals. Astonishingly, captive breeding programs ofendangered species for reintroduction to the wild, and forlearning about their breeding habits to inform ourconservation and management of them in the wild, were stillsometimes actually considered a bad idea as recently asthe 1960s and 1970s.
According to Lord Zuckerman, president of theZoological Society of London, addressing the WorldConference on Captive Breeding of Endangered Speciesheld at London Zoo in July 1976, because extinction is partof natural selection we shouldn’t interfere but merelydocument the process for the benefit of zoological science.
“Species have always been disappearing,” he said. “Therewill always be rare species.” I remember that year’sfantastic, sticky summer of glam rock, skateboards, andCalifornia sunshine making everything seem perfect, as aneleven-year-old at primary school, happily oblivious to thepresident of London Zoo’s almost nihilistic perspective onanimals. But even as a child I would have known he waswrong. I was probably sitting sweating and fidgeting inassembly as Zuckerman addressed the zoologicalcommunity. Gerald Durrell was sitting, writhingapoplectically, in that audience. He was already a man witha zoo, and a man with a mission, and I expect that onhearing those words, from that source in that place, GeraldDurrell would have simply renewed his vows to himself forthe thousandth time. When other people simply gave up, hejust dug in deeper. He saw it through, against a lifetime ofpeople telling him it wasn’t possible. He was aconservation giant, a maverick, and a writer on a grandscale. And now it transpired that one of the main guidinglights on our final approach to buy the zoo, Mike Thomas,was a receptacle of Gerald Durrell’s teachings. Wow. I’mnot a religious person, but it did seem like the clouds hadopened up a bit and our flimsy efforts were being endorsedfrom on high.
Mike and Jen helped us a lot in those crucial few weeks,as they had done when they steered us through thenegotiations. This time they were more hands-on, frequentlydriving up from Cornwall to give advice and unpack endlessboxes with Mum. One evening, around the old trestle tablein the stone-flagged kitchen, with the dilapidated rustedrange in the background, a legal document needed to beprocessed, which absolutely required us to come up with aname for the park. I have blocked from my mind most of themore depressing suggestions, but many were generated inthe need to find something that echoed the mostly positiveforty-year history and brand recognition of DartmoorWildlife Park, while distancing us from the bad publicity ofthe more recent past.
Staying “Dartmoor Wildlife Park” was not a good ideabecause of the previous prosecutions, and, shall we say,perceptions of it on the part of the wider zoo world and localsuppliers. We needed a relaunch, and quickly. DartmoorZoo was ruled out because all our neighbors had alreadymonopolized that, some would say predictable, format;Exmoor, Paignton, Newquay, and Bristol have already welltested the concept of local area plus Zoo as their title—which works for them. But we wanted to explore newpossibilities. South West Wildlife Park, Dartmoor WildlifeConservation Park, and all sorts of unsuitable horrorssurfaced and floated around before finally being puncturedby Mike, at our kitchen table, almost certainly with a glassof wine in hand. He suggested, “Why don’t you call itDartmoor Zoological Park?” It had continuity with the past,but also a clear reference to serious scientific activity in thefuture. I liked it; we all liked it, and that is the trading namewe entered into Companies House, the official governmentregister of UK companies. I was particularly pleasedbecause, as well as establishing a new identity and ethospointing toward the world of science, this gave us a Z in themiddle of our logo.
Katherine seemed less impressed with thistypographical development, and politely ignored mysuggestions about how the Z could be used at three timesthe size of the D and the P, creating a Zorro-like dash.
Katherine set to work with the brisk certainty of a skilledexpert on home ground. She’d chosen her colors andcollected examples of other logos from successful zoos,we’d discussed the broad outline of the brief, and I watchedher go into her familiar routine of pasting up swatches ofcolors and fonts, fretting, squinting at things from arm’slength, and working to tight print deadlines.
We had a “definite” lender in our sights, and, throughMike, even Gerald Durrell’s vicarious blessing. DZP, as wenow jauntily called ourselves, was going to work.
But in those weeks before the money arrived, thingswere still very strained indeed. The cold, wet winter weatherexacerbated the feelings of despair and unreverseddecline that we were supposed to be addressing. Very littlereal progress could be made because even the smallesttasks required some money. Everything we had or couldborrow from credit cards was used to pay staff wages. Mysmall income from my Guardian column and another inGrand Designs magazine was the only actual income forthe park, and nowhere near enough to pay the wages of ournot-so-happy little band.
Staff morale worsened, and the uncertainty that had beencreeping in was now a full-time presence. I spoke to theNFU Mutual mortgage company every day, and theirrepresentatives assured me that everything was in hand,but the lawyers were taking their time drawing up thedocuments. The problem was that if they took much longer,the business wouldn’t be there to lend to anymore, andwe’d have to put it back on the market. There was a verytangible feeling that the lawyers behind the scene reallydidn’t care whether this happened or not. They weren’tgoing to be rushed, and if in the meantime the transactionmoved from the active to the receivership pile, it just meantmore paid work for them, or their kind.
Three days before the money finally arrived, a newsecretarial employee on a month’s trial opened up astatement from Lloyds, who had promised us a loan threetimes, only to withdraw the offer each time at the lastminute. In the course of this charade, Lloyds had set upaccounts in the name of Mee Conservation Ltd. (the nameof our newly formed company), issued checkbooks, andbegun sending us monthly statements. The problem wasthat the statements said things like 0.00, nil, etc., in rowafter row of austere columns, which, to the untrained eye ofsomeone worrying about their job security, looks bad. Thissecretarial wannabe screamed across the office “They’vegot no money. Look! Look!” etc., waving the apparentlyincriminating paper around for everyone to see. The effectwas not calming, and at about eleven that morning anunusually strained Steve, our brand-new curator of animals,visited me in the kitchen of the house, where I had justfinished clearing away breakfast. “I’m really sorry to botheryou,” said Steve, and he clearly was sorry but also deeplyconcerned. “I think you’d better come over to the restaurant.
Everybody is there.” I looked longingly at my unsippedcoffee, and headed over with him.
Everybody was indeed there, from Paul the van driver togentle Robin the draftsman, all the keepers, and the newsecretarial tryout, Sarah. They sat in a circle of chairs, armsfolded, with an empty chair for me. It was an uncannymoment, with these normally polite and compliant peopleturning into inquisitors, and the unusualness of the situationemphasized its gravity. I wasn’t nervous, but I knew I had toproject myself or be overwhelmed by the sheer weight ofuncertainty in the room. I explained as openly and honestlyas I could about the promised money from the NFU, how Iwas expecting final confirmation any day now, that we’dsigned the last of the last documents, and were now justwaiting for lawyers to finish dithering. My frustration with thesituation was every bit as intense as theirs, but more so, asI was privy to the intricacies of the mechanisms ofprocrastination. I told them that I was regularly promised thefunds by a particular date, but that these arrangementswere regularly broken. That previous Monday, for instance,had been a firm promise cast in stone, but had passedwithout even a communication from the bank. I hadn’tbelieved the promise, so I hadn’t told the staff about it, as itwas frustrating enough for me without having to apologizefor the bank to everyone else every time they let me down. “Ididn’t tell you about that deadline because I didn’t believe itwould happen,” I said. “I will only believe it when I see themoney in the account—and I do believe that it will come, butwhen, I can’t tell you. But I will tell you when it’s there. Myfeeling is that it will be within the next week. That’s the best Ican say to you.”
I looked around the room. They were all looking intently atme, making economic decisions. Who was this young jokerwho had bought the place without having enough money torun it? Could he be trusted? What were the alternatives?
The secretarial assistant had a question about her ownwages, which I suggested was a separate issue for aprivate meeting. Her end-of-month review was coming up,and it was not going to go well. I looked everyone in the eyein turn and asked if they had any more questions. In the endI think it was John who stood up and said something like,“That seems fair enough.” Other chairs scraped back aspeople got to their feet. The spell was broken. Theinquisition was over. I’d got through by the skin of my teeth.
Now I just needed to convince myself. I had been convincedbefore the meeting, and also during it as I’d managed toconvince the others to hang in there. But afterward, the factthat I had been put in the position where the business wason the absolute brink of disintegration, by a bank, made mequestion whether they really were actually going to come upwith the goods. I had believed Barclays, I had believedLloyds, three times. I’d believed Arbuthnots, the Royal Bankof Scotland, and a host of others who had ultimately, utterlywithout compunction, let us down. I thought about the NFU.
Their contact, Andrew Ruth, was clearly a nice, honest, andconscientious man, but he had no control over thebackroom boys, who in this case were not the riskassessmentteam, but the lawyers.
When institutions behave badly, it’s easy for the littlepeople like us to get caught in the machinery, which will notslow down as it grinds you up, repossesses your house,and sends the bailiffs in to evict your children. They arechilling people. All smiles when preparing to lend money,as long as your spread sheets are in order, and you signover all your assets as security. And their expressionsbarely change as they watch the prospect of you gettingsnarled up in the small print and everything ebbing away.
One problem we encountered was that we weren’tborrowing enough. The amount, ￡550,000, seemed like alot to me, but apparently that officially made us small fry.
“Anything under a million takes time,” we were told by onebank. “It’s the highest risk sector there is.” I toyed franticallybut briefly with the idea of asking for three million, but evenmy economically naive brain quickly realized that we wouldencounter spreadsheet difficulties quite quickly going downthat route.
Having eventually found understanding lenders in theNational Farmers’ union was reassuring, but the terribleuncertainty of having money promised but not actuallyavailable lasted for three agonizing months and had amassive impact on the business plan, the staff, and theidea of opening for Easter in April. When the NFU finallycame up with the money, on 8 February 2007, our elationwas tainted by the knowledge of the unnecessary damagealready done by the delay, caused by our own brother’sactions and the nature of financial institutions, which hadmade our target of opening for the all-important Easterbank holiday virtually impossible.
But far, far worse than this, for me, was the knowledgethat the good news of the money arriving had beencompletely over shadowed by the very worst news of all.
Chapter 5 Katherine
Living together as an extended family—Mum, Duncan,Katherine, Milo, Ella, and me—would take some adjustingto. For the kids, it must have seemed like a hugeadventure. It was going to be an adventure for all of us, alargely positive one, we hoped. But Katherine’s illnesschanged all that. A few days before our first Christmas atthe zoo, my wife and I received just about the worst newspossible: her brain tumor was back.
In April 2004 we were married after nine years together.
By June she had been diagnosed with an aggressiveglioblastoma brain tumor, and given about a year to live.
The excellent French medical services extracted the tumorand she underwent eighteen months of chemotherapy andradiotherapy afterward. When her body could physicallytake no more, the treatment stopped and she wasmonitored every month with an MRI scan to see if the tumorhad returned.
Katherine celebrated the end of her treatment in herusual way, with a bout of intense hard work. Cleaning,sorting, gardening at a frenetic rate. I told her that thedoctors had advised rest, but she said she felt fine, andsometimes it’s better for people to feel good about whatthey are doing rather than lie low. One day I went to theshops for supplies, and when I returned, Milo was at thegate to meet me. “Mummy’s fallen over but she’s all rightnow,” he reported, obviously agitated but under control. Iasked Katherine about her fall. She was looking dazed butdenied it totally. Gradually we pieced together what hadhappened. While making some tea, she had suddenlyfallen to the floor and started shaking all over. Both childreneagerly performed vivid impersonations and pointed to theexact spot where it had happened. Ella had started cryingbecause she thought she had died, but Milo pointed outthat she couldn’t have died because her eyes were open.
“Then I tried to give her some bread to make her strong,” hesaid. We phoned the doctor and went for another scan,where it was confirmed that this was her first epilepticseizure, which is why she had no memory of it. Epilepsy isvery common in people who have had brain surgery, as thebrain is a closed system and doesn’t like being disturbed.
Her anti-epilepsy medication was increased and tinkeredwith over the following months, as the combinations ofdrugs caused some quite serious side effects, includingdebilitating depression.
Eventually it was all stabilized, and we learned to look outfor the symptoms, which could be brought on mainly bytiredness. I briefed the children on what to do if it happenedagain. The bread was a nice idea, but in fact you are notsupposed to go near someone’s mouth if they are having aseizure; with every neuron in the brain firing at once, theperson can inadvertently bite your finger off. We told thechildren not to touch her if it happened again; she wouldn’thurt herself because she was unlikely to flail around, andthe best thing to do was simply wait for it to finish. After herlong months of anti-cancer therapies, Katherine had toendure perhaps the most frustrating treatment of all for her:
taking it easy. She did this in her own way, by taking longafternoon naps and then working hard with a mattock in hervegetable garden as the day cooled. Gradually the napsgrew shorter and her muscle tone began to improve. Wedreaded the monthly scans, but with each clear result, ourconfidence grew. The epileptic episode was a warningshot, but it also gave us a less-scary interpretation of heroccasional symptoms of giddiness or tingling in her hand.
Throughout that summer of 2006, I was on the phonenegotiating to buy the zoo, and by October, that was finallyachieved and I had moved in with Duncan and Mum.
Katherine arrived about a month later, after tying up ouraffairs in France, and for me it felt like the last piece of thepuzzle was in place. With Katherine on board, we couldn’tfail. She never failed. She wouldn’t allow those around herto fail either. Watching the budget with a beady eye, shealso wouldn’t tolerate overspending.
Just before Christmas 2006, shortly after moving to thezoo, Katherine developed a tingling on her right-hand sidethat didn’t go away with the epilepsy medicine. I phoned theGP to request an MRI scan, and was amazed that one wasscheduled in three weeks’ time. In France a car wouldarrive to take you to the hospital the next day. I telephonedthe hospital to get it moved forward and found that thefaxed request from the GP had arrived on the desk of thewrong specialist, who was on holiday anyway. I called theGP again and explained to him what a glioblastoma was,what it could do, how quickly it grows, and gave him the faxnumber of the right specialist. And this time—good man—the doctor asked for an emergency scan and we went tothe hospital two days later. There was a week to wait for theresult, which we passed clinging to the hope of epilepsy, asthe tingling seemed to lessen the more Katherine rested.
But it wasn’t epilepsy. The MRI scan revealed arecurrence of the tumor. She quickly developed a speechdeficit, leaving her unable to get past certain words, makingher repeat the same word again and again, which wasextremely frustrating for her and quite frightening. She lostmovement of her right hand very quickly, and her right armsuddenly became an encumbrance. Around us, the zoowas lumbering on, and we were caught between twoworlds.
The speed of the symptoms was alarming, but they weremediated slightly by the steroids she was prescribed, atever increasing doses, which alleviate intracranial swelling.
I still felt optimistic because several new and less-invasivetreatments had been developed since she was firstdiagnosed, and if the first line of conventional treatmentfailed, I knew there was a range of well-advanced trials,which I had kept in contact with. Before she underwentanother craniotomy, I was keen to explore some of thesenewer, less-invasive methods.
The difficulty with treating problems inside the brain withdrugs is the blood brain barrier (BBB), part of the body’sown defenses. This is a physical membrane that restrictsblood access to the brain, protecting it from blood-borneinfections. Very few things can get past it, but a virus can,and a modified herpes virus was designed as long ago as1995 to cross the BBB and carry with it an agent thattargets cancer cells and kills them. The measles virus andscorpion venom have also been used in this way inexperimental trials in the lab, though not in human trials,when I had last contacted them. Probably most promising, itseemed to me, was a German system of delivering ironoxide particles directly to the tumor site by injection, thenagitating these particles with the MRI scanner, which is,after all, a giant magnet. This literally smashes up the tumorfrom the inside, which I liked the sound of. Best of all, it hadbeen used on fourteen human glioblastoma patients in theprevious year, all of whom were doing well. I got in touchwith the Germans to see if Katherine would be eligible fortheir next trial.
Our first encounter with the neurosurgeon in Devon hadnot been promising, however. Obviously anxious, we’dbeen led through the neuro department to a small room tomeet the man who would be overseeing Katherine’streatment. He looked reassuringly geeky, but thenneurosurgeons usually do. He explained that the scan hadrevealed a recurrence of “abnormalities,” and scrolled usthrough a 3-D computer graphic of Katherine’s brain, whichshowed six or seven small black specks across bothhemispheres, including inside the corpus collosum, whichis the bundle of nerves connecting the two halves of thebrain. Around each speck was a small white stain, like awater mark, which he explained was swelling, which wouldincrease the symptoms associated with each tumor site.
This was the bit he could alleviate with steroids, but thetumors were too widespread for an operation, certainly atthis stage.
I asked if he could send the scan to our doctor in Franceso that we could have her input? “No,” he said emphatically,without looking up. “That won’t be necessary.” Would heplease send it, as she has treated Katherine for two and ahalf years, and we would be very interested in what she hasto say? “No, this is your treatment center now.” Rarely haveI had such a strong urge to punch someone’s face in sosoon after meeting them. Moments before I had beenrespectfully listening to a skilled consultant give us hisconsidered opinion. Now I was fighting the urge to snap offhis pudgy fingers one by one before hospital security tookme away. However, I felt this would have been a bad startto what was likely to be an ongoing relationship. Thisstubborn, territorial conservatism in someone who heldKatherine’s life in his hands was worrying indeed.
Then I asked him about future possible options such asthe modified herpes virus, the measles virus, the scorpionvenom, and the German iron oxide treatment, all of whichhad shown promising early results, some in humanglioblastoma patients. He shut his eyes, shook his headand said he hadn’t heard of any of them, but that there arelots of unproven trials that seem promising but alwayscome to nothing. Then he looked at me and said, “I’m afraidthis is a very dispiriting tumor to treat.” Poor guy.
He prescribed a course of PCV chemotherapy, a threeprongedapproach that is effective in reducingglioblastomas in about 20 percent of cases. To aglioblastoma patient, these seem like good odds. Itelephoned our French neurologist and asked her to askher English counterpart for the scan results, which she did,and fortunately he supplied them to her, so I could crossreferencetreatment options with someone in whom I hadsome faith. She agreed with the initial treatment of PCV, soall we could do was wait until the NHS (National HealthService) was ready to start Katherine’s treatment, on 7January.
I only hoped they knew what they were doing, as thesetumors are graded by their growth rate, and a grade 4glioblastoma can double in size in a week. We had aquietly fraught festive season. It just seemed that no onewas moving at the same speed as the tumor.
JANUARYKatherine’s condition had worsened in the run-up to thechemo, so we were glad when it began. It involved a shortinfusion and some tablets to take for the next week. By thetime the chemo started, she was already debilitated. Herright arm was completely paralyzed, her hand bunching upwith the tension of the tendons, and her right leg wasbeginning to drag. But she could still walk by herself withthe aid of a crutch. With chemo there are usually a few daysbefore the effects kick in, but she was weak, and stillrecovering from the effects of her long-term treatment inFrance. So, for the next three weeks she spent a lot of timeasleep.
Meanwhile, I was still working at the zoo, in betweenpopping back to the house to check on Katherine. Texts onmy phone from that time reveal the usual concerns aboutwages, etc. But one piece of good news was that weinterviewed a great candidate for the position of curator ofanimals. Filling this position was one of the most importantconditions for getting our zoo license. We had to havesomeone who knew exactly what they were doing in allaspects of animal management—after all, we didn’t. AndSteve Pilcher came highly recommended from the muchrespected Newquay Zoo, Mike Thomas’s old stampingground, and before that he had worked with the orangutansat Jersey for several years. Orangs are among my favoriteanimals (though it might be a bit far-fetched to imaginethem here within the next ten years), and Jersey is one ofthe best zoos in the world. Steve’s interview went well. MikeThomas came up for the day—after all, we weren’t evenqualified to interview a curator, as we didn’t know what tolook for. Mike led the questioning, and Steve came up withall the right answers, until we got to the question of Spar,the elderly, arthritic tiger up in the top enclosure, andwhether he should be put to sleep. This is a contentiousquestion, which divides zoological thinking. I knew from thevet that although Spar was wobbly, he was almost certainlynot in pain. At nineteen, he was well past his natural lifespan in the wild, and his obvious frailty had occasionallyupset the visitors at the zoo for the last few years. But thevet had told me he had been in Spar’s corner for manyyears, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t carry onuntil there was a real medical reason to intervene. Mikehappened to disagree, and phrased the question in a waythat made it obvious what he thought. Mike may seemavuncular, but he is also formidable, particularly to ayounger candidate being interviewed for a senior positionlike this. The easy thing to do would have been to agreewith him, but Steve didn’t. “Well, he’s not in the wild. He’s ina zoo,” said Steve. “No matter what he looks like, if he’s notin pain, I don’t see why he shouldn’t live out his life until thevet says otherwise.” Mike didn’t like this answer, but I did.
Apart from anything else, it showed a steeliness that hewould need if he took the job.
Steve was married to Anna, another experienced zooprofessional, who was currently lecturing at a universitymaster’s course on veterinary science in zoos. When hercontract ended in a couple of months, she would make anexcellent addition to the team. Both of them were seriouslyenthused by the potential of the site and brimming withideas, backed up with the expertise to bring it forward.
Suddenly it looked like we had an excellent uppermanagementduo, ready to take on the enormouschallenges that lay ahead.
But in between us offering Steve the job and his arriving,Katherine’s condition worsened considerably. When hearrived in mid-January, I had to tell him the news, and saidthat while I would liaise with him daily and give him fullsupport on any changes he felt were necessary, my realattention was elsewhere. The situation in the zoo reallyrequired everybody’s full attention, but with the arrival ofSteve, already braced to face a huge task, I had to unload alot of the responsibility onto him. Handing over to this poorguy, I could see him accepting the strain, but also that hewouldn’t buckle under it. I thought he could do it, and therewas plenty for him to do.
On the same day that Katherine started herchemotherapy, an article appeared in the medical journalCancer Cell, which was not on my usual reading list.
Duncan had heard about it through a review in ScientificAmerican, which a friend had shown to him, and had beenapparently mildly surprised when Duncan grabbed thebrand-new magazine and insisted on taking it away withhim. He showed it to me and explained it as I read.
Dichloroacetate (DCA) had been used to treat children witha metabolic disorder for thirty years, with few side effects.
What a team in Canada had just discovered, however, wasthat it would also dissolve glioblastoma cells on contact inthe lab. Intrigued, they had infected some rats with thesetumors, then given them open access to DCA, dissolved intheir drinking water. Because DCA, being a very simplemolecule, can cross the blood brain barrier, it finds cancercells, enters them, and destroys them by reawakening themitochondria. I’ve always liked mitochondria. They are thepower plant of the cell, providing the energy, but they arenot strictly human. They are descended from bacteria andhave their own DNA, which is why high-altitude training killsoff populations of them and produces new ones that canmetabolize oxygen more efficiently when sprinting at sealevel. What I didn’t know was that mitochondria are alsoresponsible for cell apoptosis, that is, the suicide of the cell,should it become infected. Naturally, as the cancer takesover the cell, one of the first things it does is to switch offthe mitochondria. But DCA switches it back on. Theexperimental group of rats in the lab all had massivelyreduced tumors, and the control group, without the DCA,had great big fat life-threatening ones. So it can cross theBBB, has been tested on humans for thirty years, and it killsglioblastomas.
However, there were no human trials for glioblastomaspecifically. It had only just been published, and at the time Iwas inundated by suggestions for cures from all quarters.
My brother Vincent liked the scorpion-venom research,Katherine’s parents advocated eating apricot kernels, andmy personal preference was for the German method, whichKatherine’s sister Alice had uncovered and researched. Ifconventional treatment failed, one of the conditions ofgetting onto this trial was that the patient was notundergoing any other treatment at the time. Katherine’sscan was already on its way to Germany, and I didn’t wantto do anything to jeopardize her eligibility. “If it was me, I’dbe drinking gallons of DCA,” said Duncan. But I held off forthe time being.
Katherine came out of the chemo slowly, and we had towait a week or so before she could be assessed for thenext round. When she came back around, she came backworse. It had weakened her, as it does, but considerably. Ionly hoped it was having a similar effect on the tumor, butthere was no guarantee of that. Her walking was worse,and she had to be supported on her left side, the goodside, and the right leg wheeled into position for each stepwith a hip-to-hip roll of her whole body sideways. Once theright foot was in position, the knee seldom buckled if wekept the angle right. In time this awkwardly encumberedgate became more complicated, when the right footrefused to come up, and had to be flicked by the heel withmy own right foot. This meant standing on one leg at acrucial part of the step with Katherine balanced on her ownweakening left leg, so we decided it was more practical toget hold of a wheelchair, particularly for outings, which wewanted to continue while ever it was possible.
Unfortunately, none of the different branches of the NHSwith which we were by now in contact could provide awheelchair. The application process was too long, and thekind we wanted, with the big rear wheels, was forbidden fortriplegics, in case her bad hand slipped down and gotcaught in the wheel. But these were by far the most stablechairs, able to navigate the steeper unfinished paths of thepark far better than the small-wheeled variety, whichKatherine’s brothers eventually managed to hire from theRed Cross. This did make things much easier, however,and I took her out into the park as often as I could, for freshair and to remind her of the wonders that surrounded us.
She had never seen the tigers up close, so one day Itook her behind the tiger house, where the three handrearedtigers, Vlad, Blotch, and Stripe, would come right upto the fence and do their obviously friendly “chuffing” noises,wanting to be stroked. I’d asked Katherine if she’d wantedto do this, and because it’s very much an “off show” areawith poor wheelchair access, she’d waved her hand andshrugged, indicating indifference. But it is a profoundlypowerful experience to be so near these huge, hugepredators, and then to see them behaving just like great bighouse cats, wanting human contact. Katherine was notimmune to this experience, and was visibly filled withwonder at the spectacle, which was lovely to be able toshare with her.
Mum and Duncan provided enormous support for usduring this time, looking after the children, helpingKatherine where they could, and it would have beenimpossible without them. But as the person closest to her inher daily life, a position I now know to be formally calledcaretaker, I learned in more detail some of those littlerituals she used to carry out with such graceful efficiencyherself. Like the folding of clothes. I was dimly aware of itgoing on during our years together before, watching fromthe bed and wondering how it could possibly take someoneso long to prepare for going to sleep (twenty-two minutes,over the years I’d noticed, was her average from enteringthe room to entering the bed). Now I understood theprocess from an insider’s perspective. If you have niceclothes and you care what you look like, the key, it seems,is to treat them carefully and put them away after usingthem, rather than just leave them on the floor (my clothesare generally sloughed straight onto the floor and steppedout of, ready, often, to be reused the next day).
Though it was an outward and shocking sign of herincreasing disability, with potentially sinister implications,caring for Katherine became in some ways the best part ofthe day. It gave us a chance to be together in a way that wecouldn’t manage while she had been the human dynamo inthe office and the home, spinning more plates than I evenknew existed. Those intimate hours in the daytime and atnight as I helped her to the toilet, washed, fed, and dressedher were spent in laughter, and became a welcome breakfrom my more public duties as a new zoo director.
As Katherine became more disabled, I spent more of mytime with her. Initially I could get her up, washed, dressed,and breakfasted by about ten o’clock, and then leave hersitting or reclining somewhere with a stack of readingmatter and remote controls. But this felt like abandonment,because for someone as naturally busy and as engagedwith the outside world as she had been, this enforcedleisure was a torture. I popped back as frequently as Icould, inevitably delayed by myriad queries and problemsthat beset any novice proprietor of a run-down zoo. Wewere told that if, somehow, the tumors were successfullyremoved this time, her movement and speech might return,but again they might not.
In the meantime I began learning about the fastidious artof eyebrow plucking. If you need a magnifying glass todetect a bristle of an eyebrow, I suggested, then youprobably don’t need to pluck it. Someone across the room,or even a couple of feet away, won’t be able to see it. Butthis cut no ice with Katherine. After careful positioning ofmirrors, tweezer, and optical equipment enabling thedetection of actual bristles, came the technique. This is nosnatch and grab, but a much more deliberate and torturousmethod. Grip the offending millimeter of hair firmly with thetweezers, and slowly ease it out in what for most men wouldbe an eye-watering agony. But female grooming breedsstoics, and never a flicker crossed even the good half ofKatherine’s face as I reluctantly conducted this torture.
Suitably groomed and plucked (Katherine, that is, notme), we arrived at the hospital for our next appointment—and had the most chilling conversation of my life. Ourappointment with the oncologist to discuss Katherine’sprogress, and therefore prognosis, had a surrealbreeziness to it, as the life of this most beautiful person wasdiscussed and seemingly dismissed in a shitty little backroom painted NHS blue, next to the toilets in the oncologywaiting area. The big, doe-eyed oncologist began bydiscussing plans for the next round of PCV, but I wasconcerned that it had taken such a lot out of Katherine thatwe needed to be sure it was working before we continued,otherwise she would suffer needlessly, but also becauseshe would be semi-comatose and unable to reportsymptoms at a very critical time, when we might need toswitch treatments. It was a good thing I asked. “Well,actually, I have to say I don’t think it is working,” she said. “Itreduces tumors in about twenty percent of cases, butnormally by now we’d expect to see some slightimprovement. And as you can see”—gesturing to Katherine—“things have got worse.” Katherine sat in her Red Crosswheelchair, smiling her half smile, taking it in or not,shrugging a bit, unable to communicate the million thingsshe must have been feeling inside. Then the oncologistturned to her. “You don’t really want to be feeling poorly fora couple more weeks do you?”
Katherine, defunctionalized, unable to speak, probablyunable to grasp the sheer enormity of what had justhappened, smiled and blinked, and shrugged. It took me awhile to grasp it too. I looked around the room. The medicalstudent had clearly been briefed that this would be a deathconversation. She couldn’t do eye contact. The wide-eyedmale nurse from Macmillan Cancer Support said nothing,but provided a foil for the knowing asides from theoncologist. I asked the oncologist if she’d read the DCAarticle I had forwarded. She rolled her eyes with a “silly me”
smile, and said, “Oh, I haven’t had time.” Cancer Cell, Isuggested, was a fairly serious journal that, one would havethought, would appeal to oncologists. “Mmm. It’s amitochondrial cell-apoptosis route,” she said aside to theMacmillan nurse, who now seemed to be present more assecurity than for any benefit to Katherine. They laughedbriefly. How silly of us to hold out any hope for that.
So what’s the plan? I asked. Another shrug, another fartoo-lightweight smile. There wasn’t one. What about X, Y,and Z, and some other drug combinations suggested bythe Americans? No, not available. I was rocked, andwanted to cry, but I wanted to stay strong for Katherine.
Besides, at the back of my mind I still held out hope for theGerman iron-oxide treatment, or Duncan’s DCA, which Igenuinely believed could be fruitful, and once it wasdemonstrated to be working, the medics would back us up.
But when the vast, imperfect but reassuring teat of NHSsupport is withdrawn, that is a cold feeling indeed.
It took a few days to adjust to the idea that we’d been cutloose from real treatment, and meanwhile the busyagencies of cancer care made it seem like things werehappening. There were appointments with the districtnurse, the Marie Curie people, the Macmillan team, theoccupational therapist, and some people called the reablementteam. After a bit, it occurred to me that a lot ofpeople were arriving, sympathizing, and asking questions,but nothing was actually happening. Still no one could getus a wheelchair, for instance, because the NHS red tapestrangled all efforts. No one could help me with liftingKatherine, as lifting is now against NHS regulations, butthey all approved of my technique. One department gave usa load of blue nylon things that were apparently for hoickingKatherine around, but all of them seemed massivelyintrusive medicalizations of what can be a simple, friendlyprocess. Someone else was looking seriously into the ideaof fitting a stair lift. But I wasn’t holding my breath.
Most of the physical disabilities, even if they becamepermanent, were things that I thought she could probablylearn to live with. But I couldn’t bear her looking confused.
Offering, poker-faced, her leg to be put into a sleeve or abra strap, reaching for a bar of soap instead of atoothbrush to brush her teeth, being surprised that the lightis controlled by the light switch. But her humor was stillthere. Her laughter was readily available, which told me shewas still in there. And her cool reproach if I wasn’t doingsomething properly. Just one eyebrow raised (she couldonly raise one, but that made it more effective) told me Iwas still being critically assessed.
FEBRUARYKatherine had become confused by the concept of spittinginto a glass during the process of brushing her teeth in thebedroom. If you offered the glass to rinse and spit, shedrank, then looked confused as to what to do with it once itwas in her mouth. She often tried to quickly start brushingwith a mouth full of water, which inevitably ended in a mess.
But she more readily followed the concept of rinsing andspitting in the bathroom as it is a more familiar environmentfor teeth brushing, though the bath-room was logisticallydifficult to get to, and very cold. Yet despite this she wasinstantly amused if you pointed this out by mimicking herfull-mouthed, wide-eyed perplexity. Her language seemedto improve at bedtime, briefly, when she could still bebrilliantly dry and scathing. Having propped her up in bedwith several pillows, which she indicated were workingperfectly, I overeagerly searched the house for yet another.
Propping it behind her, I asked if that was any better.
“Marginally worse,” she said, perfectly, after a day of beingunable to discriminate between producing a yes or a no.
It got to the stage where, because I spent so much timewith her, and already knew her so well, I had to be called inas translator for many simple interactions with other people.
The trick was not to suggest too many things for her tochoose from, and to realize that when she said yes, it couldeasily mean no, and vice versa. Once any word or gesturewas out, it tended to be repeated. Watching someone newto Katherine’s situation try to understand brought home howfar she’d slipped. Usually I had to step in, but once or twice Ileft her at the mercy of a well-meaning friend or relativewhile I snatched a few minutes catching up with things I hadto do. Like when Katherine’s lovely sister Alice was tryingso earnestly to understand what she was trying to say, andoffered a cornucopia of possibilities. Katherine appealedto me with her eyes across the room, and I knew exactlywhat she wanted. But for those five minutes, I simply smiledat her and shook my head, happily catching up on my email.
“You’re on your own.”
Before she almost completely lost her speech, Katherinewas sitting at the table with all the family struggling to saysomething to my Mum. “Can I . . . can I . . . can I . . .” Havethe salt? The butter? The vegetables? people helpfullysuggested. A rare look of frustration passed across herface before she finally got it out. “Can I pass you something,Amelia?” With her one good hand, and seven tumor sitesmultiplying exponentially in her brain, she was still moreattentive to others than anyone else at the table.
15 FEBRUARY: A GREAT ESCAPEDuring this period, in the middle of February, I was still ableto leave Katherine in the house for an hour or two at a time,propped up in front of the fire with some magazines,snacks, and the TV remote (which she never seemed toresort to, though I would have done). I didn’t like to leave herfor long, but I had to attend an urgent design meeting with alocal firm to discuss whether they were able to carry onKatherine’s design work, which she had so far,unfortunately, only sketchily outlined. Then the meeting wasinterrupted when I heard the news that a wolf had escaped(don’t you just hate it when that happens?).
At first, I tried to carry on as if nothing had happened—Ihad enormous faith that the keepers and curator couldhandle the situation. Unfortunately, the wolf got past them,across the perimeter fence, and into the outside world. Thatwas when the fun really started. Suddenly, instead of takingthe odd call on the internal radio to keep in touch with thesituation, I was stepping out of the meeting to do a quickinterview on Radio Devon, and then Radio Five Live. Thedesigners were very understanding and saw the funny side,but unfortunately, none of the journalists I was talking to did.
Obviously it was a serious situation, and members of thepublic were also keen to point out on air that seeing a largeblack timber wolf running down their street was notconducive to a relaxing afternoon. Trying to explain tohostile journalists (don’t you just hate hostile journalists?)that Parker, the number-two male wolf, was not a danger toanyone unless he was cornered, didn’t seem to work. Thetruth remained that a Class I dangerous animal in our carewas now running free in public, and that’s not how thingsare supposed to be.
Phrases I used in radio interviews like “He’s just aharmless scavenger,” and “He’s basically a big girl’sblouse” have been quoted back at me derisively by friendswho heard my torment. Other zoo professionals phoned tosympathize, saying that escapes were relatively commonbut for God’s sake not to quote them on that. The meetingfinally disintegrated as I liaised with armed police now twomiles away, with Parker in sight, wanting to know exactlyhow dangerous this big girl’s blouse actually was.
Then we got lucky. Instead of heading into woods, oracross people’s gardens, the black wolf turned left into achina clay quarry, which was a couple of square miles ofcontainable basin, and most important, completely whiteterrain. Also in the WBB China Clay Works quarry wereseveral redoubtable quarrymen equipped with localknowledge, four Land Rovers, and their own radiocommunications. As they liaised with our keepers on quadbikes (all-terrain vehicles) and the police, the tide turnedtoward the forces of containment. But Parker, not quitefinished, ran the highly equipped humans ragged for anhour or so before finally succumbing to a keeper’s dart. Iwaved to the parting designers over the heads of the mudspatteredkeepers and police, and settled in for an eveningof battle stories.
It sounded exciting, and part of me wished I’d been there.
As it happened, a friend and former colleague of Duncan’swas visiting at the time, and was a perfect person to join inthe chase. Kevin Walsh is a rangy six-foot-four Cockneywho worked for several years with Duncan as a privateinvestigator. The nature of their work meant that they had tobe adaptable, unflappable, and used to pursuits. Duncanand Kevin sped off down the road after Parker, in radio andphone contact with the police and keepers. “We just wentstraight into ‘mode.’” Kevin laughed, clearly having enjoyedhis day, and playing no small part in the recapture. Atseveral stages, despite the manpower on the ground, onlyone person had “eyes on” Parker and was able to relay thisvital information to the rest of the team. Kevin, Duncan,John, and a policeman had all held the line vitally in thisway, in what sounded like a very near miss. If Parker hadgot onto the moors, or into built-up backyards, he wouldprobably still be out there. “At one stage we wereseparated,” Duncan recounted. “But I next saw Kevin ridingshotgun—and carrying a shotgun—in the back of a pickuptruck, in the thick of it.” The vet who had been scrambled toprovide the anaesthetic for the dart gun, apparently, was afairly slight woman, who also had to carry a shotgun in casethings didn’t go as planned. With her other paraphernalia,this was proving an encumbrance, and she handed it to thecapable-looking Kevin. “That shotgun was my golden passto the center of events,” said Kevin. “Everywhere the vetwent I had to go, in police cars, Land Rovers and pickups.”
In the end Rob’s sharpshooting with the dart gun meant thatthe shotgun was never used. Another close shave for us.
And another satisfied visitor to the park.
It was deeply serious. It was absurd. It was not the firsttime the wolf had taken a shot at freedom. Parker hadescaped once before, before our time, and had beencollared, quite literally, outside the local pub. He seemed tohave gone in search of Rob, who “scruffed” him andbundled him into the back of a van.
When I started down this road of running a zoo it was thepsychological welfare of the animals that interested memost. The physical containment aspect, I assumed, was agiven. Now I see that the two things are often closelyrelated. Unhappy animals can take desperate measures,making them unpredictable. Parker, as number two, wasstressed by the decline in Zak, the elderly alpha male, fromwhom he would soon have to wrest control of the pack.
Rather than face his fear, he decided to try his luckelsewhere, and against the odds he pitched his bid whenthe electric fence was momentarily down.
The sleeping Parker was placed back in the wolf houseon a bed of straw with some hot-water bottles scavengedfrom our house (Mum, Katherine, and the children wouldhave to go without that night, because Parker’stemperature regulation system was compromised by theanaesthetic). I popped back into the house and tended toKatherine, who needed a bit of help, while the keepers gotcleaned up. Then I went back out into the driving rain toestablish with Rob exactly how Parker had got out. Therewere a few theories flying around, and by now, everyonewas absolutely drained—including me, from my difficult dayof unplanned hostile questioning by the national media. Thecalls were still coming in, our reputation had been seriouslydamaged, and I could feel that one more incident like thiswould finish us. It was vital that we establish exactly whathad happened and make absolutely sure it couldn’t happenagain, tonight or ever in the future. One possibility I had toeliminate was keeper error, which had been raised by anexternal professional who knew the design of the enclosure,and that the keepers were so used to working with thewolves, who scattered like, well, big girls’ blouses,whenever anyone went in with them. This could have led tocomplacency, and Parker could conceivably have gotbehind them and fled before they reacted. The wholeconcept of going in with the wolves was something thatneeded to be addressed before our inspection with aredesign of the enclosure, but for now, my general paranoiaat the end of another Code Red day led me to questionRob about this possibility. It was understandable, I said.
There would be no recriminations. We just needed to knowdefinitively. Understandably, he was not very pleased, butnor wasI. I desperately wanted to get back inside to Katherine,so I insisted that he show me some evidence there andthen that indicated that Parker had gone over the fencerather than through the gate.
In the woods behind the wolves, who were now howlingand yapping in agitation in their sealed-off section of theirenclosure—both of us drenched to the skin by the relentlessrain— we shone our flashlights around the perimeter fenceuntil we reached the section where the two halves of theenclosure are divided by a fence so that the wolves can beisolated from each other if necessary. Inexplicably, at thisback corner, rather than meeting the perimeter fence at aright angle, the line of the dividing fence veered offobliquely, creating a triangular nook and meeting the outerfence at a sharp angle of about thirty degrees. Thoughprotected by a couple of strands of “hot wire,” or electricfence, this narrow triangle could provide purchase for ananimal to climb, if the hot wire was down (there was nobackup in those days) and the wolf sufficiently desperate.
As it turned out, it was, and Parker was. “He’ll have knownstraightaway when the hot wire went down,” explained Rob,rainwater running down his face in the light of ourflashlights. Many of the animals on the park apparentlytested the fences vigilantly, not by receiving a shock, but bycoming extremely close and somehow detecting theelectrical field. This bothered me, as the old hot-wiresystem was one of the primary defenses against escapefor many of the more “dangerous” animals, including thewussy but controversy making wolves. Rob shone hisflashlight on the overhand at the top of the fence, and there,without a doubt, were some tufts of dark fur that shouldn’thave been there. It was from Parker’s chest. The powerwas back on, but if it failed again, we were in trouble. Therest of the pack were to be contained in the secure half ofthe enclosure until the rest of it could be made safe.
Relieved, I went back into the house to Katherine.
The council had ordered a cull of three of the wolves onthe basis that overcrowding was causing the unrest, butonce again I was reluctant to carry out this euthanasiawithout a lot of further research. The last cull several yearsbefore had apparently killed the wrong three wolves, allimportant in the hierarchy, resulting in the presentinstabilities in the pack. We employed freelance wolfwhisperer Sean Ellis, a controversial anti-establishmentfigure, to advise us. He apparently performed a little dancethat had all the wolves sitting at his feet, then recommendedthat we feed them a whole carcass instead of the joints ofcut meat, because in the wild the hierarchy is establishedby who eats what. The leaders establish themselves at thefeast, and then their urine smells different according to thebits they have eaten. Simple, and 100 percent effective.
The pack calmed down, and after the electric-fence expertRoger Best had finished with the enclosure, motive, means,and opportunity for escape were reduced to nil. Onceagain, the orthodoxy was proved wrong, and some animalswere saved.
I would have liked to have met Sean and seen hisassessment, but by then I was with Katherine more or lessfull time, often out in front of the house if the weather wasmild enough. Katherine would be wrapped up warmly, and Ispent this time on the phone about treatment options and,while waiting for calls, renovating an old tabletop I hadfound in a refuse container and married with some steeltable legs discovered in one of the barns on the park. Thetabletop was covered with many layers of paint, whichneeded stripping off, and the legs were rusty, but thesegentle DIY activities were normalizing for me and for her.
For the twelve years we had been together, I had spent aninordinate amount of time doing DIY. Partly because ofdoing up our flat and then the barns in France, partlybecause a significant portion of my income had come fromwriting about DIY as a columnist for the Guardian and othermagazines, but also because, to be honest, I am aninveterate putterer. We settled into an almost familiarrhythm.
Unfortunately, during this time, the phone calls were notgoing well. The scorpion-venom trials and the measles andherpes virus groups all rejected Katherine, sometimesbecause they were not ready, and sometimes because shehad too many different tumor sites—six or seven—andwhat they needed was one good primary tumor. Then,finally, a letter arrived from Germany to say the same thing.
Because of their intracranial injection technique, hermultiple sites meant that she was not a suitable candidate.
MARCHSuddenly the options were drastically reduced. It mighthave been possible to find another experimental procedurein another country, but Katherine was not very well at all now—probably well enough to travel, but the huge upheaval ofadapting to a new country, possibly a new language, at thisstage on the off chance that it might work was notappealing. Duncan’s DCA idea now seemed likeKatherine’s best bet, particularly when a good friend ofmine from college days, Jennifer, who trained as aresearch chemist, also got in touch and said she thought itwas a good idea. “The Internet is absolutely swamped bythis,” said Jen. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Theresearchers have closed down their site and aren’t takinge-mails, which is unheard of. Everybody wants DCA.” Thatdidn’t necessarily make it a good thing, but I was alreadyas convinced as I needed to be, and when Jen said shemight be able to get hold of some from her laboratorycontacts, I asked her to please try.
Meanwhile, I contacted as many doctors as I could to tryto get a private prescription for what was, after all, a cheap,widely available medicine that had been in use for the lastthirty years. The problem was, it hadn’t been used for thiscondition before, and so it was unlicensed. This meant thata doctor who prescribed it was technically takingKatherine’s life—and their career, should anything gowrong—in their hands. And they would be personally liable,should I decide to sue them if things went wrong. I knowquite a few doctors from my medical journalism days, and Icontacted them all, and my GP. All, understandably,declined regretfully, and I understood that it was a verydifficult demand to make on someone, and I think theyunderstood how desperate I must have been to ask. Theone person I didn’t understand was the local oncologist incharge of Katherine’s treatment. Her ideas, which wereofficially palliative anyway (that is, designed to alleviatesuffering or symptoms without eliminating the cause), hadnot worked. She had not even tried to eliminate the cause,and here was the possibility of a noninvasive treatment,successful in the lab, known to have negligible side effects,which was actually sitting in the pharmacy in the buildingwhere she worked. As with all the other doctors Iapproached, I sent her the relevant pages of the AmericanEnvironmental Protection Agency toxicology report,published in August 2003 to assess the use of DCA overthe last thirty years. This clearly concludes that the sideeffects, even in long-term use over five years, wereminimal: traces of peripheral nerve damage and minortoxic effects on the liver. If Katherine lived long enough toexperience these symptoms, we would be delighted.
Besides, she already had a lot more than peripheral nervedamage; she was paralyzed down one side and losingcontrol of her other side day by day. As next of kin I couldsign any disclaimers necessary. It had to be worth a try.
“No,” she said. And I still can’t understand why.
Duncan also knew a few doctors, and one in particularwho might be prepared to step outside his comfort blanket.
I thought he was too far removed from Katherine to go sofar out on a limb for her, but I was wrong. A surgeon, helooked Duncan up and down, took his word, risked hiscareer, and signed a private prescription. He wanted toliaise closely on dosage, which we worked out as best wecould together from the existing literature, and he gave us amonth’s supply. Or rather, he prescribed it. Actually gettinghold of an unlicensed drug that is at the center of aninternational controversy, even with a private prescription,is not easy. It took a further week of overcoming quitesubstantial bureaucratic and logistical obstacles, butunleashing Duncan onto a project is like unleashing theTerminator. Though his mission was benign, he’d be backwhen it was achieved. It was reassuring to know that hewas out there, relentlessly tracking down this drug, whichseemed like our absolute last chance to save Katherine.
Even if it only slowed down her decline, the medics mighttake more of an interest and make it easier to get hold of,or, ideally, take over the treatment.
Finally, on my birthday (which we’d all forgotten aboutuntil I started opening cards in the evening), Duncan sat in aroom in a London hospital with a still-suspicious head ofpharmacy examining the paperwork in front of him. The twokey elements were the prescription itself and hisconversations with the doctor who had written it, and thediagnosis of palliative treatment only for Katherine. Thepharmacist left the room and came back with a carrier bagfull of bottles of DCA, but resumed probing Duncan aboutthis unusual procedure. “As soon as I saw the bag,” saysDuncan, “I knew I was leaving the building with it, even if Ihad to take it off him and climb out of the window with it.”
Fortunately, this drastic action was not necessary, asDuncan answered the pharmacist’s questions to hissatisfaction and he peacefully handed over the DCA.
Duncan leaped on a train down to Plymouth, handed overthe bag, and we gave Katherine her first dose. It was,without a shadow of doubt, the best birthday present I haveever had. It gave us hope.
I drew up a chart so that I could monitor her progress,and added four doses of DCA to the ten or so differentpills, such as steroids and anti-epilepsy drugs, she was stilltaking every day. The key with DCA is to soak the systemin it, so that there are no peaks and troughs inconcentrations; so, doses were administered every sixhours around the clock. Her sleep was already disrupted,and it was easy to administer by mouth in the form of analmost tasteless liquid. If it worked, it was the least invasiveof any of her treatments, and I scanned the notes I madeevery day looking for signs of improvement, or patterns ofdecline.
Despite everything, the time spent so closely withKatherine was enormously rewarding. We had our secrets.
She was largely constipated by the steroids, which meantlong and often fruitless sessions on the toilet, culminating ina successful launch about every four days. These heavingtribulations, punctuated by infrequent but periodic sweetsuccess, were special times. We smiled and laughed atthese bodily anomalies, with their involuntary contortionsand novel procedures—such as the poo stick. By the timethe poo actually exited “the building,” it was so dense andturgid that it wouldn’t flush. Previously, this had been anachievement only I had managed a few times in our twelveyears together. Now, Katherine was dropping whoppas thatcould survive several flushes absolutely unmoved. So wehad the poo stick, specially sourced and cut to shape forbreaking up poo into flushable sections. We giggledconspiratorially through these sorts of things as we stashedthe poo stick (thoroughly cleaned, obviously) for future usewhere no one would find it, or if they did, would neversuspect what it was for.
The children also took an active interest in toilet matters,perhaps because this was an area they had learned aboutrelatively recently themselves. The best piece of equipmentto come from the NHS was a mobile commode, agleaming, new (small wheeled) chair with a detachableseat, very useful in the nighttime but also at other timeswhen conventional lavatorial facilities were just too faraway. Several times on excursions with Katherine thechildren had witnessed us being caught short. Generally, Iwould go to the nearest shop and insist, with varyingdegrees of forcefulness, on using the staff toilets. Theyalways agreed in the end, and we never had an accident.
But the children both said about the commode that, “NowMummy can be wheeled along and wee at the same time.”
Katherine smiled, and I had to explain to them that it didn’tquite work like that.
With the DCA now our last hope, in which I still ferventlybelieved was a genuinely possible route out of thisnightmare, there was nothing to do but monitor herprogress through my handwritten chart. Some days herspeech seemed to improve. On 14 March, the entry reads,“Speech and movement slightly better.” On the 15th, at theGP’s, she eventually managed to say, “I understandeverything.” But the general trend was toward lessmovement, less language, and more sleep. Then herappetite rallied extraordinarily on the 27th. She consumedan entire meal of diced sushi, ate a whole basket ofraspberries followed by half a bar of chocolate, andwashed it down with a large glass of chilled white wine.
“Superb. Superb,” she said, giving enormous reason tohope for an improvement. But these were among her lastwords.
Toward the end of March, our good friends Phil andKaren came to visit, as they had been every few weeks,and we took Katherine out to the garden center in her RedCross wheelchair. We were looking at adjustable recliners,a comfortable way to spend the day when you are triplegic.
Katherine obviously liked the trip, looking at the scenery,and enjoying being out with us. When asked which reclinershe liked, she shrugged and smiled and flicked her hand upto indicate that she didn’t care. We settled on a silvery graymodel that had real wooden armrests, as beautiful anobject as possible within the confines of the genre andavailable market. When we got back to the house wemaneuvered her into it; she was wearing the lovely fake furcoat that Phil and Karen had brought her on a previous tripdown and that she had requested every day since.
Katherine looked surprised by the chair, but was obviouslydelighted, and rubbed the armrest enthusiastically up anddown, smiling to us to show her appreciation that we hadgot her the nicest chair we could. One week later, she diedin it.
Katherine’s breathing stopped at 3:30 AM on March 31,while I was a few feet away working on my computer. In thelast few days her swallowing had become more difficult. I’dbeen expecting her to live at least a week or so longer, asmy dad had lasted on liquids administered by means ofspongy lollipops dipped in water for about two weeks. Shenever got to the spongy-lollipop stage, and the packetremained unopened. But I wasn’t completely surprised. Indeath, once again, she was absolutely beautiful. Thepuffiness of her face, which had aged her so dramaticallybecause of the steroids, was gone, and the Katherine Iknew was back. Except that she was dead. I woke mysister Melissa, who was staying with us, and thenKatherine’s two brothers, Dominic and Guy, and we stayedup, not really knowing what to do, as the shock set in.
Throughout the DCA treatment I had genuinely clung tothe belief that it could reverse or at least arrest hersymptoms, if we got the dose right. And then the medicsmight take an interest and take over the management of thetreatment. Even if she was left utterly dependent, she wasstill Katherine, my friend, and able to communicate thisthrough the confusion. But soon after that last proper mealthree days before, she became unable to swallow, not evenenough to take her pills, or the little squirt of DCA into hermouth, and I knew that that was it. Suddenly without hope, Iwas stunned. Melissa advised me that the literaturerecommends telling children before a significant death, ifthere is an opportunity, so that they can prepare for it. Thisseemed to make sense, so I took them out onto the picnicarea of the park and sat down at a table to tell them thesaddest news I hope they will ever hear. Mummy, whomthey understood had been very poorly for a long time, wasgoing to die. As soon as she had grasped the enormity ofthe concept, Ella burst into tears and climbed across thetable to me. “I don’t want Mummy to be dead,” she said. ButMilo stayed where he was. I told him it was okay to cry, buthe just became very still as he took it into himself, and hesaid; “I don’t want to cry. I want to be strong for you, Daddy.”
Everybody has their own way, so he just watched Ella andme cry.
At the funeral in Jersey, where Katherine grew up, it wasodd being the focus of what seemed like such a communalloss. Everyone who knew Katherine quickly appreciatedwhat a special person she was, and felt the appallinginjustice of her, of all people, being taken away. Faces I’dknown to be always creased into smiles and laughter werenow all drawn and haggard, pained beyond endurance, withtears in every eye. The strain, the horror, the disbelief, thesheer agony no one had been expecting to face,confronting the inexplicable, unjustifiable, inexcusable lossof such a favorite person. She was the one person forwhom nobody present had ever had a bad word ornegative memory. The women looked at me with extremepained sympathy, but somehow the men moved me most:
big Neill, unable to speak, tears bursting from his eyes androlling down his bearlike face; Tim, his fraught face full offear and pain; Seamus, a school friend of Katherine’s andnow a local politician, so capable and composed in everyother situation, stretched beyond any careful planning orconsidered charm. And while she had been alive, Jim andMike, both big and strong, were so tender with her on theirvisits.
After the funeral, the full horror of the last three monthsbegan to sink in. With hindsight killing off hope, her declinelooked different. But even within a few days I was able toappreciate that although this was a tragedy for us, it wasnot such an unusual one. Many people endure far worse.
We were not in Darfur, or Srebrenica, or the Congo, wherepeople have recently been eaten by rebels in front of theirchildren. Katherine had had a good life in a wealthy country,and died peacefully and virtually painlessly in as measuredand gentle a way as possible. We are designed to acceptthis loss—particularly children, who have had to evolve ingroups where parental mortality was high. Daddy might notcome back from the hunt. Mummy might die in child-birth.
Different caretakers would take them in and they wouldeither adapt or reproduce less well. We are mostlydescended from those who adapted. This almost makesevolution sound like a religion, but I took comfort from thesearguments. And, even amongst the luckiest people in theworld today, we were exceptionally lucky. As well as beingin England, with healthcare, laws, and privilege, and beingsurrounded by loving friends and family, we had a zoo outthere. And one day soon, I’d get back to it.
In the meantime, I felt like I needed a mild sedative,preferably something organic, made from naturalingredients, like water, barley, hops, and perhaps about 5percent alcohol by volume. Luckily, just such a sedative iswidely available: Stella Artois. Just what the doctor didn’torder, but in the early days, it worked perfectly.
Chapter 6 The New Crew
After Katherine’s death, I felt as if I might not give a damnabout the zoo. But actually I did. Technically, I could see thatthe zoo was still possible—inevitable, in fact, or we werebust and the animals would be dispersed or killed— andthis fact was bolted to my mind. And as far as I wasconcerned, other people who couldn’t see this could simplyfuck off.
Grief, apparently, according to the widely acceptedKübler Ross model, generally has five stages: Denial,Anger, Bargaining (where you try to make a deal with Godor fate, or in lesser circumstances, the person who has leftyou), Depression, and Acceptance. I feel as if I skipped thefirst three and went straight to depression and acceptancesimultaneously. But the idea of anger intrigued me. I didn’tfeel anger as such—there was nothing and no one to feelanger toward for this random biological event, apart fromsome small-minded mishandling by some of the healthcarepeople involved, and they were just institutionalized cogs ina flawed machine. Besides, I didn’t have the energy foranger.
But I did feel a strong sense of disbelief that peoplecould be so petty. I didn’t mind seeing people arguing in thestreet, or not appreciating each other or frittering theirvaluable time in some other way. I could understand thatthey had drifted into this perspective and it was quitenormal. What really got me, though, was the pettiness ofmany of the people at the park, particularly when there wassuch a clear and obvious common goal to reach for. I sat inon meetings and listened to endless silly bickering andpower plays: “I can’t work with so-and-so”; “He said this, soI said . . .” I stood out in the park in the rain impassively,awash with keepers’ complaints about things like leakingwheelbarrows when they already knew that replacementswere on order, and I wondered how anything in the worldever gets done. But these tiny, seemingly irrelevantpreoccupations, I realized, were the stuff of life. People’sdaily experiences, what they had to deal with on the ground,were what it was all about—and that was somewhere onwhich I had to refocus.
Being part of the zoo had definitely helped, even in themost extreme times. Looking out of the window and seeingyoung keepers laughing as they worked, aware thatsomeone was ill in the house and obviously sympathetic,but still knowing they had a job to do looking after theanimals and getting on with it. Keeping the park going wasparticipating in the cycle of life. Things were born, likepiglets or a deer, and things died, like Spar the Tiger, orone of the owls. And Katherine. But no matter howdevastating for me, the children, or Duncan and Mum, lifegoes on. It was like being on a farm, where it can’t simplystop because one person isn’t there.
For now, there was work to do: new repairs to make, newstaff to hire, and most important, getting our license to tradeas a zoo. This is a complicated procedure, whereby youhave to give notice of your intention to apply two monthsbefore you do so, to allow objections to be raised, aired,and assessed. In our case we knew we could expect strongobjections from animal rights activists who had targeted thepark’s poor practices in the past, but the local communitywas supportive, and the council was showing no signs ofbeing obstructive. An inspection date would then bebooked, after which a verdict could take another six weeksto deliver. So far, straightforward. But the problem was thatif we failed this inspection, we couldn’t just rebook one in aweek or so; we would have to go through the wholeprocedure again, complete with the two-month delay andpossible six-week wait for the result. If we failed theinspection, it would be catastrophic for the business plan,which relied entirely on maximizing the income from thesummer season.
By early April we had already missed Easter, the firstand sometimes biggest bonanza weekend on the leisureindustrycalendar and a significant pillar of our businessplan. As the winter progressed, we’d tentatively suggestedearly June as our opening date, backtracking ourinspection date from there. But in view of the amount ofwork to be done, eventually we settled for July. Which gaveus an inspection date of June 4. There was a cleardeadline to meet, a certain number of tasks to be carriedout before then, and as long as these were addressedaccordingly, it was a done deal. Probably.
My participation was clearly necessary, but it took me awhile to readjust to this already broadly unfamiliarenvironment. In those days, I needed to be alone to cryevery few hours or so. I was lucky that the nature of my job,as roving troubleshooter and director, allowed me to beable to do this. I could steer a meeting or oversee the sitingof a fence post, and then make my excuses and leave,ostensibly to pursue some urgent business about the park.
More often than not, however, I’d hole up in one of my safehavens—the attic, the top of the observation tower, the ferngarden—and let the tears roll. It was like a bottomlessreservoir, busting at the dams, needing to be drainedbefore any progress could be made.
While I had been watching from the house or the frontlawn, Steve was recruiting two new senior keepers.
Normally it would have been unthinkable that I wasn’tinvolved directly in the interview and selection process, as Iobviously have a keen personal interest in who is employedon the site. I want to know about their philosophies ofanimal management, their interpersonal skills, and see howthey respond to the interview itself. I find that with the fewstaff that I have interviewed and then taken on, the interviewitself comes up in conversation from time to time as animportant part of the transaction between us. I may remindthem of something they agreed to do, or they remind me ofa commitment I made, or we laugh about someembarrassing moment. But the interview is criticallyimportant to me in establishing just who exactly we will beputting our trust in, and several candidates fell very wide ofthe mark. But as it was, I was distantly aware that theselection process was going on, and trusted Steve’sjudgment entirely.
And I was right to do so. The two keepers he recruited inthat time, Owen and Sarah, had both participated ininternationally recognized rare-animal breeding programs.
And both of them brought useful contacts lists forexchanges with other zoos, and the personal credibility toback them up. In other words, each keeper carries a directexperience of breeding rare animals that follows themaround. Sarah, for instance, has unique and directexperience of the fishing cats at Port Lympne Zoo, whosedirectors were so impressed with her that they said abreeding pair could come with her to DZP, as soon as wecould build them a suitable enclosure. Owen, a soft-spokenbut assertive young Scots man who grew up on a croft, orsmall farm, also has a portfolio of rare animals—in his casebirds—which follows him around, and his best idea was tocover the flamingo lake with a large enclosed aviary andput in a mangrove swamp to house some of his moreexotic future acquisitions. I agreed immediately, and thenasked how we would go about putting mangroves in. “Idon’t know yet,” said Owen. “But I’ll find out and let youknow.” Then it would be over to me to work out whether wecould implement it. Such are the challenges that face a zoodirector, I was discovering. But these are enjoyablechallenges, and being able to commission a mangroveswamp is a position I never thought I’d be in.
Owen and Sarah, who were now the senior keepers,were several times referred to as “stars” by people in thezoo world, such as Nick Lindsay and Mike Thomas. Owenand Sarah were people they had read about in theliterature, whose reputations preceded them. Even PeterWearden, our local environmental health officer, seemed tohave heard of them, or at least appreciated the significanceof us being able to attract them to work for us. Owen, I’dbeen told, had turned down a place at San Diego Zoo towork here. San Diego is a world leader in many fields,including his, a place that could offer him almostunimaginable resources to pursue his interests. One day Iasked him why he’d chosen this run-down place instead, inan area with one of the highest rainfalls in Britain, and notthe resource-rich, sunnier climes of Southern California.
“When I walked round the place, I obviously saw theamazing potential of the site,” he said. “But I also saw thatthere was a great sadness here, and that sadness wassomething I wanted to reverse.” He wasn’t talking aboutKatherine, he was talking about the effects of the long,slow, twenty-year decline of the park, on the people, theanimals, and the infrastructure—piles of clutter everywhere,hoarded in hope that had gradually ebbed away, leaving aresidue of fatalism and algae behind it.
Owen and Sarah may have been stars, but they were notprima donnas. They were physically tough andhardworking. Having both relocated from far-flung UK zoos,they initially had no accommodation and so they campedon site in the interminable rain, doing their laundry andwashing up in the rest rooms of the restaurant. I offeredthem use of the shower in the house, when it worked, butthey were happier with their subsistence living—andbesides, the hot water was more reliable in the restaurant.
Out in the park in all weathers, they led from the front, andboth regularly spent many extra hours until dark, mendingenclosures, building new ones, and continuing the on goingproject of the park without the need for constant guidance.
And they fulfilled the license requirement of training theexisting staff in the ways of modern zoo practices.
This “trickle down” training was something we had beentold we needed to do or else close down. Or rather, notopen at all. The people we employed to look after theanimals—Rob, Kelly, Hannah, Paul, John, and even Robinon occasion—were skilled and experienced, but they werenot qualified. For all their hands-on knowledge and years inthe trenches, there was barely a diploma among them. Andthese days, zoo-license-wise, paper qualifications arecritical. I was delighted that these trickle-down processeswere going on, because it was a vital part of our licenserequirement that we employed fully trained staff.
Increasingly now I roamed the park believing that theimpossible, which then became the merely improbable,had now, objectively, become the very likely. In fact, I hadnever had any doubt that we were going to succeed inopening the park, but increasingly, surrounded by so manypessimistic perspectives, I had begun to understand otherpeople’s perceptions and I hadn’t liked what I saw from theother side. Even though I knew they were wrong, the sheerweight of numbers in the naysaying camp was almost overwhelming.
To be fair, they had some good points. For one thing, weneeded sixty thousand visitors a year to break even, and atthe moment we had nowhere to feed them. The restaurant,supposed to be a going concern, contained barely a singleserviceable appliance. The dishwasher, gas hob, ovens,microwaves, and two of the three fat fryers didn’t work.
Luckily our new ideas for the menu, involving healthy, locallysourced food, meant that we wouldn’t be needing the twobroken fat fryers, but everything else needed to bereplaced. I had a dream for the restaurant, which was to getit as smart as a Conran venue and open it in the eveningsas a separate entity from the zoo. The figures for the lastthree years’ trading, though in sharp decline, showed thatthe restaurant and bar were the engine of the park,accounting for more than a third of its total income. With itsgrimy Artex ceiling, strip lights, heavy dark-blue carpets andcurtains, and a kitchen full of grease-coated scrap, it wasgoing to be a long haul to get there. The other thing that thetrading figures showed was that the month of August wasabsolutely critical, with combined ticket and restaurantsales accounting for approaching half of the annual income.
August was make or break, and if we missed it, we weresunk. “I think that this August will provide about sixty percentof your income this year,” Mike Thomas told me on one ofhis visits, sitting in the uninspiring environs of therestaurant. A quick glance around us left me in no doubt asto the scale of the task ahead. If sixty thousand peoplearrived over the summer wanting to be fed, we simplycouldn’t afford for them to walk out and find somewhereelse to eat as we had once done, in the park’s final opendays last spring. As well as the requirements for theanimals, this was a business, and the customer serviceside had to be treated with equal importance, or the vetbills wouldn’t get paid and the worthy conservation planswould be unworkable.
So Duncan and I started going to pubs—strictly forresearch purposes, you understand—to observe cateringoperations in action. We put in many, many, dedicated,selfless long hours in this quest for catering enlightenmentbefore settling in a carvery down the road in nearbyPlympton that had an exceptional catering staff. The otherinteresting thing about this venue, though far removed fromour aspirations for our own facilities, was that it wasextremely well run. And always packed. A constant streamof local people came here to eat, so that a good naturedline almost always stretched from the restaurant to the bar.
This meant that, in order to conduct our reconnaissanceeffectively, we had to loiter at a part of the bar forbidden toall but diners, which we did. What struck me was that, whena certain manager named Mark was on, we were alwaysasked to move within about five minutes. Initially he wassatisfied with our line, “We’re waiting for some friends,” buton about the fourth visit he laughed and said, “Are thesefriends of yours ever going to turn up?” Mark waseverywhere: in the kitchen, amongst the tables, behind thebar, even facing down a gang of towering teenagers whohad broken a window the evening before. I warmed to him,confessed that we were actually engaged in mild industrialespionage, and asked if he’d like to help us at the zoo. Hedidn’t want to leave his job, but he agreed, and worked outsome simple menu ideas that could be produced relativelyeasily using mass-market catering suppliers. Thesesuppliers provided food for several well-known zoos, someof which I’d visited and sampled the food of, and it wasn’tso bad. With minimum intervention we could tidy up therestaurant, provide simple food to get us through the allimportantmonth of August, then re-vamp the place duringthe quieter winter months. It sounded like a plan, but a planthat worried me. Now we had the money for theredevelopment, though we were running out of time. By thetime winter came, at the rate funds were flowing out, it wasquite possible that the money would have been spent onother things. Mark visited us several times, brimming withenthusiasm, but because of his full-time job, hissuggestions inevitably entailed a lot of legwork on our side.
As the weeks inched forward toward crunch time, we had todecide whether to go for the holding strategy or the boldmove, orchestrating a full revamp and a “hard” opening,showcasing our radical changes. What we needed wassomeone to take this problem in its entirety, run with it, andturn it into a solution for the other ills at the park.
And then came Adam. I was in a bad mood when I firstmet Adam, standing out by the otter enclosure in a largearea of the park I had always wanted to dedicate to freerangingmonkeys, and to my father, Ben Harry Mee, whohad provided the funds for the park—albeit unwittingly andposthumously, and absolutely certainly (had he been alive)unwillingly. I wanted more tropical trees populated withcolorful birds, endangered, people-friendly primatesrunning loose, and a modest monument to my dadsomewhere, the Ben Harry Mee Memorial Jungle. It wouldhave been the last thing he’d ever have expected, and Iknew that despite his disapproval at the obvious folly of themisuse of his hard-earned capital designated for the futuresecurity of his family, he would have been quietly amusedby this. I liked to picture him sitting down to read in atranquil jungle glade to the sound of kookaburras and birdsof paradise, beset by curious little monkeys, before finallysnapping his book shut and saying, “It’s bloody ridiculous.”
But he’d have kept going back, and one day we’d havefound him feeding the monkeys with a stash of somethinghe’d carefully observed that they loved to eat.
All this was constantly under threat from pressures withinthe zoo for other uses of the land. The petting zoo had to gosomewhere, as did the education center involving a naturepond; between them, they would eat at least two-thirds ofthis space. That morning I had also endured aninterminable barrage of phone calls from double-glazingwindowsalesmen; people who wanted to do marketing,advertising, and building work; and two companies that hada surefire way to reduce our business rates for a small fee(both utterly and obviously spurious), as well as a constantstream of personal callers, usually people who had workedin the park before and wanted their old jobs back, as longas such and such a person wasn’t there anymore. I had hadenough. And then Duncan came up the path, accompaniedby a tall, fresh-faced man called Adam, who had sent mean e-mail a week or two before to offer his services as acatering manager.
Catering was one of the few areas we more or less hada handle on, it seemed to me at the time (though I was sowrong). “What? Yes, fine. I’ll look at your CV,” or tersewords to that effect were probably how I initially responded,making a note to remind Duncan that the last thing weneeded was a change of direction now. But Duncan wasconvinced by Adam. His story was that he had worked inretail and customer services from a young age until veryrecently, in his thirties, when his father had sold the nearbythriving Endsleigh Garden Center to a national chain, andthey had both retired to pursue other avenues. In his father’scase, this meant buying a yellow biplane and setting upanother business in the sunnier climes of southern France(bastard). In Adam’s, it meant buying a nice house in thelocality and setting up a farm shop on the grounds of thegarden center to sell organic produce for the morediscerning market.
The more I delved, the more it seemed to make sense.
Adam wanted to open the restaurant in the evenings—hehad the bearing of the perfect ma?tre d’—and he hadexcellent customer service credentials and experience ofthe local market. And he wanted to start right away. After aweek of dithering, we took him on, and it was as if a weighthad been lifted on that side of the park. Adam wanted to gofor the full revamp, and immediately set about pulling inquotes from reliable local tradesmen he had worked withbefore, ploughing through the administrative processeswith the council, and even finding time to take a onedaylicensing course so that he could be the named licensee forthe bar.
Suddenly this tall man with the enthusiasm of a youngpup, impeccably polite and diplomatic at all times, becameone of our most valuable assets. Undaunted by theprospect of fitting out the restaurant, shop, and kitchensimultaneously, he also ran a computer business and waseager to fit an electronic point of sale (EPOS) till systemwhich would give us instant feedback on visitor numbers,how much they spent and on what (the critical spend-perheadstatistic that we really needed to get above ￡5 perperson on top of their ticket price), and even their postalcodes, so we knew where our market was coming from.
We came to rely on Adam, and not just for his problemsolvingabilities and propensity to take up any slack hesaw, even if it didn’t directly concern him. “Can I make asuggestion?” he would say, leaning in like a wine stewardabout to rescue an ignorant customer from the perils of acomplicated wine list, whenever he saw a problem thatwasn’t being properly addressed. No, what I began to relyon most from Adam was his optimism. Having someonewho said, “Of course, no problem. I’ll get on to it right away,”
instead of “It’ll be expensive, and you’ll have to do X and Yfirst and that’s going to be impossible,” made all thedifference. Optimism was undoubtedly Adam’s mostvaluable contribution.
I once lost quite a lot of blood, about two pints, after asilly accident in a martial arts class (I walked forward when Ishould have stepped back, and took a precision blow to thenose that ruptured something deep in my nasal cavities).
Sitting in the emergency room, dripping prolifically into aseries of compressed cardboard trays, I gradually gotweaker. Young(ish) men with skinhead haircuts andnosebleeds, particularly inflicted by some sort of violence,take a low priority in Accident and Emergency. There’salways a car crash or a heart attack ahead of you, and itwasn’t until my vision started tunnelling and everything wentinto black-and-white that I finally staggered up and informedthe nearest nurse that I was about to pass out, then lay backon my trolley to do just that. Suddenly I was an emergency,and I was dimly aware of a phalanx of medicalprofessionals bearing down on me, ER style, armed withdrips and other bits of reassuring kit. Katherine, who hadbrought me in, didn’t help by saying “Phwoorr,” because atthe head of the phalanx was a bronzed Australian orderlywhose half-sleeve white tunic showed off his amplymuscled forearms, as she had been pointing out to me forthe last two hours. Just as my eyes closed and I started tobe sucked into unconsciousness, they fitted a saline dripinto my arm and gave me some injections, and thesensation was extraordinary. It was exactly like having anenormous thirst quenched, but instead of the reliefspreading outward from the stomach, it was spreadingfrom my arm. That was what it was like having Adam takeover the restaurant at this difficult time. A seeminglyperipheral piece of the puzzle was infecting the whole placewith renewed positivity. The oil tanker of the park wasgradually being turned around before it drifted onto therocks.
The other thing that Adam brought in that cheered me upwere builders, and good ones—well kitted out,hardworking, and versatile. Special mention has to go toTim the carpenter, small but perfectly formed, and head of asmall highly skilled team, which laid a solid oak floor in thethree hundred square meters of the restaurant, built a curvyservice counter based on a whimsical sketch I drew in threeminutes on the back of an envelope, and clad the revoltingbar in the leftover pieces of oak, on budget, and all in aboutsix weeks.
During this time, materials were arriving, electricianswere fiddling with new sunken spot lighting, andplasterboard gradually blotted out the Artex, that decoratingcrime against humanity, on the ceiling. There was floorsanding going on, painting, the first and second fix, allthings I knew about and had witnessed many times, sureindicators of ongoing progress. Whenever I passed throughthe restaurant, it felt good, and I was drawn into discussionswith conscientious experts in fields I also actually knewsomething about. Hell, I was a DIY expert, officially in print. Igenuinely could make informed decisions in a familiar field,instead of having to learn everything from scratch as anoutsider. Whenever I got the chance, I would join in a bit,usually during the lunch hour (even good builders have lunchhours, but I couldn’t seem to justify the time). I rememberone happy afternoon smashing the execrable tiles off thewall behind the counter with a large hammer and abricklayer’s bolster, and another using a belt sander to puta snub-nosed radius on the edge of the beautiful new oakcladbar. These were fleeting visits to a simpler life, and Ialways had to reenter the general fray beyond sooner than Iwould have liked. But, like all good and righteous DIYinterventions, they were good for the soul.
Peter Wearden made several visits to the park in theearly days to see how things were going, give advice, andusually drop off interminable piles of unappetizing matter—Imean, essential reading—such as turgid ring bindersentitled “Secretary of State’s Handbook for Modern ZooPractice,” and “The Zoo Forum’s Handbook.” These, alongwith the health and safety literature, and food, drinks, andentertainment licensing forms, really are essential but nottempting reading. Perfect for dipping into relevantparagraphs in support of some application, or rapidlybringing on sleep at the end of a busy day.
But then one day he passed me something that nearlybrought me to tears: a paper from the journal Biologistabout why we need zoos. I really nearly could have cried.
The big folders of nonsense merely added to the alreadyenormous unfamiliar workload, joining pressing materialfrom banks, lawyers, and creditors, which already overfilledmy day. Suddenly, here was an academic paper I neededto read and digest, in support of future media interviews,press releases, or public debates.
Fifteen years earlier, I had taken a master’s course atImperial College London in science journalism, and sincethen I had been making my living to a greater or lesserdegree by translating into English science papers exactlylike this one, and many much more impenetrable, forpublications in glossy magazines and newspapers andoccasional broadcasts on radio and television. Seeing thepaper felt like home, far more than the house we weresitting in. It was even presented on a stapled black-andwhiteA4 photocopy, a format very familiar, and handy formy pencil notes in the margin. For the last ten months Idon’t think I’d looked at or even thought about a scientificpaper amidst the pressing urgencies of zoo acquisition.
Though I was by now already mentally, physically, andemotionally pretty drained, at last I was being asked tomove back (at least a tiny bit) onto familiar territory, and thisrare ray of positivity was not just a reminder of how life usedto be, but an indication of how it could be again.
One of the main attractions for me in buying the zoo hadbeen the prospect of conducting scientific research andwriting about it in journals, books, and magazines. And thislittle sliver of science, carefully folded and put in my pocketnext to the pencil that would soon be scribbling on it,reminded me that that was still possible—once we’dresolved that pesky matter of getting a ￡500,000 loan,spending it in the right way to get a zoo license, the licensebeing granted in time, and then enough people comingthrough the door for the zoo to be able to support theinterest payments on that loan. Piece of cake. Then I couldthink about research projects.
Another very welcome piece of scientific material, whichcame my way a few weeks later, was the AustralianRegional Association of Zoological Parks (ARAZP)husbandry manual for the species Prionailurus viverrinus,or fishing cats. As an act of enormous faith in us, subject togetting our license of course, another zoo, Port Lympne,had offered us a breeding pair of these incredibly feisty,medium-size cats. Standing up to thirty-three inches tall andweighing over thirty pounds, they are taller than a whippetand heavier than a Staffordshire bull terrier, and far moredangerous than either. Classed as a “hazardous” animal tokeep, in their native Asia they have been known to “fight offpacks of dogs, carry off babies, and even kill a leopard.”
And, according to the IUCN (International union forConservation of Nature), they are “Near Threatened.”
Though only one category away from “Least Concern,” thisis also one category away from “Vulnerable,” which wouldput it on the IUCN’s Red List of endangered animals.
Without sustained active conservation measures it isextremely rare for animals to move back down this list towhere they are no longer under threat. What tends tohappen is that they move up the list to Endangered, on toCritically Endangered, and then inexorably onward towardExtinct. Going, going, gone.
But there is hope. Conservation measures do work: in2006, the number of species that moved up the list into amore critical category was 172, but 139 moved down to animproved status. And there is one other vital category forzoos: Extinct in Wild. Animals have been known to comeback from this category, which nudges full-on, irrevocableExtinct, and even head right down the list and back out intothe wild to Least Concern. It is an unusual but growingtrend, and thanks to pioneers like Gerald Durrell, thezoological community is now increasingly focusing oncaptive breeding programs. These don’t always lead toreintroduction to the wild; generally, creatures go extinctbecause there is no longer enough of their preferredversion of the wild left to sustain them. But captive breedingdoes inform conservation measures in remaining naturalhabitats, also increasingly undertaken by zoos, by revealingthe specific requirements that animals need to breed.
Knowing exactly what conditions you are aiming for, ratherthan things you think they might need, can make that allimportantdifference between Critically Endangered andExtinct.
Fishing cats are quite tricky because they are soaggressive. The male sometimes kills the female, which isnot a good way to continue a species. What prompts themto do this is not known, though as lovers’ tiffs go, it ismaladaptive in the extreme. But fishing cats have beenbred successfully at Port Lympne and in Australia (hencethe Australian husbandry guide—the EuropeanEndangered Species Program [EEP] is still drawing theirsup), several other places around the world, and with luck, atDartmoor Zoological Park, before long. As their habitatshrinks, due to the encroachment of agriculture in northernIndia, Burma, Thailand, and Sumatra, if they do move upthe Red List, at least there will be diverse seed populationsin captivity, should their time come again. At least there willstill be fishing cats.
This was scientific work that was directly applicable towhat we were trying to achieve on the ground—it was evena license requirement that we launch projects such as these—and I avidly absorbed the entire document. Therecommended minimum size for their enclosures, forinstance, is 40 square meters. The Australians hadprovided 85. We could give them160. Why not? We had the space. Better to look afterfewer species well than cram in a load of disparateunhappy animals to pander to decreasing public attentionspans. Besides, fishing cats are gorgeous, eye-catchingcreatures who warrant a sanctuary in their own right. Theirmarkings are like a big tabby crossed with a leopard, on abackground of golden greenish fur, and they sit by the sideof streams intently until some hapless fish passes below,when they dive in headfirst and snatch it up in their jaws.
Other cats, like tigers and jaguars, will go into water, butfishing cats specialize in it, wading around like fools evenwhen they are not hunting, apparently indifferent to the factthat cats don’t do that. I was delighted we were gettingsomething so exotic and worthwhile, and though this was aproject for the (not too distant) future, I kept the husbandrymanual on my desk where I could see it, as a moralebooster.
Another happy by-product of being given this paper wasthat it led me to discover, firsthand, what happens WhenPorcupines Go Bad. I always delight in being humbled byanimals, something for which, happily, this job providesample opportunities. One night I couldn’t sleep because I’dhad a “brain wave” about the fishing cats. The husbandryrequirements told me that, among other things, these rarelittle beasts like to live with running water. Their wetlandhabitat, being reduced across Asia, is often converted topaddy fields: water based, but not moving water. Our site isawash with water running off Dartmoor, and there areseveral places where natural rivers seed, sometimesrunning into one of the two lakes or the two moatedenclosures, but often just creating boggy ground inunderused areas. With these rivers formalized into properwaterways, they could be made into features, and even bea source (on a small scale, for lighting perhaps) ofhydroelectric power. They would also benefit the fishingcats, whose enclosure could be built to follow the contoursof a living stream.
I had a hunch where the best place for this would be, inwhat I still liked to call the giraffe field, but is now “the smallcats field,” where it borders the walk-in enclosurecontaining the flamingo lake. This is where Owen wantedthe mangrove swamp for his birds, and the husbandryguide informed me that fishing cats also love mangroves,which are, I’d discovered, themselves “Threatened,”
according to the IUCN. At this crux between enclosures, anatural spring bursts out from boggy ground to babble intothe lake amidst a thicket of brambles and overgrown exoticplants. It was for this thicket that I set out at three in themorning wearing a headlamp and carrying a notebook, todo a feasibility study for a snaking fishing-cat enclosure,ending in a continuation of Owen’s mangroves for his birdsin the flamingo lake (obviously the mangroves for the birdsand the cats would need to be segregated, or the tenure ofthe birds, and indeed the birds themselves, would be shortlived).
After an hour or so of getting my feet wet and my armsscratched, I retired, satisfied that this was an ideal place towork back from to instigate a small river, which could in turnrun through a futuristic, twenty-first-century fishing-catenclosure. I stood in the field and sketched a few ideas bythe light of the headlamp, and stretched and yawned,knowing that now I could sleep. But I thought I might make asedentary detour to the top corner of the walk-in, where theporcupines live (another enclosure in need of revamping,but adequate and some way down the list). I had been inwith the porcupines a few times with several differentkeepers, most recently with Steve, the curator, helping tohaul some huge pieces of fresh wood on which theseglorified rodents like to gnaw, to keep their constantlygrowing beaverlike incisors in check. Every time, indaylight, Mr. and Mrs. Porcupine, as they are known, hadkept to themselves and stayed in their house while theirenclosure was cleaned or revamped, their natural shynessand nocturnal lifestyle keeping them indoors, so that thedoor never needed to be secured during our forays intotheir backyard.
I nonchalantly vaulted over the fence to collect some oftheir many fallen quills littering the ground, which oftenrotted into the earth before they could be salvaged.
Porcupine quills are particularly lovely objects, almost likepolitically acceptable, harvestable ivory. Some are twelveinches long, narrow with perfectly symmetrical bands ofcream and brown, others as small as three inches, fat as apen in the middle and virtually monochromatic. No two arethe same, except that each one ends in an exceptionallysharp point, with a small barb that leaves it sticking intoyour skin, as I had previously discovered from cleaningthem too carelessly under the tap. They are sometimesused for the tops of fishing floats, or by calligraphers tomount nibs, or just a handful in a jar as decoration. Theywere once sold in the park shop until health and safetyfears prevented it, but I was collecting them because, if youget one the right size, the blunt end that used to attach tothe porcupine’s skin makes a particularly good stylus for amodern mobile phone. I’d lost my original stylus and brokenthe last quill I’d used for the job, which I’d collected from theenclosure, cleaned up, and cut down to size.
Now it was my turn to be cut down to size. As Irummaged nonchalantly in the dirt, Mr. Porcupine camebustling out of his house, his bristling quills shimmering inthe lamplight. I was surprised at how active he seemed, butunflustered, as I had been in the enclosure several timesbefore without incident. But that was in daylight, when Mr.
Porcupine had better things to do, like snuggle up(carefully, I presume) asleep with Mrs. Porcupine. Now Iwas on his patch, in his garden, on his time, and he didn’tlike it. As he paced up and down I gave him more space,with the result that he soon had me herded into a corner. Atwhich point he turned his back to me at a distance of aboutthree yards, then reversed at high speed, brandishing hismotile array of beautiful barbs like a lethal Red Indianheaddress. I just had time to register the extent of hisdispleasure, and the unacceptable consequences ofstaying where I was, before it was time to act, and I foundmyself scrambling backward in the dark, over the fence,and falling heavily on my rear into a patch of nettles on theother side. The nettles went up my sweater and stung mecomprehensively before I could scrabble myself away.
Ouch, ouch, OUCH. I stood up and laughed with newesteem for this pint-sized animal pincushion. I had beentotally trounced by what is technically an elaborate rodent.
Mr. Porcupine, one; Mr. Zoo Director, nil. Respect.
“TOURETTE TONY”
I was introduced to Tony perhaps a week after Katherinedied, while I was walking around the park with the children.
This was before Katherine’s funeral, and everyone wasgiving me lots of space, but a couple of people from the filmcrew who had shad-owed me since before the purchase,and who were booked to stay until after the opening day(should it ever arrive) came over tentatively and said thatthere was someone, if I felt up to it, I ought to meet. We’dhired a digger, a full-size JCB excavator, and the operator,Tony, who had been on site for about a week, had beenmaking a good impression with everybody. Thezookeepers liked him, the maintenance guys liked him, thefilm crew liked him, and he could handle the digger like itwas an extension of himself. Clearing huge swathes ofscrub and rubble with deft efficiency, then moving it intoapparently inaccessible areas with the grace of a ballerina,and without damaging anything, deploying the vast half-tonbucket on the mechanical dinosaur arm to carry out aprocedure delicate enough to make a heart surgeon miss abeat. So he could handle a digger. He could also handlepeople, and by now, people issues were beginning tosurface.
The new crew wasn’t getting on that well with the oldcrew, whom they regarded with suspicion as potentialcollaborators in the alleged transgressions of the oldregime, rumors about which were rife in the zoo world.
None of the new people had ever worked in a place likethis, which was pretty Wild West compared to the pristine,regimented environments through whose ranks they hadprogressed. But Tony had. During his seventeen years as ahired digger hand, Tony had worked in much worse, andwas making no secret about wanting a full-time job with us.
And we needed a head of maintenance. John was multiskilledand able to fabricate or repair pretty well anything ona shoestring, but by his own admission, paperwork was nothis strong point. We had to have someone in charge whocould cope with the order forms, file receipts, and managea budget, which goes with running a busy maintenancedepartment in a modern zoo. I spoke to John, who said, “Ifthat bloke wants a job I’d vouch for him and be more thanhappy to work under him,” which seemed positive. Tonywas also a trained mechanic, welder, marksman, and anassistant Olympic archery coach, keen to set up lessons atthe park should there be a demand. Having not beenaround, I asked various people what they thought, and itwas unanimous. Everyone wanted Tony, and I did too. Thefilm crew asked if they could film me from a distance talkingto him and taking him on, so I conducted an informalinterview next to the JCB to sound him out, making surethat his approach to handling people fitted in with ourneeds, then took him on with a shake of the hand.
Immediately Tony became an invaluable member of theteam, cheering people up, nudging them along, and usinghis technical skills with great efficiency.
And after he started, it transpired that Tony had anotherspecial skill: swearing. From my time working on buildingsites many years ago I’d noticed that prolific swearing wasbasically the dialect in which the building trade operates.
It’s even in the terminology. Cement is shite; nothing is “notstraight,” it’s pissed. Swear words are even used as fillerswhen people can’t think of what else to say, as in anexample I remember from my first day on a bricklayingtraining course. The man working next to me asked, “Canyou pass the, er, fucking, the, er, fucking, the fuckinghammer?” That seemed about par for the course: roughlyone in three or four words was a profanity of some sort.
Tony, as a senior veteran of the game and former soldier,had got his average swear rate up to one in two onoccasion, though he sometimes lapsed back to one inthree.
Tony’s speech is not just littered but positively crowdedout with expletives, but if you accept that and listen carefullythere is an almost poetic quality to some of his utterances.
Once he cornered me to share his concerns that ouradvertising strategy needed to be wider than the medium ofprint. What he actually said was “Not every fucker reads thefucking paper. I was in the fucking paper the other day, Ithought, fuck me every cunt’s going to be taking the piss.
Fuck me if only one fucker did. I thought, fucking hell.” Notquite Guild of Poetry, perhaps, but pithy nevertheless. Hewas christened “Tourette Tony” (or sometimes simply“Fucking Tony,” to distinguish him from “Kiosk Tony,” whocame later), and appointed himself “Chairman of the DZPTourette Club.”
Before Katherine died, I would be out there, listening toeverybody, trying to build bridges, trying to make sure thateverybody got talking again. After Katherine died, I was outthere again, eventually, watching from close up but at whatseemed like an extreme distance, not even able to musterthe energy for contempt at the pathetic bickering, whichdaily demonstrated that even Milo and Ella exhibited moreself-awareness. There was so much to do, and such aclear, straight line in which to proceed, and to squander somuch energy on such petty issues seemed like a crime.
Everybody with any business experience that I spoke toassured me that “staff” were always a big headache, but inmy acutely distanced state, this seemed to me ultimatelylike a crime against the animals. Yet, in any kind of crisis,all pettiness was put to one side and everybody pulledtogether with resolute, practical professionalism.
Like the day they came to get the two jaguars, and it verynearly all went wrong.
One day early on, it was time to move the two femalejaguars. This was a momentous occasion for us, because itwas something I had agreed to with Peter Wearden at thecouncil and Mike Thomas, and I knew that the entire zoocommunity was watching. It could never have happenedunder the old regime, and though it was a difficult bullet forus to bite, the two beautiful jaguars were going to apurpose-built big-cat park, where they would live in a brandnewenclosure, owned and run by a senior member ofBIAZA. We were paying our dues. The jags would be betteroff, and we would be better off without the constant risk oftheir escaping. According to what people said, we mayeven get some zebras in return, somewhere down the line.
And when it was over, the keepers would get to demolishthe much-hated, dilapidated wooden house for the jags,which they had been wanting to do for so long.
It had been mooted by one or two people that we couldactually sell the jags, worth several thousand pounds each,to a private collector who could hold them perfectly legally,with the right facilities, under the Dangerous Wild AnimalsAct. Much as we needed the money, we also wanted to dothe right thing. Under such scrutiny, now was not the time todeviate from the script. I was also looking forward to seeinghow another team from an established mainstream zoo,Thrigby Hall, in Norwich, would operate—and initially, I wasnot disappointed.
An immaculate, anonymous white van arrived, exactlylike a plumber might use (though these guys arrived whenthey said they would), and two unbelievably grizzled rangersemerged from it, clad entirely in green, apart from oldbrown boots, the mandatory dog-eared Indiana Jones hats,and leather pouches on their belts. Their weather-beatenfaces and clothing made them seem a part of the woodlandaround the jag house, almost as if they were covered inmoss, or a wren might fly out of one of their beards. LikeBob Lawrence, who had come down from the Midlands todart Sovereign for us, these two looked like they’d seen itall before and could cope with anything.
So we were surprised when they produced woodencrates from the back of the van, which didn’t look quite upto the specifications for holding jaguars. Rob, as headkeeper, raised this with them. “Don’t you worry, we’vemoved countless jags in these crates,” they assured us.
One of the boxes was newer than the other, made fromheavy-duty marine plywood, and this was deployed first.
Positioned inside the jag house against the solid steel gateinto the enclosure, it was nailed in place with big battens toprevent it moving should the first jag not enter cleanly, orbegin to struggle. Kelly called her with the usual promise offood in the house, the gate was raised, the cat jumped in,and the door of the box was shut behind her. As simple asthat. There were no windows in this box, but a heavy-gaugemesh door to provide light. We carried the box down to thevan and loaded it in like removal men carrying a tea chestof crockery—easy does it, but no problem at all. The onlydifference was that you really had to concentrate onkeeping your fingers away from the mesh on the door, orthey’d be ripped off and eaten in an instant.
The ease of this move gave us confidence, though thesecond crate looked less suitable than the first. It had awindow about a foot square in the roof panel, secured withtwo layers of wire mesh: one on the outside, and one on theinside. Again the construction was marine ply, though mucholder and more worn. Again Rob raised his doubts,particularly about the strength of the mesh on the window,which looked bent and was of a lighter gauge than that onthe door. “Are you sure these boxes aren’t for pumas?” hesaid, but again was reassured, somewhat tetchily this time,that everything was under control. We consulted with eachother and decided to give the rangers the benefit of thedoubt, even though the jaguar is much stronger than apuma—stronger than a leopard—and had the mostpowerful weight-to-jaw-strength ratio of any of the big cats.
This enables them to bite through turtle shells and huntlarger prey such as deer (and if you are unlucky, man), bypuncturing the skull directly with its canines. We really didn’twant her to get out of the box.
The same procedure of lining up and nailing down thebox was followed. Kelly called the cat, who, anxious forfood, readily jumped in, and the door was closed behindher. And then it started to go wrong. This was the grumpysister, and she wasn’t at all pleased about her confinement,or being tricked, or us peering down at her through thewindow in the roof panel. Immediately she began thrashingaround with that almost supernatural strength of a wildanimal, and began using her primary weapon, thoseawesome jaws, on the mesh that separated us. Upsettingly,the first layer began to yield right away. Her teeth, herflashing eyes, the primal guttural noises emerging from thebox, which was bucking—though not buckling, I waspleased to notice—suddenly all seemed reminiscent of thescene at the beginning of Jurassic Park, where some largecreature exerts far stronger forces on its holding bay thananticipated. Somebody dies in that scene, and though wewere a long way from that possibility at the moment, itwould definitely raise its head if we didn’t get the next bitright. In fact, our worst-case scenario was simply to openthe door of the crate and let the jaguar back into theenclosure so that the men of the woods would have tocome another day. But if we delayed too long, it looked likethe jag could definitely burst out of her window to be amongus, and may not be tempted by the prospect of going backinto her enclosure. Before that happened, the four or fivepeople in the jag house could, obviously, clear out in timeso that the house could be secured—if not, the redoubtableJohn on firearms would have to shoot her, which would notbe a good result. This was a plan that could conceivably gowrong at some stage—those unknown unknowns again—and we had to act decisively to minimize the risk to thepeople and the animal, who could easily hurt herself if shecontinued chewing on the mesh.
Time shrank down so that every second was precious,eked out in a serious group analysis of the situation. If thefirst mesh went down, we would open the gate into theenclosure and exit the building, closing the door behind us.
Before that happened, though, we had time, we calculated,to reinforce the window, so that the transfer could proceedas planned. It was not a full Code Red yet, but it had all theingredients needed to become one.
Someone suggested sliding some metal slats under thetop mesh, to be gripped by the bolted fixings securing it,and I ran to the workshop, fortunately only a few yards away,with Paul and Andy Goatman, the young knacker man, whohad been making a delivery and is always good in a crisis.
It was a good thing the workshop was now functioning, atleast to some degree. Paul quickly found some suitablemetal slats and began cutting them to length with the newlyrelocated bench-mounted grinder, pretty well our only tool.
Andy and I rummaged amongst the old agriculturalmiscellanea in the three-quarters cleared loft for a hook, orsomething that could be made into a hook, to pull the topmesh on the box clear of the plywood roof and to insert theslats underneath without losing a finger. I think in the end weused one of the slats, modified at the end to make a hook,and it was successfully deployed. Somebody stronghooked it into the wire to raise it the necessary millimeters,and the slats were inserted one by one. As they went in, theJurassic Park scenario still loomed large, but the jaguargradually became calmer, and so did we. When the lightwent out above her, she stopped thrashing entirely, thoughcontinued her low, disturbing growl. The rangers said theywere happy, and we loaded her into the van without furtherincident.
As they drove away I marveled at the fact that rearendingthis particular white van could potentially haveterrible unforeseen consequences for the averageunsuspecting motorist, unleashing two extremely unsettledmiddleweight predators onto the hood of his car. Armedpolice along the route had been alerted, but their responsetime, measured in minutes, would not do much to reassurethose possibly already injured people on the scene. But thatwas now no longer our problem. In fact the nine-hourjourney would go without a hitch, the two jaguars would besuccessfully relocated to a much more suitableenvironment, and we would be left with a tranquil, emptyenclosure that had previously been a source of muchconcern.
During the fray, with the cat box bucking in thebackground, I had joked to Andy that if he had any extraguns lying around, now might be a good time to deploythem. Afterward, as everyone was packing up, Andyshowed me that in the midst of the situation he’d slid his.357 Magnum revolver into his trouser pocket. Issued forkilling livestock above a certain size, four of the sixchambers were blanked off by law, because if you can’t killa bullock with two shots from this piece, you’re in the wrongjob. These two enormous slugs, in the hands of someonewho could hold his nerve, were, retrospectively, intenselyreassuring to me. I liked the fact that should things gowrong, there were people equipped and prepared tointervene. If somehow everything had all gone pear-shaped,and if John had slipped in the wet leaves at a critical time, itwas good to know that somebody like Andy was there.
Officially, Andy was not a designated firearms officer forthe site, and the correct procedure, should the cat have gotpast us, would have been to notify the police, whosenearest firearms unit was about five miles away. I preferredknowing that we had backup on the ground, but this was yetanother entirely new world for me: real guns, big ones,deployed in the routine procedures of everyday work. Withguns come danger, both in their handling and in the natureof the reasons for their deployment; if you need guns,something pretty heavy must be going down.
I cornered Andy and asked him to show me his gun. Hepulled it out of his pocket, checked the safety, and slipped itinto my hand. It was a solid steel .357 Magnum with a threeinchbarrel, iconic from countless crime and cop films, herebattered and worn, used as an agricultural tool. And it feltlike a tool, heavy with precision engineering, unremittinglypurposeful. Much as it scared me, I could see that to do thisjob properly I would have to get my firearms license. Itrusted myself to be able to shoot a tiger on the loosewithout panicking (until afterward), and we needed all thecover we could get. And I also made a mental note never toget into an argument with Andy Goatman.
LICENSED TO CULLWhen we arrived in October, the vervet monkeys werefighting— kept in a tiny cage with a concrete floor and a fewold bits of rope covered in years of grime. Two rathertruculent adolescent males were being ostracized by thealpha male for not showing sufficient respect, and out of alittle bit of preemptive vindictiveness on his part. Theyrisked serious injury if they remained in such a smallenclosure with him. We tried to find homes for them, butnobody wanted them. Vervets are common—classed inSouth Africa as vermin—so two boisterous young malesare very difficult to rehouse in Western zoos. The ethicalreview process—whereby the vet, the council, a senioremployee from another zoo, and some of our ownemployees meet to discuss the best course of action—concluded that we should resort to euthanasia: basically,taking them somewhere and shooting them in the head.
“Absolutely not,” I said as the solitary non-zooprofessional but the one with the deciding vote. He’ll learn, Icould see them thinking, but I was determined that the twomonkeys shouldn’t die for the sake of convenience. Ifnecessary, we’d build another enclosure, an idea that wentdown like a lead balloon, since it would take resourcesfrom other, more exotic animals we could get in the future.
The two monkeys were rehoused temporarily in the largecinder-block molting sheds, known as Conway Row, whichwere part of the license requirement to house working birdsof prey so that they can shed their feathers in comfort. Aswe didn’t have any of these—our eagles, eagle owls, andCoco the caracara were all long since retired from publicduties—the huge sheds, four large, terraced chambers,were free. One was made monkey proof and decked outwith some branches and straw for enrichment and warmth,and the two ostracized adolescent males were netted,transported in cat boxes, and introduced to their new home.
It wasn’t ideal, and it presented me with a new front inresisting the orthodox opinion—which felt like a thin line totread in the circumstances.
But at least the monkeys wouldn’t be killed, and I wasabsolutely certain about my position. It gave me theconfidence to realize that, though esteemed andimpeccably well-intentioned, the zoo community was notnecessarily always right, and if I felt morally obliged, I couldand should challenge it. The last thing I wanted to do wascreate the impression of an amateur maverick who wouldn’tlisten to the experienced professionals around me, butthere were some things where I simply felt I had to draw aline in the sand. “Those monkeys are standing between youand your license,” I was told on numerous occasions fromall my most trusted sources. But I countered with ideas oftwo separate communities of vervets, in different areas ofthe park, which could then be studied for differences indialects, for instance. As it happened, a paper on dialecticdifferences in vervet monkey calls had just been published,and I was able to argue that we could keep one trooproughly where they were while developing another group,out of earshot, who would be exposed to different stimuli.
Like the eagle display, which could fly above theirenclosure. That would teach those naughty adolescenttroublemakers to form their own troop properly and get withthe program.
This may sound cruel, but it is normal for a vervet monkeyto be exposed to predators—from the ground, from thetrees in the form of snakes, and from the air, several timesa day. It is their species-typical environment. This is whythey have evolved clearly distinct calls to indicate predatorsfrom above, causing the troop to take cover, or from theground, triggering a mass exodus to the trees, or for asnake in the tree, which tells everyone who needs to knowto get down onto the ground. These calls— their frequency,accuracy, and dialectic nuances—are currently beinginvestigated, and by running two populations of vervetsseparately exposed to different stimuli on the same park,there is every chance that we could contribute somethinguseful. More important for me, however, was that we hadinherited these monkeys and there was no way that wewere just going to kill them because we had been told by“experts” it was “for the best.”
This argument fell on deaf ears but was met with tacitcompliance. In the absence of funds to establish a secondmonkey enclosure, the two monkeys were fed, watered,and housed in Conway Row throughout the winter andspring of 2007. When I emerged from the house to startwork in the park again in April, it was still part of thekeepers’ routine to feed and care for these monkeys, butstill disapproved of roundly at a senior level, though thejunior keepers continued to work tirelessly to find newhomes for them. It seemed as though there was no way wewould get a zoo license if the National Zoo inspector foundthat we were indefinitely storing these animals off show inan enclosure not built for that purpose. The Conway Rowsheds are each nearly as large as the enclosure left to therest of the monkey troop, with branches inside to climb anda window the length of the front wall that gives a view overhills and trees. But they couldn’t stay there forever. With theamount of work we had to do to get the zoo ready for theinspection, it was impossible to build them a new enclosureyet, so the date for the euthanasia of the monkeys was setfor the week before the inspection, and the issue ran like asore with the experienced keepers, who felt that animals inimproper accommodation should not be kept, and I wassimply staving off the inevitable and prolonging theirsuffering.
But as it turned out, a few weeks later, well inside theinspection deadline, a small but well-run monkey sanctuaryunexpectedly stepped in to take them on, and the monkeysgot to live happily ever after, after all. I felt vindicated, andratcheted up another notch of confidence in my overallapproach, which was to listen to all the expert opinion, thenmake the decision which required the least intervention inthe delicate ecosystem of the park, complete with all theanimals and staff we had inherited.
Initially, it seemed, this was a continuing theme; I had theimpression of being constantly enticed to cull from allquarters, both animals and staff. Several of our earlyadvisors had recommended sweeping the board, both of amajority of animals (to redesign the collection from scratch)and the staff. The ongoing problem with the wolves hadresulted in an order from the council to cull three of them toreduce overcrowding, which I was resisting. And as well asthe monkeys, there were two tigers in the frame, one ofwhom was ill with chronic kidney disease, another simplyvery old. As well as the old guard of employees, most ofwhom were constantly presented as mandatory candidatesfor dismissal from some quarter or other. But I didn’t wantto do this. There was a guiding principle at stake. Therewould be no deaths of animals, and no sackings if I couldhelp it, and everything we had inherited should betampered with as little as possible in order to achieve whatwe needed. As in any ecosystem, everything wasinterdependent, and until we understood exactly how it all fittogether, it was foolish to presume we could makesweeping changes without unforeseen consequences.
Even moving “inconvenient” animals had to be treatedwith caution. Although provisional homes had been foundfor a majority of the animals during the protracted processof the sale— and these were the animals it was suggestedwe rehouse in order to establish a new identity—I felt thatwe could easily go too far, and most of the animals couldbe happy where they were. Apart from that, there were localfavorites; people often phoned to ask if the otters, or thefoxes, or the lynx or pumas were still there, because whenwe opened they would be back to see them.
And then there was the pressure to change the staff.
Because of their tremendous devotion to the tigers, andtheir occasional forays into sentimentality, Kelly andHannah, who had stuck with the animals through someextremely testing times, were denounced by senior zooestablishment figures I was in contact with as “bunnyhuggers.” This dismissive term is applied to zookeeperwannabes who don’t understand some of the harsh realitiesthat the job actually involves. But, hey, neither did I, and I’dbeen proved right with the monkeys already (and was laterto be further vindicated on the wolves and the tigers—andmost of the staff I defended). When I looked at Kelly andHannah I saw dedicated zookeepers, unqualified perhaps,but absolutely invaluable holders of knowledge about thespecific animals we had, and whom they had looked after,for several years in often intolerable circumstances. Theywere loyal (to the animals rather than us) and extremelyhardworking, and I was going to keep them and get themtrained up.
Another member of staff who came into the crosshairs afew times was Robin. Lovely Robin, who I had first metwhen he challenged me and Nick Lindsay on that firstformative walk-around, was difficult to pigeonhole. Havingworked on the park as a bird and reptile keeper as well asgraphic designer, in later years he had been used as EllisDaw’s personal assistant in writing his memoirs. For thelast two years, this had largely meant sifting through fourdecades’ worth of dusty local papers and magazines forclippings that mentioned the park. Robin had set about thiswith due diligence, but I think it is fair to say that it had wornhim down. When Duncan first met Robin, he came to meafterward and said, “I think Robin is clinically depressed.”
Duncan had gone over to Robin, still processing oldnewspapers, on our first or second day and asked himwhat he was doing. On hearing the explanation, Duncan puthis hand on Robin’s shoulder and said, “You can stop now.
You don’t have to do that anymore.” With a half-turned pagein his hand, it took Robin more than a moment or two toabsorb the enormity of these words, and us a bit longer towork out where he could be fruitfully deployed.
It turned out that Robin had many useful skills, which weresoon unearthed, and one of the first was administrationconcerning the license application. He was offered a placein the office to work, but preferred to spend his time at atable by the restaurant instead. Though a horrible room, itwas spacious and had good views and natural light, whichthe office lacked. He got on with his new work at his ownpace, which was efficient if not frenetic, stopping for hishalf-hour lunch break every day with his thermos and radioat exactly one o’clock.
Now, one day early on, Katherine, accompanied by mymum and Jen, Mike Thomas’s wife, had decided, in thatway that strong women do, to take matters into their ownhands with regard to the restaurant. A huge open space forthree hundred diners, it was choked with old Formicadisplay cabinets for leaflets, the scattered remnants ofthose leaflets, the piles of old newspapers, yellowed fallenlight fittings, tables stacked on top of each other amidstpiles of chairs and a stuffed tiger, all coated in a layer ofairborne grease. As these three female whirlwinds ofindustry set about clearing up and sorting out, working up asweat, their certainty enhanced with every radical decisionthey made and every heavy piece of furniture they lifted,one of them was finally moved to ask Robin, on his lunchbreak looking out of the window, exactly what he was doing.
“Well, I’m just counting the peacocks out on the drive,” hesaid, before helpfully adding, “There are twelve. But it wasfourteen yesterday.” This was very much the wrong answer.
I have been around enough fussing strong women—sue me—to know that you never admit to any kind of whimsy whenthey are working and you are apparently in repose. What heshould have said was, “I was calculating how long we hadto submit the license application for the establishedbusiness plan to remain viable.” But the damage was done,and Robin was unceremoniously added to the list ofendangered creatures on the premises.
But by now it didn’t matter. I was used to opposition. Itwas the natural state. Robin turned out to have, amongother things, draftsmanship skills, which have so far savedus thousands of pounds, as well as a knowledge of the parkand certain animals within it, which is irreplaceable. He isnow comfortably employed in a site of his own choosing, aloft adjacent to the maintenance room called Robin’s Nest,where he fabricates small items like signs and cages forsmall animals, draws up architectural standard plans fornew enclosures, and answers several otherwiseunanswerable queries a day through the two-way radiosystem. He seems happy. And we are happy with him.
This sort of holding on to the past while acknowledgingthe future is the balancing act we must play. Our littleecosystem is now part of a global network of conservationfacilities and programs, and it is up to us in the longer termhow much of a part we play in it. Starting almost fromscratch as we have done, with an amateur-enthusiast eye,we are in a good position to innovate. And on the ground,the rewards of sharing this environment with tens ofthousands of people a year are uplifting.
Many of my friends from London are unrepentanturbanites, buying designer woollies to visit and only puttingthem on again to go to a WOMAD or Glastonbury festival.
But all are uplifted by their visit in a way that transcendssimple excitement at seeing such a big project movingforward. It’s the animals and the trees that reach into a partof them that cannot be stimulated in Soho.
Woody Allen said, “Nature and I are two.” Funny, butwrong. A surprising amount of this archetypal urbanite’sdialogue is delivered in walks through Central Park, whichhas, unconsciously or not, been designed to simulate ourevolutionary species-typical environment. I felt, andcontinue to feel, a missionary zeal about exposing as muchof the population as is feasible to this experience.

Chapter 7 The Animals Are Taking Over the Zoo
When an angry lion roars at you from less than a footaway, it is impossible to remain impassive. Late one night Iwas making notes and sketches for the new jaguar house梬hich is situated near the lion enclosure梟onchalantlysitting against a post and working by flashlight. After twentyminutes I抎 finished, and stood up to find all three lions?
two females and a magnificent maned male calledSolomon梤ight up against the fence next to where I抎 beensitting. The fact that three such large and dangerousanimals can get so close without your noticing isimpressive but chilling. Watching their intent faces so closeto mine I realized that Solomon was about to roar at me,something I抎 witnessed from afar, and the impact of whichI抎 seen on other people (usually total involuntary full-bodyspasming and retreat) but never experienced directly.
Okay, I thought, I know he抯 going to roar, but there is a lionprooffence in between me and him. I抣l hold my ground, staycalm, and stare him down by the light of my head-lamp. Myplan worked well for the next few seconds of eye-balling,until suddenly he roared and lunged at the wire, and Iinstantly leaped backward three feet into darkness andunseen brambles. It抯 impossible to remain impassive inthe face of a charging lion. There抯 something in yourprimitive midbrain that tells you it抯 just not right to be thatclose to something that can eat you, and the amount ofadrenaline dumped into your system at such times is trulyprimeval.
As a new zoo director I am privileged to be exposed tosuch experiences fairly regularly. This also helps explainwhy zoos, with their captive breeding programs, mandatoryconservation measures, and outreach educationalprograms, have such a vital part to play in the promotion ofbiodiversity in the twenty-first century. David Attenborough(may his name be praised) can educate and promote on abigger canvas, but even he cannot replicate that visceral,direct experience of physical proximity to these magnificentcreatures.
I抦 not saying that all visitors will get roared at梩hough afew might, if Solomon is showing off (stumbling on the pathin his line of sight sometimes triggers him). But having nowshown many people around, from surveyors, lawyers, andbankers to friends and neighbors, the euphoriaengendered convinces me that the direct viewing of exoticendangered animals is one of the best motivators for futureinvolvement in conservation.
As I am discovering, there are many complicatedarguments for and against zoos, from those extremists whothink that all captive animals should either be releasedback into the wild or killed, to those who see no harm in anykind of containment for entertainment. The conservationargument to me seems unassailable, with a long history ofimportant species saved from extinction by zoos over theyears (the South African white rhino, the Mauritius kestrel,the golden lion tamarin, the P鑢e David抯 deer, the condor;the list is long, though shorter than it should be).
But high standards in zoos are needed, which is whereconservationists should concentrate their efforts, ensuringthat each animal is held for a good reason, as close to itsspecies-typical conditions as possible, and that itseducational potential is maximized. Then if you抮e lucky, youcan feel that moment of sheer physical terror in a safeenvironment, which can抰 be synthesized. Toilet facilitiesare available nearby should they be required.
I had had a dream. Dartmoor Zoological Park was goingto be a massive, thriving success, with the potential tobecome world class, and contribute in some small buttangible way to the effort to reverse, or slow down, or atleast in some way mitigate, humankind抯 inexorable, selfdestructiveonslaught against our planet. There was nowenormous reason for hope梖or the park at least. We hadmoney in the bank, a definite plan, and all that stoodbetween us and achieving it was a lot of hard work. Whichis a happy position to be in. Throwing yourself intoworthwhile, fruitful hard work that you believe in, as much asyou can handle and more, is a kind of luxury not everyonegets to experience. It is also exhausting.
My days were incredibly varied. They always started withgetting the children ready for school between 8 and 9 AM,which often saw me in pajamas and dressing gown alsohaving a quick simultaneous kitchen meeting with TouretteTony (always on his best behavior in front of the children),or Steve, Adam, or a combination of the above, whilebrushing hair (not my own) and dishing out shredded wheatand orange juice.
A scrawled note from that time reads:
Reallocate office space to Robin, Rob, Sarahand Steve. Clear own desk and set up computer.
Speak to Katy, education officer working askeeper until facilities arrive to reassure. Let downby absentee, re-organize rota to cover. Councilrepresentative arrives for preliminary health andsafety audit. Pull necessary people off jobs toaccompany, spend two and a half hours on[more than mildly irritating and demoralizing]
walk around. Conduct three media interviews,ambivalent, relying on extremist animal rightsactivists?views for 揵alance.?Research and thenfax absolutely final, last piece of paper to lawyersregarding company setup. Speak to BT againabout delay in providing more lines. Resendrequest to two-way radio company for newfrequencies. Fetch children, get them changed,pass to grandma. Resolve argument about newstand-off barriers for tapir. Help install fenceposts. Listen to keeper concerns at end of shift.
Chop wood for fire. Do school admin andhomework. Eat. Answer phones. Kids to bed.
Answer more phones. Bed.
Some days were more exciting, some less. But it wasalways nice to get a call from an urban friend when I抎 justdone something decidedly unusual. A phone call fromsomeone in magazines once went like this: 揥hat are youup to??揥ell, we抳e just darted the jaguar and he抯 gonedown okay, so I抦 about to go into his enclosure andstretcher him out.?Short pause. 揝o your day抯 turning outmuch the same as mine then.?
Whenever possible I took the opportunity to go inside theenclosures, to see what it抯 like from the other side of thewire and wonder what can be improved. One of the firstenclosures I worked in that spring was the lion den. Mymission: to deliver a collection of gruesome severed headswhile perched on the end of a branch fifteen feet off theground. The heads, from farmers culling young bullocks, areregularly hung from the trees, or wedged into branches togive the lions a puzzle to solve to get a treat: crunchy on theoutside, chewy in the middle. The lion enclosure is adisturbing place to be: one keeper error or lock malfunctioncould release three hungry cats expecting food and findingus as a live bonus. And I knew the lions would not messabout. At Christmas we had made a full-size cardboardzebra for them, filled it with bits of meat and left it in theenclosure. Four seconds after they were let out, one of thelionesses was onto its back, dragging it down, while theother closed in from the front. Captive bred, but instinctsundiminished.
While Kelly and Hannah cleared out the old bones anduneaten bits of skin from the lions?last meal, I lookedaround trying to find imaginative places that wouldchallenge the lions and give them something to think about.
The girls, being busy梐nd being girls梔idn抰 have quitethe same enthusiasm for climbing trees as I did, so I setabout showing off a bit and placing the heads a bit higherthan they usually had time for. I shinned up a suitable tree,and edged out along a branch about fifteen feet off theground. One of the lionesses had apparently taken a heronin flight at a similar height, so I knew it was possible forthem to reach this branch. When I was in a good position bya solid fork, I called down to Kelly, who stretched up as Istretched down to receive my first head. This really was myfirst-ever head. Kelly handled them nonchalantly, as tools ofher trade, and I knew I mustn抰 appear squeamish or I抎never live it down. She held it by the neck, its glazed eyesaskew and its slippery purple tongue uppermost. I couldonly just reach it but I didn抰 want to grip the tongue in caseit slipped (not through squeamishness, you understand), soI asked her to pass it ear first. I just managed to reach theblood-soaked ear, like wet leather, hauled the head up ontomy perch, and wedged it in the crook of the fork. Jumpingdown I sited several more heads, one from a rope, whichinvolved piercing the ear with a knife to thread it through,then helped gather the last remnants of scraps into thebarrow.
Looked upon by my wide-eyed children, I抎 braved thelions?den and managed to hide my fear. But the best bitwas that it took the lioness three days to get that headdown. Through-out that time, she never relaxed or stoppedthinking about it. She paced underneath the tree, climbedup it a bit and then jumped down, and prowled aroundirritably, trying to solve the problem. This was realenrichment, giving her the sort of tricky issue she mighthave to solve in the wild梥tumbling on a leopard抯 killstored up a tree, for instance. Whenever I went up to theenclosure, she was there, fretting about it. How she got itdown in the end I don抰 know, but I bet that bullock head wasone of the best she抎 ever tasted.
Despite these intense distractions, I was frequentlysnapped back into vivid memories of Katherine, often fromthe most unlikely or mundane sources. During a meeting inthe house I popped into the downstairs toilet, and realizedthat this was the first time I抎 visited this room since I usedto prop Katherine up in there, its wobbly unsecured base anextra hazard for someone who couldn抰 keep her balanceunaided. It hit me like a train, but I had to leave that roomand go straight back into the meeting looking like I wasconcentrating and on top of things.
Other triggers from the mundane world included thingslike opening a cupboard and finding a half-full box of herfavorite herbal tea. A trip to Tesco was also fraught withperil. After walking past the wheelchairs that she had soenjoyed being spun around in, there was aisle upon aisle ofreminders from our years together, when I used to hunt herout a treat while doing the shopping. C魌e d扥r chocolate;chocolate truffles; sushi; navel oranges; magazines likeElle, Vogue, Red, or the one she had begun writing for,Eve; the makeup aisle, easily avoided now but once asurefire way to brownie points via the latest wonder cureantiwrinkle cream; Bombay mix; cashew nuts; herbal teas梩he list was endless. And it didn抰 stop in thesupermarket. Being in any part of London; black cabs;Converse All Stars, Jimmy Choos, Prada shoes and bags,coveted and unaffordable; people wearing old Birkenstocksandals; costume jewelry shops where she could pick out agem and make it look like the real thing; Muji; John Lewis;kitchen and bathroom showrooms; tile showrooms;drapers?shops stacked with bolts of shot silk;haberdashers; Apple Macs; yoga mats; Ian McEwannovels; flower stalls; health-food shops; passports; any sadmusic; good graphic design; stationery shops; bookmakingsuppliers; speaking French; seeing the children,our bed, and the chair where she died.
Against this backdrop, very little out in the zoo itselfreminded me of Katherine, because she was hardly there.
The new information signs going up about the animals,though informative and capably drawn up by our educationofficer, were a mish mash by Katherine抯 standards, and avivid illustration of her absence. But I didn抰 know what to doto put it right, and each time I contemplated tackling it leftme feeling like I was running across the Sahara in leadshoes with a plastic bag over my head. But putting heads intrees, driving the dumper truck, breaking up concrete with aroad drill, dealing with keepers?needs and seeing salesreps had no such connotations, and I knew I was lucky to beable to lose myself in these nonassociative tasks.
Having the camera crew around also helped a lot.
Getting them on board, in the early days of negotiations forthe park, had been the final persuader for me, because thiswas one of the few other things I knew a bit about and couldsee the enormous benefit of. Careful readers will havenoticed that there were several final persuaders for me: theNick Lindsay/ZSL endorsement of the park; talking to thethirty or so other big attractions in Devon who raved aboutthe site and offered their support; Tesco persuading methat we were within the reaches of civilization梐ll weremini-tipping points in the final cascade. But thisdevelopment, I could see as a journalist, was not just achance to air a great story about animals, but, cynically, itwas also going to have a positive impact on the businessplan.
Frustratingly, though a huge coup for us, none of the earlypotential lenders even registered it. The backroom boysbarely looked up from their calculators: after all, there wasno tangible money coming in as a result, no change in frontof them to our wonky bottom line. It needed a tiny leap ofimagination to comprehend it, and leaps of imaginationwere not how they got to be backroom boys. The TV serieswas one of those things that were dependent on us gettingthe park in the first place, so no benefit would be felt unlesswe had already succeeded. Therefore, by their strange butimmutable logic, there was no benefit.
I put all this to one side and concentrated on the positive,and suddenly here we were, in the middle of myriad(resolvable) crises, a great breaking story, all being filmedfor BBC2. The crew, from Tigress Productions, naturalhistoryspecialists I had worked with before, were inspiring.
One camera operator/director, Aidan, who had shadowedMum and me since before the purchase, had just returnedfrom seven months in the jungles of Cameroon, filminggorillas orphaned by the bushmeat trade, and was quiteunfazed by anything about our predicament. Max, acharismatic, clear-blue-eyed reprobate, had a host ofnatural-history filming experiences and countless stories togo with them.
Another tremendously knowledgeable person at TigressProductions was Jeremy Bradshaw, M.D., whom I hadworked with briefly in the past. When I抎 lived in France, I抎once spent a few days making a pilot with Tigress, andduring my one ten-minute meeting with Jeremy, had thrustmy book of DIY columns from the Guardian at him, with ashort pitch about how it would make a wonderful series. Hehad taken the book politely, and even read it, and every fewmonths we exchanged e-mails about ideas of how todevelop it梑asically, whenever I was desperate ordisheartened by some obstacle to my work. To a freelancerpitching is routine, as is having the pitch rejected or simplybeing completely ignored. But Jeremy was impeccablycourteous, and would always return an e-mail after threeweeks or so. For someone in his position to someone inmine, this was outright encouragement, even though theywere almost always one-liners saying he was very sorry buthe hadn抰 managed to think of an angle yet, and if I ever hadany other ideas to let him know. A reply of any kind otherthan an outright negative is gold dust to a freelancer, andthis tenuous direct line to Jeremy had felt like an enormousasset梩hough I抎 known it could evaporate fairly quickly if Ifailed to come up with anything of interest over the nextcouple of years.
But I had been happy writing my book and doing mycolumns, until the zoo came up. I happened to mention thisdevelopment to Jeremy in an e-mail fairly early on in thenegotiations, and was amazed by his response. He cameback the same day with an effusive reply about how he hadheard of this zoo (he is a Fellow of the Zoological Societyof London and had read about it, whereas I抎 just receivedthe real-estate agent抯 details from my sister), wished meluck, said it was an enviable way to spend one抯 life, andurged me to keep him informed.
He began contacting me about once a week. Suddenly Ihad his mobile number and he was calling me on Sundayafternoons. I could see that he was keen, and this could bevery good for the zoo, if we managed to buy it. I had alwayshoped that as a journalist I would be able to partiallysupport and publicize the zoo by writing about it桰 had askill to be deployed in the modern marketplace, and in thiscase it was for a good cause. My ambition had been toswitch my Guardian column from the family page, to whichit had migrated from the magazine, to writing about the zoo.
I knew the Guardian reader market, and that their level ofignorance (and squeamishness) on animal matters wasroughly equivalent to their position on DIY; after all, most ofmy friends read the Guardian.
But Jeremy was talking about a different level ofexposure. 揑 think it抯 a quintessentially English story,?hesaid in his soft Oxbridge accent, which is, objectively, only acouple of notches down from Prince Charles抯. 揅ompletelymad and eccentric, but with a very wide appeal. I wouldn抰be surprised if we can get BBC2 to do a series. Keep meposted.?Dream on, I thought, but I kept in touch, addingJeremy to the loop of phone calls I made from France, andhe always provided a supportive and encouraging ear.
And so one day, it turned out, I was showing Jeremyaround the park we had just bought, and he was discussingthe timing of the BBC2 series he had recently beencommissioned to make about it. Jeremy抯 knowledge froma lifetime in natural history was comprehensive, and mostof our animals were of species he had filmed in the wild,often with a celebrity presenter. The tigers reminded him ofhis direct experience of them while filming a documentarywith Bob Hoskins, the lions with Anthony Hopkins, and myaspirations for orangutans (Julia Roberts) andchimpanzees revealed that he had twice filmed JaneGoodall at her world-leading chimpanzee research andconservation center in Gombe. But my favorite remark wasas we walked past Basil, the coatimundi, the SouthAmerican climbing raccoon I had barely heard of before wearrived. 揙h, you抳e got a coati!?He beamed. 揥onderfulcreatures. You see them in the canopy in Ecuador all thetime.?
I was humbled by the entire film crew抯 knowledge andtheir professionalism, and uplifted by their enthusiasm forthis project梠ur project梬hich simply involved filming uswhile we learned about just exactly what we had gotourselves into. But it was a relief from time to time to berecast as the relative expert, for instance when theGuardian sent down a photographer to cover a feature onthe park I had written for the magazine.
As a journalist and feature writer, much of my time forabout ten years was spent working with photographers. I抎be sent on some hare-brained but marvelous assignment,like horse-riding in Spain, swimming with dolphins in theFlorida Keys, or snow boarding in California, and aphotographer would come with me to document exactlyhow badly I messed it up. It was a wonderful way to earn aliving, but a large part of the pleasure was workingalongside another professional with the same objectives,out on our own overseas. Photographers are practicalpeople. They make the best of situations, they improvise,they have gaffer抯 tape. As another pair of eyes and ears, aphotographer is useful in spotting good people to interview,and I was also able to help by drawing out and distractingpeople while they were photographed. Working as acomplementary duo like this was enormously satisfying,and it was one of the things I missed most when I fled toFrance to write my book.
So it was a very welcome relief from the myriadunfamiliar pressures of the zoo when the newspapers gothold of the story (after Sovereign and Parker made thenationals, they could hardly miss it), and started sending theodd photographer down to capture developments. This wassomething I was used to and knew all about, from thedemands of the picture editor to the backdrop and the light,but more than that, it was a chance to dip back into thatworld of journalism where I had spent so many comfortableyears. During my time working in London I was always theperson most likely to mention animals or to suggest ananimal story (usually rejected), or be disgusted with theshallow industry obsession with fashion and other mattersof extreme inconsequence. At the zoo, around the manydedicated professionals who have devoted their lives toexotic creatures, I am practically animal illiterate, unable tosex a snake, tell a Bengal owl from a European eagle owl,or dismember a horse for the tigers.
So when some fashionably dressed Soho-junky with acappuccino habit and totally inappropriate footware arrivedasking all the wrong questions, I found it enormouslyrefreshing. Julian, from the Guardian, arrived in Italiancalfskin brogues with designer jeans trailing on the ground,both instantly sodden in the long grass of the walk-inenclosure, where he wanted to get some shots of me withRonnie the tapir. On being warned of the dangers ofRonnie, who is a Class I dangerous animal easily capableof killing a man with gruesome efficiency, his reaction wasto ask the stony-faced keeper supervising us, 揥ow. Sowho抎 win in a fight between a tapir and an anaconda??Assoon as I could, I took him away on my own, so he didn抰upset anyone and I could enjoy his hopelessly out-of-placeremarks.
Trying to lure a peacock onto a picnic table for a shot,Julian approached the problem pragmatically, asphotographers do, by laying a trail of bread that ended inthe tabletop, but he didn抰 factor in the tiny pea-size brain ofthe bird. After twenty minutes with the light fading, hesnapped. 揅ome on, you total fucking spaz. You抮e not apeacock you抮e a peac枛??When he met Ben the brownbear, who at three hundred kilos is bigger than Vlad, ourmale Siberian tiger, his instant reaction was, 揝o who抎 winin a fight between the bear and a tiger??His 揳nimal maths?
theme continued all day, culminating in, 揥hat about fourrats against a swan??I was sorry to see him go back, byhis own admission, to the land of trivia and inconsequence,but it was probably for the best.
Meanwhile, there was plenty of work to be getting onwith. And again, for a change, some of it was stuff I wasused to. Like demolition. It is marvelously cathartic to wielda pickax or a sledgehammer in times of stress, though I didfind that visualizing a particular lawyer, banker, or someother source of frustration often led to an overenthusiasticwork rate, unnecessary damage to surroundinginfrastructure, and occasional personal injury. Like when Ilost a thumbnail to my new, heavy-duty crow bar whilethinking about a certain high-end bank. Demolition is notjust randomly smashing things up梩hough there is,occasionally, room for that梑ut is more a systematic, ifbrutal, dismantling in the most efficient way possible. Mymost enjoyable project was stripping out the vet room, intowhich we were sinking thousands of pounds to convert afetid former stable into a modern animal operating theater.
In the deeds, this was already officially the vet room, andanimals had in the past been stored here when there wasan urgent need for isolation. But in reality it was a series offour dank interlocking chambers with flimsy partitions, lethalwiring, and a constant splattering trickle from the faultyplumbing running across the ceiling. Smashing this stuffout, sifting the lead and copper for salvage, piling up thehardcore barrow by barrow for use under the concrete baseof the jag enclosure, was a luxury I allowed myself two orthree hours a day while it was going on.
The best discovery was a room that had not beenopened for fifteen years. A former workshop, its doorwayonto the vet room was blocked with the subsequent decadeand a half抯 worth of damp junk, so the easiest way in wastaking out the rotten window frame. Inside, it was like asmall museum of artifacts from another time. There was amini dilapidated range like the one in the flagstone kitchen,and the walls were bedecked with rusted two-manlumberjack saws and other agricultural implements from thenineteenth century梡lus, of course, the mandatory piles ofgrimy miscellanea, here including many decomposing rats,covering the floor so that not one square inch of it wasexposed. Sifting this lot for scrap and interesting artifactswas a welcome distraction, particularly when it came toripping out the ancient rotten tongue-and-groove panelingwith the aforementioned heavy-duty crowbar. Insulated fromthe world by a breathing mask and goggles, covered insweat and grime, I could wield heavy implements and avoidcalls and callers for a couple of hours a day, whileperforming useful work and also saving money on gymmembership. But inevitably, a line would build up outsideand I would have to engage with them. Well-dressed youngreps梬omen in stilettos on the uneven grimy surface of theyard, men in gray suits梬ould stand clutching clipboardswith things for me to sign, always (enjoyably for me)surprised that the man they had come to see was theperson loading the skip they had assumed was a laborerand turned their noses up at before we were introduced.
Reluctantly, when it was fully gutted, I had to hand overthe vet-room resurrection to a team of outside builders, whowere remarkably proficient in transforming this shell into awhite-tiled medical facility. They worked well, though theexpense for an off-show area was worrying, as the money,so hard-won, was hemorrhaging out in all directions, andfront-of-house issues like pathways, enclosures, and thekilometers of stand-off barrier to be replaced seemed atleast equally as important. But investing heavily in an offshowfacility like this would benefit the animals, whowouldn抰 have to be moved so far to undergo veterinaryprocedures, and it would demonstrate to the authorities thatwe were serious. The new crew of builders took over, andseemed to know what they were doing, so I moved myrecreational focus to other areas of demolition.
Like digging out enclosure fence posts from concretewith a road drill, pickaxing loose concrete wherever I couldfind it, and transporting rubble in the dumper. All too soon?
though not quite soon enough梩his stage of the operationwas complete, and the only jobs to be found wererestorative. Again, as long as they were not toocomplicated and something I could dip in and out of tomake way for the other myriad demands of my newposition, I gladly got involved. In the absence of a budget formuch needed tarmac for the car park and paths, Adam hadorganized deliveries of road planings. These are the bitsthey trim off the tops of roads before resurfacing, with thathuge machine like a giant electric razor without a guard, awhirring wheel with blades that chews up and spits out thechips of the old tarmac onto a conveyor belt behind it. Theconveyor belt deposits them into lorries, and the lorries, ifyou抮e quick enough and know where they are working, willcome and deliver them to you for a token price of about tenpounds a ton. We secured about a hundred tons, whichwas left in the bottom car park in vast piles, and whichneeded to be transported up the drive (a fifth of a mile) anddeposited on the pathways for Tony in the digger to rakeout, and then someone on the steamroller to flatten down.
We had tried for some weeks to buy reliable machineryourselves, but this meant thumbing through FarmersWeekly and other magazines dedicated to the sale ofheavy machinery. These quickly became compelling, andmany times I had eagerly dropped what I was doing whenTony or John came striding up with a folded-backcatalogue in their hand saying, 揑抳e got a lovelydumper/digger/tractor here for you, Ben.?I even took tothumbing through back issues to get a feel for what was outthere. I soon learned to tell the difference between aMassey Ferguson and a John Deere at a glance, andeasily identify a mini-digger as a one-, one-and-a-half-, two-, or three-tonner. But what I couldn抰 seem to do was buyany of them at a reasonable price. Good ones tended to belocked in some place like Dundee, where the transportcosts could double the price of the machine, and there wasthat delicate trade-off between getting something cheap,within our relatively measly budget, and getting somethingthat was going to work. This meant visiting the nearer oneswith Tony, pulling him off whatever he was doing, invariablyto find that what was on offer was either not good enough ortoo expensive. Everything decent, in this heavily agriculturalarea, was quickly snapped up. Canny farmers were alwaysthere before you, bidding against you, knowing exactly whatthey were doing. (I still pine after a particular John Deerewith a front loader, which was stolen from under my nose bya neighbor of the vendor just before we got there. It wouldhave been perfect but, alas, it wasn抰 to be.) So we endedup hiring equipment, much too late in the day for Tony抯liking, who was then further harassed by the weather.
English summer was starting, and so of course, was therain.
But eventually, with only a few weeks to go before theinspection, two diggers (a one-and-a-half- and a threetonner,as it happens) and a thunderous steamrollerarrived, and everybody in the park set to work as one.
Minor differences and big egos were forgotten as keepingstaff,maintenance, directors, and everybody else workedlike a human conveyor belt, shifting to whatever wasneeded at the time with the alacrity of reckless troopsvolunteering indiscriminately for dangerous missions. Andsometimes it was potentially dangerous. Once I had takensome time out to escort a local journalist around, and Inoticed that the steamroller was reversing slowly down thepath toward us, leaving a flattened carpet of planingsbefore it. I noticed too that the driver was being duly diligentat keeping his distance from the wall to his right, which wasjust as well, because one wrong move from a machine thissize could send it crashing through that wall, and that wouldbe a terrible shame because it was a wall of the tigerenclosure. So far, reassuring. And then I noticed that thedriver was Duncan, who, I knew, had only learned how todrive this machine the day before, and I hurriedly usheredthe journalist out of the way. But there were no accidentswith these potentially lethal machines, and the Health andSafety officers Rob and Adam took their roles veryseriously. The first accident recorded in our accident bookwas a cut finger months later, sustained during an incidentinvolving some stationery.
In the middle of this park-wide blitz of manual labor,Steve had to think about pressing animal-welfare issues.
Like where were we going to put Sovereign the escapistjag while we renovated his enclosure. Twelve of the posts inhis enclosure needed replacing, as did the rotten slats inhis house, and a few other adjustments needed to be madeto his living area, which Sovereign would simply not tolerateif he was around. He had to be moved, and it was decidedthat the best idea was to reinstate the old quarantine area,once a bear pit, and before that a cottage that the Brownies(junior Girl Scouts) had apparently used as a meeting placeduring the war. Unfortunately, nobody had told Brown Owl(the leader) about the rudiments of structural engineering,and she had cut away the pesky A-frame timberssupporting the roof to enlarge the loft space for a tabletennistable. While Plymouth naval dockyards succumbedto the Luftwaffe, this fifth-columnist children抯 paramilitaryorganization got their badges for bringing down the roof ofwhat was then a farm cottage seven miles away. But theyleft the walls and gables standing, which provided asuitable enclosure for temporarily housing dangerousanimals.
With Sovereign, however, no one was taking anychances. As soon as the electric-fence specialist hadfinished his long (and expensive) refitting of the wolves?
enclosure with a new system and a backup supply in theevent of a power failure, he was moved onto this project.
Too much was just right for Sovereign, who scaredeveryone, particularly me, with his propensities for forwardplanning and timely, decisive action. The place was latticedwith electrically charged deterrents to climbing the walls,scratching at the door, and using the internal windowledges as platforms for leaping onto the high iron gantryacross the middle of the building, presumably installed forviewing the bears it once housed. As the security measuresclosed in, this shell of a house with its wired-up observationgantry became a disconcerting place to stand. As ourminds prowled around the potential purchase points?
rolled steel joist sticking out here, a brick chimneyprojecting in there梖or a single-minded cat to use to climbout, they were closed off one by one. But we were alsocreating a holding chamber from which even a human, withfore-knowledge and ingenuity, could not escape. Inevitably,this sparks images of maximum-security prisons, andworse, human-atrocity-standard containment wheredetainees are thwarted in their desire for freedom andutterly controlled. This in turn raises questions of animalrights, and just exactly what we were doing containing suchan animal who longed to get out. The answer always,honestly, was absolute.
The International union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN) says that jaguars in the wild are 揘ear Threatened,?
and the good news is that they moved down the Red Listfrom Vulnerable in the 1990s as protection measureskicked in. However, habitat destruction has pushed theminto increasingly isolated pockets of forest, bringing theminto conflict with ranchers whose cattle they eat, andhunters, for whom they represent competition for food, andmortal danger if they are attacked. Despite beingprotected, jaguars are frequently shot on sight, and arealready extinct in El Salvador and Uruguay. It is expectedthat at the next audit they will be moving back up the list toVulnerable again. We inherited Sovereign; he can抰 bereintroduced to his diminishing native habitat, but he is topof the stud book and his excellent genes areunderrepresented in captivity. We will be breeding from himas soon as we can.
Eventually there came a time when the wires in the newenclosure were in place, the locking mechanism on hisgate had been quadruple-checked by every available pairof eyes, and it was time to introduce Sovereign to our newdart gun. This enormously expensive piece of equipment(?,000) is able to deliver a dose of anaesthetic at anydistance from a yard to fifty, and we spent a day having afairly strict tutorial from the Austrian supplier, who set up atarget for us in the unfinished restaurant. This dart gun is aDan-Inject, the preferred industry standard, a top-of-therangemodel often brandished out of the sides of LandRovers in wildlife documentaries as they chase down anddart rhinos and lions. Its laser sight also enables you toshoot from the hip, because many animals seem torecognize the raising of a rifle as a sign of danger. Firingfrom the hip, even I was able to hit the bull抯-eye at thirtyyards.
But such minor deceptions cut no ice with Sovereign.
The second he saw Steve with the gun he began to paceand spit in his house, careful not to present his flank, as hehas been darted before and knows that this is the target.
Eventually his agitation got the better of him, he turnedslightly, and Steve darted him in the thigh, a perfect hit. Weall retreated, as planned, for fifteen minutes while the vetmonitored the progress of the drug, and Sovereigngradually went down. These operations were carefullyplanned in advance, with only the people who were directlyinvolved in the vicinity. Everyone had a role, which wasrehearsed in meetings梐 bit like a benign bank job?
ceaselessly, until everything was clear. The crate wasready, the van in position outside the jag house, and theexact route to the new quarters established. But even so, itis always a moment of high drama when the door isopened into the cage where the sleeping cat lies.
Even in his sleep, something like Sovereign梚nparticular he, in fact梚s scary. Your brain is telling you tokeep back. It may be a trap (you almost suspected this cathad hid an antidote pill inside his mouth like some secretagent). What if he just springs up? I feel it every time, that Iam not supposed to be close to an animal like this. But hewas genuinely out, and the only thing to remember was thatit was a light dose, for safety抯 sake梙is safety, not ours?
and that jerky movements and loud noises could trigger anadrenaline response in him that might, conceivably,counteract the drug. Which you don抰 want. So theatmosphere of total silence梤adios and phones off, onlyessential commands whispered梘reatly adds to thetension of the occasion. As we successfully maneuveredhim onto a blanket and manhandled him out of his house, Inoticed that in our efforts not to jostle our lethal patient, Ihad somehow ended up with the head end, while the otherthree porters were carrying the rear legs. Not only was myend much heavier, it抯 much scarier, too. His head is as bigas a medium-size Halloween pumpkin festooned with realfangs, the most prominent being his two two-inch caninesdesigned for puncturing skulls. I抎 just noticed the proximityof my delicate seeming wrist to these gaping jaws(remember the jag has the most powerful jaws of all the bigcats), when the vet抯 phone went off. As the ringtone (aKylie Minogue track, incongruously) boomed and echoed inthe narrow concrete corridor, the vet did a pantomimehorror retreat to turn it off, and hissed over to me, 揚ut theblanket over his head.?I gladly complied, but had little faiththat this flimsy material would do much to lessen the sound,or protect my wrist, particularly with Kylie singing her littlelungs out trying to wake him up.
But he didn抰 wake up, and we got him into the crate, andthe van, and his new quarters without a further hitch. It was agreat moment. Our new equipment worked perfectly, thenew team performed impeccably, and we had successfullytransferred a very dangerous animal without incident. Wecould now get on with the license requirement of renovatinghis enclosure and relining his leaking moat, which meantmore demolition work for me, and more welding, fencework, and rendering for people with better skills.
Unfortunately, the next move did not go quite so well. Thistime it was for the much-anticipated relocation of Tammythe tiger, who, you may remember, had been fighting withand had needed to be separated from her sister for aboutfive years, since they both had hormone-changingcontraceptive injections. After tireless efforts from all thekeepers, eventually a home was found for her in France,and a date set for her transportation. The procedures wererun through as before, and minor adjustments made to theplan from small lessons learned. The Frenchies arrived thenight before, ready for an early start, and we spent anenjoyable evening in the local pub getting to know eachother. I had been looking forward to speaking a bit ofFrench, perhaps to translate some crucial information at acritical time, but these vain hopes receded quickly when itemerged that both of them spoke English as well as I did.
On the morning of the move, the first little thing to gowrong was that the van couldn抰 get as close to the tigerhouse as we had liked. It was further up a long steep slopethan the jag house, and that slope was now covered withroad planings, which don抰 give much purchase for anempty two-wheel drive van trying to reverse. No problem,the vet was confident that she would be out long enough forus to carry her the extra fifty yards to get her safely inside,so we carried on. Tammy was less canny than Sovereignand easier to dart, but she made some hellishly frighteningnoises after she was hit. After the requisite time, adelegation went in to have a look, and it was deemed sheneeded another dose, so we waited again. After the vetflicked her ears for a bit, he decided she wasn抰 goinganywhere, and we maneuvered this considerable animalonto another blanket (we still hadn抰 been able to afford astretcher). Six of us carried Tammy?again, under a codeof silence梬atched over by John on firearms with the biggun, which could kill her with a single shot should things gowrong. And then, go wrong they did.
Halfway down the path, which is about three meters wide,with lions on one side and tigers on the other, Tammy wokeup. The first sign was her tail, which started moving andthen wrapped itself tightly around someone抯 leg. Then shejust stood up, right out in the open, scattering people likegunfire in a shopping center梠r, indeed, a big cat in acrowd of people. She was incredibly groggy and couldbarely stand, but she was still a big girl, upright and on thewrong side of the wire. People evaporated from the sceneover the stand-off barriers backward梟ot too close to thelions though, because they were suddenly very vocal in theirobjections to seeing Tammy so close (Duncan抯 policy ofputting the other cats away during these procedures hadbeen overlooked, with potentially volatile consequences). Inoticed that several people had somehow managed toclimb the observation tower, despite the bottom six feet ofrungs of the ladder having been removed to make itinaccessible. But mainly I noticed Tammy, less than threeyards away, standing, then slowly wheeling round to faceme. I decided to stay still. Her eyes were glazed, but I knewthat they are hypersensitive to tracking movement, andcould easily be triggered by signs of a prey animal in frontof her (i.e., me), trying to escape. I didn抰 have to look to myright to know that John would have raised the rifle ready tofire, and I did my best to remain utterly motionless. Thereare people who claim to be able to withdraw their aurainward and become almost invisible, certainly lessnoticeable, an idea I had previously thought was ridiculous.
But under the circumstances, I was willing to give it a try. Infact my brain did it for me, because I was not afraid. I wasbeyond fear, to total calm, as if something even moreprimitive than the fight-or-flight response had beentriggered, and my body knew I couldn抰 be trusted with therelease of that much adrenaline; perhaps it would causeme to move, or some sensitivity in the tiger would pick upthe increased electromagnetic activity from so close. Iconcentrated on seeming like part of the stand-off barrier Iwas leaning against, or maybe a tree, or some other inertand routine stimulus. It seemed to work, because Tammy抯glazed gaze swept across me without registering, and shewobbled slowly off down the path towards the van.
John, as firearms officer, was responsible foreverybody抯 safety, and he would have been within hisrights to kill Tammy the moment he had a clear shot. I washalf-expecting this, though my perception of the situation ona second-by-second basis was that there had as yet beenno need. And he didn抰. John held his nerve, as I knew hewould, and maintained eye contact communications withSteve the curator and the vet, who fed back that he shouldhold off. Everyone held their nerve. Tammy staggered a fewmore paces, then lay down, unfortunately right next to thedart gun, which was the only means of administering moreanaesthetic. There followed a tense few moments as thevet prepared a dart and Steve crept towards Tammy,covered by John, to retrieve the dart gun. With animalstealth梚t doesn抰 get more animal than this梙e moved towithin four feet of her, conscious that as the seconds tickedby, the drugs were wearing off. Without the dart gun wewould have no choice but to shoot to kill as she becamelivelier. Steve reached the gun, tiptoed over to the vet, andgave Tammy another dose.
Now we had to wait again for it to take effect, this timeout in the open, a stark period which could have been aminute or twenty, but was probably nearer five. By the timeTammy was declared under (again), my adrenaline hadkicked in. But we desperately needed her in the crate in thevan, and no amount of fear could prevent that happening. Iremember feeling decidedly uncomfortable as we hauledthis incredibly dangerous thing, the trigger of so manyprimal fears, who had already demonstrated that she couldwake up, into the crate. Once again I had the head end?
though not alone this time梐nd I didn抰 like it. Tammy抯head is bigger than a very big watermelon, and though themove only took about thirty seconds, I was constantlyexpecting her to show signs of life with disastrousconsequences. As soon as I had pushed her head clear ofthe crate door, which slid down and bolted her to safety, Ifelt the anger rising. Anger that I, and all the staff, had beenput through this.
The lessons learned immediately were that a move can抰go ahead unless the vehicle梚deally a four-wheel-drive梚sright next to the animal抯 house; and other animals in thearea should also be shut away, every time. Then Anna, ourZoo Collection Manager, and Steve began investigatingthat most salient question: why had Tammy been able tostand up? Exhaustive enquiries to about thirty zoo vets andother professionals revealed a universal consensus on thedrug of choice to sedate big cats during these procedures.
Unfortunately, it wasn抰 the one the vet used. He had chosena horse tranquilizer, which can work, but is thought lessreliable. And so it had proved. Anna and Steve lobbiedhard (though they didn抰 have to) that in future, all majormoves and medical procedures should be managed by anexternal specialist organization, the International ZooVeterinary Group (IZVG), a freelance organization thatdoes only exotic animals. What they don抰 know about zooanimals, nobody knows. Obviously, they were decidedlymore expensive, but this was not a consideration, and Iagreed wholeheartedly. The next move we were going toattempt, when the vet room was ready, was transferringthree big predators in one day for long-overdue dentalprocedures, and we couldn抰 afford for any part of it to gowrong. Regardless of the cost, we were going to use theIZVG.
In the meantime, on the back of so many other unsettlingincidents, this one was probably irrevocably formative.
Duncan and I discovered that we were no longer fullyrelaxed out in the open, particularly around here. Once, wewere up at the reservoir for the zoo, a misnomer since itreally is just a big manhole cover at the highest point in thepark, above the bore hole that supplies the water at the rateof about four thousand liters a day. Unfortunately, it leaks,which means that every ten days to three weeks the waterpressure drops, so that the otters?supply dries up, one ofthe artificial ponds starts to drain (through another as yetunidentified leak), and the pressure in the restaurant dropsbelow what is needed to keep it running. But far moreimportant to me, at eight in the morning when you tend tofind out about it, is that the shower doesn抰 work. Theshower, as described before, is not a haven of luxury evenwhen it does work. A yellowed, fractured plastic uprightcoffin installed in a shower-wide, partitioned room directlyin front of the only window, the mechanism is fine (thoughfestooned with live mains wires immediately behind it), andonce you are in it, when it is working, this can often seemlike the best part of the day梐 short period of time in touchwith our aquatic roots, almost guaranteed not to beinterrupted. Almost. Milo and Ella still regard you as fairgame in the shower, and I have also been called out from ita few times to attend to various emergency meetings, butgenerally, this imperfect sanctuary is as good as it gets.
Until it doesn抰 work. When it fails to deliver hot water, oreven any water at all, the denial-tinted spectacles come offand you see it for what it is: a miserable piece of shit thatwe can抰 afford to replace yet. Like a TV or laptop thatsuddenly doesn抰 work and is no longer a conduit to thecenter of the universe, but just a shoddy plastic box.
What you have to do when the water dries up is go intothe woods behind the wolves and above the bears to thereservoir, armed with two yard-long wrenches, and tinkerwith some heavy duty valves to bleed the system. Early inthe morning, before school, this can only be described as abummer, so we try to pre-empt it, which is how Duncan andI found ourselves up there one Sunday evening, chattingabout the day抯 events, relaxed as we tried to rememberthe exact sequence of things to turn and pipes to connect toeach other. Suddenly there was a large animal rustlingaround less than twenty feet away, and we both spunaround, gripping our wrenches and ready for mortalcombat. Both our stances were wide, ready to fight or flee,and we cast wide-eyed glances around looking for goodtrees to climb in the nanoseconds before we assessedwhat we were up against. It was a cow, on the other side ofthe fence. At the edges of the park, we forget, other peoplehave large animals like cows, horses, and sheep, that arenot about to rip your limbs off and eat them. But you can抰be too careful, and it took us a few moments to relax andget back to the job in hand.
Another time I was out in the open crossing a carefullyassessed empty field belonging to a neighbor, when aplastic bag reared up out of the long grass and sent me intoa similar spasm of panic. But the scarier moments are atnight. The first time was while collecting wood for the fire, inwhat I抎 vaguely remembered was a virtually emptyenclosure containing some ground-based birds, thebiggest of which was a turkey, who was sometimesaggressive but not insurmountable. I looked up from mybow sawing to see several sets of mammalian eyesreflected in my headlamp, all small and narrowly spaced,indicating little animals. But if they were little cats, I had abig problem. Then I remembered that we don抰 have anylittle cats, apart from Jilly, the elderly serval whoseenclosure was some distance away, and that these were infact the innocuous miniature muntjac deer who weredesperately more afraid of me that I should be of them.
Even so, my rattled reasoning told me, they have little spikyantlers, and I was careful not to upset them as I completedmy foray for fallen wood.
The most recent occasion of nocturnal fear was whilewalking the dog, Leon (more on him later). Out in the cornerof the giraffe (all right, small cats) field, which backs on tothe pumas, on a clear but moonless night, I heardsomething big moving very slowly toward me. The dog wasbusy some distance away, but my anxiety was based onthe fact that the female pumas were in season and callingout with their giant, strangulated miaoww, which is thought,along with their pheromone incentive, to draw young malepumas from the moor. And that was the direction thisanimal was coming from. I hesitated, hoping that the idiotdog would pick up on it, and, ideally, challenge it and beeaten by it rather than me. But he remained oblivious,selfishly snuffling around the many animal scents of the longgrass a hundred yards away rather than volunteering tosacrifice his life for me. There was a firm breeze comingfrom behind me, so I knew the animal knew exactly whereand what I was, and still it slowly crunched through theundergrowth in my direction. Finally I cracked and snappedon my headlamp, half-expecting to see a fleeing puma andpartly dreading the other alternative, that it wouldn抰 flee.
The eyes that stared back at me were wide spaced anddidn抰 flee. They didn抰 do anything, which I gradually drewcomfort from, because predators tend to make snapdecisions. Taking my time, and finally enlisting Leon asmoral梐nd potentially sacrificial梥upport, I moved towardit. As I did so, it gradually became clear that this wasanother harmless, dumb-assed cow, newly introduced tothis normally empty field, stalking me because itpresumably thought that I was the farmer, breaking the habitof a lifetime by bringing it food at 3 AM.
These sorts of incidents, though actually quite exciting,serve to reinforce the sense that to live here is to exist in astate of perpetual impending emergency. For the timebeing, though, most of the emergencies were false alarms,or at least manageable, all made more bearable by theinflux of money from the NFU. Now the sensation was morelike riding the rapids on the way to a waterfall, as the moneyflowed out and the deadline of the inspection for our licenseloomed inexorably nearer.
With the vast amount to be done, we were working at afrantic pace, and every problem that came up seemed torequire an expensive solution. The van, an old transit thathad done a remarkable 260,000 miles, suddenly gave outwhen a strut from the chassis snapped and punctured thefloor in the back. There抯 no coming back from that, so agleaming new (well, with only 80,000 miles on the clock)replacement was bought. The dumper, a giant yellowmonster with the wrong engine and a gearbox that lookedlike it had come from prehistory, blew up one day,necessitating further outlay. These two vehicles are thebackbone of the operation, used for fetching anddistributing food for the animals and materials of all kindsthroughout the park.
The new dumper, on hire, was enormously popular,mainly because it actually worked, and did a great deal toimprove not just the work rate but also morale. But the costof everything loomed into focus sharply and again mademe miss Katherine, because I knew her budgetmanagementskills would have saved us money, but shewould also have brought a sense of control that in herabsence, seemed to be slipping away. However, it was aone-way journey we were on, and most of the problems wefaced, for once, really could be solved by throwing money atthem. I was just acutely aware that once the money wasspent, there wasn抰 going to be any more. And if we failedto get the park open with it, the level of disaster would beunthinkable. Probably many animals would die, and manypeople (including those who had left good jobs to work forus) would be unemployed. And the family assets, which myparents had worked so hard all their lives to build up, wouldbe in tatters.
揃ut at least no one抯 shooting at us,?my mum would say.
Brought up in Sheffield during the war, as a child she hadendured nightly air raids, culminating in one where sheemerged from the cellar to find that the family house,indeed the whole street, had been destroyed. The familysimply walked to their nearest relative抯 house, an auntyseven miles away, past the rows of bodies laid out on theroads until they could be dealt with. These sorts ofexperiences gave my mum抯 generation a profound grip onreality, and though she had spent the last thirty or so yearsin relative suburban opulence and didn抰 relish the grimliving conditions and constant stress of gambling everythingon a crazy venture that was in no way dead certain, Mumknew from direct personal experience that things could beconsiderably worse.
Mum抯 strength and sense of adventure were absolutelyvital in pursuing the zoo in the first place, and in continuingto fight for it once we were there. We were always mindfulof the sacrifice Mum had made in buying the zoo, and didour best to make her comfortable and reassure her. Butshe didn抰 need mollycoddling. The plan had been that shecould continue her life of making pots and painting, with thezoo as a sort of thriving backdrop. But when Katherinedied, when Duncan was away, she ran the place. This wasno small step up for a recently widowed lady whosehusband had impeccably run the family affairs for theprevious fifty-three years. Dad used to marvel at Mum抯lack of proficiency with figures梙e would read books likeMathematics Made Difficult, and pass his thirty-minutecommute doing complicated mental arithmetic. But Mumwas not entirely alone. Adam had put us in touch with Jo, aclear-eyed, perspicacious, and matronly bookkeeper whogradually wrestled the accounts under control, skillfullyjuggled creditors, and provided daily bulletins on ourfinancial health.
With so many unexpected expenses梡articularly in therestaurant where everything from crockery to cookers hadto be replaced梞any projects became too expensive andhad to be shelved. Like replacing the demolished jaghouse, which had been priced at ?7,000. By simply notdoing this we could afford all kinds of other things, like anew lawn mower, a forest of new fence posts, and the staffwages for another month. Mum抯 determination to get togrips with the nitty-gritty of the business undoubtedly savedit at a difficult time, and won her the respect and admirationof the staff and many more. As I emerged from my selfimposedexile, I found that Mum was at the center of mostthings that were going on, despite recent doctor抯 orders toavoid stress, following a heart scare. One of the few placesin the house where we spent money was in fitting out theold kitchen (the formerly smelly one) with a new floor andturning it into a pottery studio. When it was finished, wetried to get Mum interested in going back to her lifelonghobby, at which she excels, talking in detail about sellingher pots in the shop. But she wasn抰梐nd still isn抰梙avingit. While ever there is work to be done, Mum will do it. Andtrying to ease her out of the loop of stressful decisionssimply doesn抰 work. She has spies everywhere. If she feelsshe抯 getting bland reassurances from management and atdepartment-head level, she just taps into another staffnetwork to find out what抯 really going on. Although thetelevision series was called Ben抯 Zoo, in more ways thanone, it should have been called Amelia抯 Zoo.
Chapter 8 Spending the Money
What a difference the sun makes. I have a theory that adisproportionate number of expatriates who leave thiscountry to seek a place in the sun have seasonal affectivedisorder (SAD) to some degree. I’m sure I’m on thecontinuum somewhere, as I crave the onset of spring fromthe first moment the leaves turn brown in autumn. When thesun finally did start coming out, in late April and May,everything looked a hundred times better. The liberalsprinkling of snowdrops gave way to a host of daffodils,and the optimism in the air was palpable, and no longeronly coming from me.
The workshop was churning out newly welded metalenclosure posts, big machines were laying new pathwaysbefore our eyes, and the restaurant was a teeming hive ofactivity. Spring was definitely in the air, and with it came theneed for some reversible vasectomies, as we didn’t yethave the paperwork or facilities for many of our animals tobreed. First in line was Zak, the elderly alpha wolf, whoseproblem actually looked more serious. One testicle hadswollen to the size of an avocado, and though this canhappen to wolves for short periods, Zak’s had beenengorged for several weeks and the vet thought he neededto be opened up. The vet room was still a work in progress,so the shop beside the restaurant was sterilized and sometables pushed together. On the allocated day, Zak wasdarted and went down easily. Though the van was inposition, the vet and Steve decided it was just as easy tocarry him the hundred yards or so to the mocked upoperating theater. In truth, if Zak had managed to get upand do a Tammy, no one would have been very scared. Atnineteen years old, even on his best day you could probablywalk faster than he could run, and he maintained his grip onthe pack now, not with brute force, but through sheercharisma and experience.
They arrived slightly breathless, and Zak was placed onhis back, cradled by two large plastic blocks with asemicircle cut out of them, a bit like a headsman’s block,specifically designed for keeping animals with ridgedspines steady on their backs. The blocks were well worn,and this procedure was fairly routine, though I asked howmany actual wolves the vet had done. “Oh, quite a few bynow. Don’t worry. No different from an Alsatian.” Likeanyone being prepared for an operation, Zak lookedpainfully exposed and vulnerable, and as he was shavedand washed in the relevant areas, waves of empathy fromthe men watching went out to him. The women presentfound our discomfort hugely amusing.
Once he was opened up, the avocado-size testicle wasinstantly declared cancerous, and its black and purplestriations clearly indicated the presence of this malignnemesis of so many animals and people. Luckily, evenwhen advanced, dogs and wolves hardly ever getsecondary cancers from the testicular region—unlikehumans. But the sound of a vas deferens, the small strandof connecting tissue between the testicle and the bodycavity, being cut, is not a pleasant one. There is muchcrunching of gristle, and much wincing and crossing of legsin the audience. His other testicle, pinkish white and normalsize—more like a big conker in the shape of a kidney bean—was also declared a potential health hazard, since itcould have been contaminated by its neighbor, and thesecond set of crunching and cutting was far worse, as itwas into healthy tissue. When the second ostensibly healthytesticle clanged into the metal dish, it was a poignantmoment, and every man present felt something, thoughexactly what, it was hard to pin down. Mainly, probably,never to let the medical profession anywhere near yourgonads. Though we had saved Zak so that he could live tolead the pack another day, it could hardly be described asa good day for him. But he made a full recovery, andworries that his empty scrotum might impinge on hisleadership abilities were unfounded, as Zak went on toprovide his pack, and his successor in waiting, the slightlypathetic Parker, with guidance and leadership for severalmore months.
Next in line was Solomon, king of the beasts, the hugelyimpressive male African lion. This really was a routinereversible vasectomy, as one day we will probably try tobreed from him, but at the moment the production of a lioncub would have been seen by the zoo world asirresponsible. Although slightly smaller than Vlad, Solomonis arguably the most impressive cat we have. At around230 kilos, or more than five hundred pounds, he, his mane,and his roar are truly epic. Tigers don’t roar, but thisawesome sound is high in Solomon’s arsenal of weaponsof terror. I feel it is worth reiterating that, in nature, you don’tgenerally get to hear this sound from so close and live. AsSolomon blasted Steve with his Death Roar from theconfines of his house, his lips curled back revealing daggerteeth, presenting highly alarming visual as well as auditorystimuli, I watched Steve brace himself and resist thetemptation to back to the far wall of the narrow corridor.
Steve bided his time and soon got the dart in Solomon’sflank. When I next visited the scene, Solomon was out cold,the door was open, and the vet was stitching up the lion’sback end, utterly undaunted by the sheer scale of hispatient. I was not undaunted, however. Solomon’s flankswere absolutely huge, and the gory procedure going on inhis most intimate region would surely be a source ofdispleasure should he wake up. John was there on firearmsduty, but otherwise there was an open door between himand the park. When Kelly, positioned at the head endinside the enclosure (the other lions were locked away intheir parts of the house), started to report that he wasblinking—i.e., that the anaesthetic was beginning to wearoff—I looked for signs of panic, or at least increased workrate from the vet. After all, doing what he was doing, he’dprobably be number one on Solomon’s hit list should hecome around. But the vet remained unperturbed, andcontinued his methodical stitching as if he were operatingon a house cat in the comfort of his practice. A few minuteslater, it was done, and the vet and others stepped in withSolomon to microchip him and move him clear of the door.
This was also performed with nonchalance, though perhapsnow just a hint of urgency. Then, mission accomplished,everyone stepped clear, the door was closed, and normalsecurity levels were resumed. And Solomon bounced backfrom his ordeal to happily fire off his blanks, in accordancewith our license requirements.
The final vasectomy, which I didn’t witness and was alittle uncomfortable about, was Vlad’s—again, carried outin his house, decreed from on high in case he impregnatedhis two sisters, the absurdly named Blotch and Stripe.
These three tigers were bred illegally and hand-reared,despite an obvious genetic defect in the line andoverrepresentation of this strain of Siberian tigers in thegene pool. This was one of the reasons Ellis, the previousowner, had run afoul of the authorities, and all three tigerswere classified as “Display Only,” and not to be bred from.
This I didn’t mind, but what bothered me was that tigers areparticularly susceptible to dying under anaesthetic. Vlad’sbrother, Ivan, had died during a routine procedure someyears before, and Tasmin’s heart had stopped somemonths before, while she was being investigated for anongoing kidney problem. In that instance, only Duncan’sfast response in alerting the vet, who was walking back tohis car at the time, saved her, and she was quickly giventhe antidote to bring her round. As Vlad’s amorous effortswith his sister had so far, in seven years, resulted in noillegal offspring, I was reluctant to have him tampered withat the possible risk of his life. I liked Vlad a lot—he is anice, friendly boy—and the machinery of state intervention,coupled with a mild snobbery about his lack of strictzoological value, I felt, was exposing him to unnecessaryrisks. But by now I was a bit battle weary, and with my standon the wolves and monkeys and various other issues, itwas probably a good time to let a few slide past. Theoperation was a success, and Vlad returned to duty thenext day.
The money was ebbing, but at last we had an inspectiondate, set for 4 June, which gave us an all-or-nothingdeadline to work toward. Everybody pitched in,occasionally getting a little high on resources, sending outfor new tools or equipment with relative abandon. The corestaff we had inherited were brilliant improvisers—they hadhad to be for many years as the fortunes of the parkdeclined. Instead of buying new metal bars, for instance, Iencouraged salvaging existing ones that were liberallyscattered around. There was an estimated acre of scrapbehind the restaurant, for instance, containing old cars,even lorries and the long-forgotten husk of an old dumpertruck, as well as perhaps twenty fridges, innumerable tiresand wheels, bits of wood, and a thousand other things“stored” for future use at some indefinite time in the future,which never came. We did a deal with a local scrapmerchant, who arrived with a large flatbed truck with agrabber on it and a mini digger (which he kindly lent to uswhen he wasn’t using it). The deal was that he could haveeverything, except the choicest bits of metal that we couldrecycle, in exchange for clearing the site. “No problem,” hesaid, delighted. “It’ll take about five days.” Nine weeks later,he was still loading up his lorry every day with more metalobjects dragged from the ground. Although 95 percent waspure, unadulterated rubbish, in the meantime we hadsalvaged all kinds of useful things, including double-glazedpanels of glass miraculously unbroken, some perfectlyuseable fence posts, and enough scrap angle iron tofabricate a small enclosure. The first object fabricatedentirely from the salvaged scrap was a trailer for thekeepers’ new quad bikes that John made in less than aweek, using wheels from an old sit-on mower. That trailer isstill in service today.
The quad bikes, however, are not. Or rather, one of themis, just. Duncan’s idea to buy cheap quad bikes as amorale booster for the staff backfired at first, when thewrong people ended up using them for the wrong reasons.
Instead of Hannah and Kelly’s workload being lightened,they still seemed to be pushing heavy barrows of meat orbedding up steep paths, while junior maintenance staff andcasual employees thrashed around the park on the bikesdoing minor errands. The quad bikes deteriorated rapidly,and spent more and more time being fixed or waiting forparts. This caused a lot of bad will, and several meetingswere held where strict protocols were implemented for theuse of the quads. The person who was least happy about itwas probably Rob, head keeper and long-sufferinggrandson of Ellis. “What’s wrong with walking?” he’d ask.
“It’s part of what working in a place like this is all about.”
Though well-intentioned, the purchase of the quad bikestaught us a lesson about tampering with the ecosystem wehad inherited.
My own gift to the keepers was on a smaller scale, andcaused less controversy. Ten headlamps, distributedthroughout the staff, had made working in the dark winterevenings, in the absence of exterior lighting (and evenlights inside some of the big cat houses) safer and morebearable. “I haven’t heard a word said against them,” saidRob. Though by spring, every one of them had been lost orbroken. On a lighter note, in the lighter evenings we didn’tneed them.
The peacocks were another welcome part of that spring,pouting and preening their quite unbelievably over-the-topplumage for all they were worth. Peacocks seem to havebeen designed by a flamboyant madman, probably ofIndian extraction given the fine detailing, though with morethan a nod toward the tastes of Liberace. Even in reposethey are stunning, their impossibly blue heads and neckssuddenly giving way to equally unlikely green and goldfeathers laid like scales from halfway down their backs.
These in turn abruptly change into their famous long tailfeathers, many of them around a meter, easily three timesas long as the males’ bodies. As if this is not enough, as anafterthought their heads are embellished with more bluetippedfeathers on narrow stalks, which blossom out in ananimal parody of a Roman centurion’s helmet. And why thehell not? you think. They’ve gone this far. It seems the onlylimit to their opulence is the almost boundless confines ofthe imagination of their Indian Liberace designer.
In the sunshine, watching these extravagant birds, I found,was uniquely cheering. Their sheer physical beauty wasuplifting, a symbol that, even striding around with a mobilephone stuck to my ear, I was somewhere unusual,worthwhile, and with a hint of the exotic. And they werehighly amusing, too. These pea brains would launch theirshimmering fan at anything that moved, and quite a fewthings that didn’t. The older males, with their magnificenttails, shimmered in the sunlight, flashing their wares at theducks, cockerels, and moorhens, who studiously ignoredthem or walked away embarrassed. But they also targetedpicnic benches, footballs, plant pots, and even the cats(which upset these still slightly nervous felines no end). Onlyoccasionally, it seemed, did they actually display theirwares to the correct subject, a peahen, who is supposed tobe so impressed with this array that nothing less will do. Butthey didn’t seem impressed either, and often wandered offleaving some hapless male shimmering away at nothing,abandoned as if halfway through a promising first date. Inthe whole mating season I think I witnessed only onesuccessful copulation, and there was certainly only onepregnant female by the end of it.
I also loved the peacocks because of their place inevolution, or rather in the explanation of it. As an occasionalwriter on evolutionary psychology, particularly regardingmale behavior, I often used the peacock’s tail as shorthandfor some elaborate and expensive male display designedto attract females. There are strong arguments in favor ofthe idea that the entire human cortex—metabolically themost expensive organ we possess— evolved with mateattraction in mind. Similarly, humor, hunting, risk taking, andred Porsche 911s can all be shorthanded as peacock’stail-type phenomena. You look for other examples, oftentoward the birds of paradise, but their elaborate displaysand one-off shock-tactic plumage, though certainlyridiculous, have nothing on the sheer extravagance of theencumbrance the peacock has landed himself with. Thepoint of the tail is that it is very expensive to produce andmaintain—like the Porsche, or cortex—and having one is adefinite drain on resources. A human neocortex requires 40percent of our calories, and a Porsche costs a lot to buy,and, subject to legal action pending at the time of writing,may become almost as costly to drive in central London,where most of them surely live. But the peacock’s tail reallyhampers him, drawing massive attention from predatorsand making evasion much more difficult. The weightimpedes take-off, and you rarely see them attempt morethan a wing-assisted hop when in full plumage. This pointwas illustrated graphically a few years previously, when,according to Robin, the bears were moved into their newenclosure in woodland frequented by peacocks. “Yes, ittook them a while to get used to the change,” said Robinmildly. “The bears ate mainly peacocks in the first week.”
Having landed, the birds were startled by and then poorlyequipped to evade the three fast-moving, voraciouspredators, and this lesson in natural selection is fascinatingto me. Watching them parade this incredibly expensivedisplay so poorly, and at such inappropriate objects, whilechildren play football around them, I have to think that,having gone to all that trouble, squandering the display on acamera bag or a tree stump seems marvelous in itsprofligacy. It really does say to me, to borrow Dawkins’
phrase from his famous book on Darwinian theory, that theWatchmaker was blind. Just an extra gram of neural tissue,you would think, would be a better investment, but not whenthe market, evolved through rigorous sexual selection, is inexpensive tails. I had a soft spot for the peacocks. So I wasdisturbed to learn that Owen, our star bird keeper, hadtaken it upon himself to cull four of them, citingovercrowding. I suspected there was more to it than this,because Owen, like Sarah, had told me that he didn’t seethe zoo as a place where non-exotic animals, or morespecifically, “animals of no zoological significance,” shouldbe kept. Most of the hundred or so birds in the walk-inenclosure—mainly chickens, geese, and ducks—hadgradually disappeared—culled apparently by somesystemic parasitic infection that was too advanced to treatand that was a health risk to the more zoologicallysignificant rare birds we had and planned to acquire in thefuture. But several neighbors and farmers were contactedand invited to take the birds, subject to their own healthcheck, and many were saved, going on to produce manyeggs for many other people. Adam in particularoccasionally taunted me that he enjoyed a particularly fineduck egg for breakfast. This culling, deemed necessary,particularly upset Mum, who had enjoyed being followedaround by this raggedy brood while feeding them, anexperience, standing in her own park, which seemed adaily reminder of the remarkable distance she had traveledin her life since childhood. It upset me too, and indicated alevel of disagreement with the new keeper-staff, which wasto culminate in a fiery meeting about the direction of thepark a few weeks down the line. More of that later.
In the meantime, I went along with this and other, to me,quite radical measures, simply because there wasn’t timeto contest everything, and nor was it wise to challenge theorthodoxy on everything I felt uncertain about. Zookeepersare a little bit like paramilitaries. They wear big boots andcombat trousers, they communicate with walkie-talkies, andthey do a dangerous job that sometimes involves firearms.
To come up through their ranks requires a lot of disciplineand dedication, as well as conformity to the establishedorthodoxy. I couldn’t do it. Arguably, I have a modicum ofself-discipline (though I can imagine my dad snorting withderision at this assertion), but external discipline oftenseems to rankle with me. Duncan tried to be a zookeeperonce, for about six months in the reptile house at LondonZoo, and it wasn’t for him either. “I remember my first day,”
says Duncan. “The man in charge of me held up a broom,told me what it was, and then showed me how to use it, byputting the head on the floor and then pushing it out in frontof you repeatedly. It took a while for it to dawn on me that Iwas standing here being shown by a grown man how tosweep a floor.” Having been fully trained, he thought, inthese esoteric cleaning arts, after a few days he made aninnovation. “The head of the broom kept falling off, so Ipopped a nail into it and trebled the efficiency. But thebloke was livid. ‘Who told you to do that?’ he yelled, andwith good reason, it turned out.” Apparently the head wasleft loose because it was sometimes necessary to go inwith the alligators to clean around these slow-movingthrowbacks, and the broom was the keeper’s maindefense. “The idea is that if an alligator ever made a movefor you, you offered it the broom and it would bite the headoff and retreat, thinking it had got something. And then atleast you still had the handle, instead of it being yanked outof your hand and thrashing about the place.” So there wasmethod in this apparent madness (though this arguablymost important part of the training had been lacking), butsome of what Duncan encountered just seemed like plainmadness.
“The Galapagos tortoises had beak rot and weren’tbreeding, so I decided to use my lunch hours to look into it,”
he says. London Zoo is home to one of the mostcomprehensive zoological libraries in the world, but as atrainee keeper in the early 1980s, Duncan wasn’t allowedaccess to it. “They made it really hard, and it was as if theygenuinely didn’t understand what I wanted to do in there.”
Eventually Duncan got in, and found that the only zoo tosuccessfully breed these huge, long-lived reptiles—one atLondon at the time was thought to have been brought backby Charles Darwin—was San Diego. Reading their papersand contacting their staff, he learned that the beak rot wascaused by eating bananas, which stick to the lower part ofthe jaw. In the wild, such matter is brushed off by the longgrass through which the tortoises walk, but in London theyweren’t, so the beak rots. Duncan took his findings to thesenior keeper in charge of the reptiles, expecting to beable to implement the necessary changes, and possiblyeven be thanked for his efforts. In fact, the old man said,“I’ve been doing this job for twenty years. Who are you totell me how to do my job?
Fuck off.” Science, they say, advances funeral by funeral.
Duncan isn’t the type to wait around, so he left to becomehis own boss, importing marine fish from the tropics.
Now we both found ourselves running a zoo—or trying to—and while we knew we had to listen to and closely followwhat we were told by our advisors, from keepers to curatorto council, we also knew that there would be times when wewould be able to innovate. Business managers know thatoften the best innovators are not insiders. Our trouble wasthat we weren’t really business managers either. But atleast we were outsiders.
We also knew that, for now, we all had to work together,and to use the Environmental Health officer PeterWearden’s phrase, “ticking the right boxes,” was whatcounted most in the run-up to the inspection. Sometimesthose boxes could be ticked, after a struggle, via a differentchain of events from those prescribed or recommended,like with the wolf dispute, or the monkeys, but this alwaystook time, and invariably, during the hiatus beforeresolution, our fragile credibility would be eroded. Until thebox was actually ticked, when it became an invisible issue,and everything moved toward the next box. Time we did nothave, and we had to get as many boxes ticked as possiblebefore our inspection, now set firmly for 4 June. We had toenter into a box-ticking frenzy, otherwise the bankers andthe lawyers would gleefully produce their own clipboards,offering much less room to maneuver, and with much lessfriendly boxes.
There was an exhilarating sense of teamwork—a trulyflexible, skilled, and dedicated team working together toachieve a common aim. On paper, this was our business,and everyone was an employee contriving, in the long run,to produce profits for us. In actuality, I don’t think anyonethought like this—least of all us. Day in, day out, it felt likewe were all battling to save a beleaguered public resource,and most important, a collection of beleaguered animals,safe for the future. And if we failed, the consequences wereunthinkable. Tourette Tony did an excellent job, swearinghis way through countless setbacks, dancing his diggerthrough ridiculously skillful and efficient maneuvers, andworking himself and his team as hard as was humanlypossible. Anna and Steve were absolutely invaluable, Annahandling the complicated paperwork, feeding back to usexactly which boxes we needed to tick, and exactly how,while Steve deployed himself as laborer, keeper,supervisor, roller driver—whatever he needed to be.
Hannah, Kelly, Paul, John, and Rob alternated betweenkeeping and maintenance tasks, and a crew of temporarylaborers got stuck with unpleasant tasks like dredging slimymoats, sweeping acres of wet leaves, and tensioninghundreds of meters of new fence mesh, which bites into thehands, made more painful by the chilly breeze. Owen andSarah led their troop of junior keepers from the front,working incredibly hard, leading, training, and instillingappropriate modern practices, though a little harshly itseemed to me at times—Owen told me that to train anovice you had to “break them down and build them upagain, sometimes.” This didn’t chime with my preferred(though admittedly made-up-as-I-went-along) managementtechnique, but then I wasn’t from that culture. Inevitably, thison going process had its occasional rows and threatenedwalkouts, but the overall atmosphere was of everyoneknuckling down and doing whatever was necessary. It wasgoing as well as it could. And then came the rain.
After the exceptionally sunny and buoyant May, weentered the wettest June in the UK for a hundred years. TheSouthwest suffered just over twice the averageprecipitation since records began in 1914, but it felt like itrained every single day. The gnawing doubts of whether wecould accomplish the task in the allotted time returned.
Working in waterproofs, many tasks like fencing and barrierreplacements could still be achieved. But things likewelding outside, concreting, chain-saw work, and often,using the digger, were out of the question.
The peacocks, so recently a symbol of hope, now lookedbedraggled. One female sat on the grass verge outside thetoilets for several weeks, and when I asked the keepers ifshe was okay, it turned out that she was roosting someeggs. In the rain. Within a few yards of where she sat was aperfectly viable bush, which would at least have providedsome cover from the elements and, at least as important,foxes. But this dumb-assed bird—apparently the only oneto succumb to the male’s elaborate, evolutionarilyexpensive spring display—persisted in trying to rear herdelicate brood fully exposed to the elements and predators.
Eventually three eggs hatched, and she wisely moved herlittle ones around each night, but as they grew and sheroamed further afield—she and her little trio of actually quitepretty chicks, desperately trying to keep up with their mum—we gradually lost track of them, and I can’t honestly saywhether any of them survived or not.
Even in the rain there was much to do, both inside andout, and I threw myself into work. By now, less than threemonths after Katherine’s death, I could notice significantphysiological changes in my response. Mainly, I didn’t feelso leaden, as if the life had been sapped out of me with herpassing—though my Stella Artois diet, much reduced butstill a significant part of my routine to get to sleep afterputting the kids to bed, was expanding my waistline so that,in reality, my physical leadenness was actually increasing.
But the energy within was beginning to return. The manydaily triggers were becoming more recognizable and morebearable, I was much less likely to be wrong-footed bysomething unexpected, and the amount of crying I neededto do gradually reduced. I would occasionally beoverwhelmed by dipping into the enormity of what we hadlost. A couple of brief but necessary trips to London, everypart of which I seemed to have visited with Katherine,during this period were particularly horrible. But generally, Icould feel it was getting better. And the children seemed tobe thriving at the new school, and adapting with themalleable resilience of the very young.
Obviously they were still profoundly affected, and I madesure that I kept talking to them whenever they wanted me to.
Increasingly, though, they seemed to be protecting me—and themselves—from my grief, which must have beenalarming for them, but was impossible (and I thought,inadvisable) to hide in the early stages. They confidedoccasionally to friends and neighbors, and Amelia, whotrickled their concerns back to me. Once they both came upwith the idea of wearing one of Katherine’s jumpers in bed,and as I rummaged through her drawers of neatly foldedclothes, last visited during those all too memorable weeksof dressing and undressing her, I felt myself becomingincreasingly upset. Milo, watching closely, smiled andwagged his figure at me, saying good-naturedly, “Uh, uh,uuh, Daddy. Don’t turn on the tears.” It cheered me up noend and I promised him that I wouldn’t, and reassured himagain that whenever he wanted to talk about Mummy Iwouldn’t cry. Which is where we are now.
Outside in the park, the inspection date loomed, and therain often made it impossible to see farther than a fewyards. We persevered, and even a few weeks before theinspection, the mood on the ground was lifting; theconsensus seemed to be that we had “ticked enoughboxes” to show willingness. It is almost unheard of for a zoothat has had its license withdrawn to haul itself back fromthe abyss, but the feeling was that we were probably goingto do it—though we couldn’t afford to slack off for an instant.
Our short resumé looked good. We had the right people,the right intentions, and if not quite the right amount ofmoney, at least we were spending it in the right way. One ofthe most important parts of our license requirement was theconservation measures we were going to implement. Steveand Anna have good contacts with an endangered speciesprogram in Sri Lanka, and Owen and Sarah’s back catalogof successes was filtering through to us with promises ofbreeding programs for the future, which also scored uspoints. As did creatures like Ronnie, the officially“Vulnerable” tapir, and Sovereign, our prize stud-book jag.
But increasingly, local conservation measures are seen asat least equally important. Fortunately, we were in a goodposition to implement many. On the edge of Dartmoor,itself a thriving habitat of many species that are decliningnationally, we were perfectly placed to help endangeredanimals of the much less glamorous variety. Like dormice,horseshoe bats, vulnerable ground-nesting birds, newts,snails, and even certain mosses and lichens. One species Ialready knew a tiny bit about was a certain kind of fritillarybutterfly thought to have one of its last toeholds in thecountry in Dartmoor, which I happened to have writtenabout briefly for the Guardian. I called the ButterflyConservation Society (“Butterfly Conservay-shun, how canwe help you?” they cooed), who informed me that we couldwork to provide habitats on our land that could be suitablefor butterflies. We already had a couple of acres ofdedicated conservation woodland, but the requirements forspecific plants may have been detrimental to what wasalready there. They would welcome a donation. Er, maybeone day.
Another thwarted effort was the Dartmoor pony, down tofewer than nine hundred breeding mares (making it evenrarer than that conservation figurehead the giant panda),and subject of a concerted local campaign to protect themfrom ruthless landowners who sometimes shoot them orsell them for meat rather than pay the newly introduced ￡20fee for a horse passport, now required under Europeanlaw. The idea is to register animals that may pass into thehuman food chain so that any veterinary drugs they haveconsumed can be monitored. The reality is that a Dartmoorpony can be sold for as little as a pint of milk, and manyhard-pressed farmers simply can’t afford to comply with thepassport law. Charities are looking for landowners who canoffer paddocks to small herds of ponies, who areperiodically transported back to certain areas of the moorto graze and manage it as only these tough little indigenouscritters can. My sister Melissa researched and promotedthe scheme, having once kept a Dartmoor pony—Aphrodite—who had a stubborn but gentle temperament. Iremember Aphrodite fondly, nonchalantly standing outsidein the snow, with icicles clinking from her whiskers, trying toreassure a namby-pamby semi-Thoroughbred in its heatedstable, wearing a thick horse coat, who had caught a cold.
This local project sounded perfect, and I brought up plans todevote eight acres, which would support about eight totwelve small ponies, to this admirable aim. But I hit a brickwall: it didn’t tick any boxes. Dartmoor ponies may beendangered, but the actual species, Horse (Caballus), canonly be described as thriving. Dartmoor ponies wereartificially bred by humans a few centuries ago, probably towork in the local tin mines, and count as a breed, ratherthan an endangered species. It’s like trying to save theSiamese cat, or the Staffordshire bull terrier. Of interest tolocal breeders perhaps, but zoologically insignificant. Thisseemed to me a particularly irritating pill to swallow, butagain, time was not on our side, and we had to do whatwas necessary to get our license, rather than what wethought we might like.
One local scheme, which I did manage to include as acentral plank of our conservation strategy, was reinstatinghedgerows. There are an estimated couple of kilometers ofhedgerow bordering and crisscrossing our thirty acres,most of it depleted and sparse, providing little of the richhabitat for local wildlife it once did. Some hedgerows(though not, it has to be said, ours) are more than sevenhundred years old. Properly maintained, hedgerows aregiant elongated ecosystems in their own right, acting ascorridors for wildlife to pass along, and protecting manywildflowers, plants, insects, birds, and mammals thatexperience difficulties when out in the open. We also hadpockets of different kinds of hawthorn, which could betransplanted from other parts of the site, and this project,fortunately, was given an enthusiastic thumbs-up by theauthorities. It also ticked my own personal box for a longterm,slow intervention, a gradual enhancement of thebroader ecosystem of the park, unlikely to provide shocks,but very likely to provide long-term benefits and educationalopportunities—and security, as thick hedgerows are agood barrier against intruders, as well as certain errantexotic animals. And—AND—where we took out hawthorn, itfreed up space for other uses, like public viewing areas. Itwent into the plan, and we set about putting out feelers forthose wise in the ways of the hedgerow to train us up.
Fortunately, in this area of Devon, these old countrysidepractices still go on, and I looked forward to one day beingable to lose myself in the ancient art of coppicing for a fewhours a day before too long.
Meanwhile, over at the restaurant, the ringmaster Adamwas gradually drawing everything together, though it tookan experienced eye to discern through the chaos that somecoherence was emerging. The kitchen was still“shambolic,” as was the eating area and the shop—covered in sawdust and work tools—which somehow hadto be transformed into clear public access or commercialspace. But there were signs that it was changing for thebetter. The vile ceiling had been covered with crisp newplasterboard, then skimmed with plaster to an almostethereal smoothness by three men in less than a week,which at four hundred square meters was pretty goodgoing. Mind you, it had to be. It had to dry, be painted, andhave the lovely, new, brushed-chrome flush spotlights(Katherine would have approved) installed.
There had been much talk of off-whites, even strongcolors, being used on the walls, but Mum and I stuck to ourguns: everything was going to be white. With the oak floor,oak counter and bar, and brushed-steel details, this vastroom was going to give posh London restaurants a run fortheir money.
Remember that design meeting I was in when the wolfescaped? We didn’t use those people for our leaflets in theend, as their mock-ups were much too fussy. (Instead afriend from London volunteered to finish off what Katherinehad started, much more in her style; thanks, Paul.) Butsomething good did come out of the meeting. When Ioutlined my ideas for the overall aesthetic for the restaurant,and ultimately the park, mentioning Terence Conran as aguiding principle, one of the designers came up with theexcellent description “Conran meets Out of Africa.” Ijumped on it readily. (Pretentious? Moi?) Howeverpompous this model may sound, if we could pull it off I wascertain it would work in the market we were aiming for.
Good design is becoming more mainstream, and modernbuildings are springing up in zoos as fast as they areanywhere else. Bristol Zoo recently spent ￡1,000,000 on anew monkey house that looks like it could feature in aSwedish Grand Designs program. People who regularlyeat at McDonald’s won’t actually be put off by understatedgood taste (well, “good taste” in my humble subjectiveopinion anyway), nor will they be put off by good food, aslong as it is reasonably priced. Besides, my mostoptimistic interpretation of our business plan was that we(and the surrounding roads) could probably only support amaximum of 200,000 to 220,000 visitors a year, and oneday we may have to raise prices to limit the numbers. Whynot prepare for that market now? It was easy to get aheadof yourself (our most pressing aspiration, to just breakeven, with 60,000 visitors, was thought by many to beoptimistic) in the upbeat atmosphere of the restaurant,particularly with Adam in “can do” mode, still jugglingquotes and materials, and interviewing catering staff on avery tight timeline. Looking at the progress, and looking atAdam, I knew he was going to succeed. This wasabsolutely vital, as the restaurant was going to be thefinancial engine of the zoo—and, ideally, somewhere Icould eat without having to worry about cleaning up for thenext twenty-five years.
As another vital part of the business plan, we had to haveat least one good kiosk, ideally two, or if the hugelysuccessful nearby Paignton Zoo was anything to go by, oneevery fifty meters. Adam rejected a ready-made buildingnext to the future petting zoo, a configuration of facilitiesthrough which I have been milked for tea, cake, and icecream many times since becoming a parent. Owenpounced on the building to incubate birds’ eggs on publicdisplay instead, while Adam made a strong case forfocusing on a purpose-built kiosk at the top of the picnicarea. Obviously this site needed a kiosk one day, but I wasdisappointed that he was eschewing an existing building,and I took some persuading that we should initially obtainwhat sounded like a quite expensive shed, instead ofwaiting and putting in a modern, curvy model that had justwon the award for Best Leisure Facility Kiosk in Denmark(so many awards, so little time). But Adam was adamant:
the outlay of ￡2,000 would repay itself in a single goodsummer’s day by keeping people in the best part of thepark, marveling at the proximity of the tigers on TigerMountain, being treated occasionally to the lions’ roar andthe wolves’ howl, and buying tea, cake, ice cream, and, aswe are in the Southwest, pasties like there was notomorrow.
As an aside, I have learned two things about pasties, ormeat pies, since I came here. One is that the thick outer rimof crust, which in an authentic pasty clogs up your mouthlike a packet of cheese crackers, is not actually meant tobe eaten, because it was designed to be the handle bywhich the meal was held in the grubby hands of miners ontheir lunch break. Sorry if you already knew this, but Ienjoyed the discovery because it makes me feel less guiltyabout leaving that dehydrating arc of carbohydrate, orthrowing it away to be eaten by ants. Organic,biodegradable handles and food packaging, generally, arethings we should be thinking about now, but they werealready being addressed as early as 1510. Which bringsme to the second thing I’ve learned. The “Cornish pasty”
was invented in Devon. Yeah, where I live. It was recentlydiscovered that 1510 was the first recorded date when apasty was mentioned, in the accounts of the council for thecity of Plymouth. Which is in Devon. Across the Tamar river,“there be monsters,” and this can be proved by the nextmention of the pasty, in 1746, when this Devonian recipewas allegedly stolen by pirates and introduced to Cornwall.
What kind of pirates were these? Outriders for somedespotic, early Martha Stewart? The irrefutable factremains, at the moment, that the pasty came from Devon.
So get used to it, Cornwall. And yes, everybody alreadyknows that pasties originally had two chambers, one savoryand one of fruit filling, the world’s first two-courseconvenience meal. Even I knew that.
The Great Pasty Debate apparently continues to rageacrimoniously between the two counties, though I mustadmit, in eighteen months here, I have never overheard asingle word of it. And frankly, now, I’m getting a bit sick ofpasties.
So Adam persuaded me that the new structure would bea good use of our rapidly depleting funds, and called meover the radio to watch it arrive. I still had my reservations,in the driving June rain. It still seemed an expensive optioncompared with refitting the existing building a hundredyards away, and, to me, a bit too square. The team thatarrived to erect the prefabricated structure was resolutelyprofessional, working efficiently through the rain on a smallsite we had paced out and leveled to the kiosk’srequirements. Once again I had a small opportunity to getinvolved in some DIY construction, supplying the oddhammer blow here, lifting a panel or two there, and Irelished it. But once the structure was up, the teamswarmed around it, fitting it out with internal panels andhammering down the roofing felt, and there was nothing forme to do, apart from stand back in the picnic area andmarvel at how good it looked. Square or not, it looked like ithad always been here, like it definitely belonged, and it waseasy to get excited about the possibility of queues ofpaying customers lining up outside it. Though not in thisweather . . .
The kiosk was a very important part of the overall planand, as the business side of the venture, absolutely had towork. The animals, obviously, came first, but withoutsatisfied customers— and lots of them—they faced anuncertain future. The inspection was only days away, andthough it would focus on animal welfare, some attentionwould also be paid to the facilities for the public. Thenumber of toilets, the state of the paths, disabled access,adequate stand-off barriers to prevent people’s limbs beingsheared off by giant carnivores, that sort of thing. What theinspector would not do—could not do—is tell us whether itwas going to work as a business. That was down to us, theweather, an element of luck, and whether the localreputation of the park was already too irretrievablytarnished in the public mind. And that was a bit scary.
Inspection Day dawned a rare sunny morning, whichaugured well, though the pre-exam nerves infectedeveryone. As I met the keepers before the inspectorarrived, they were barely recognizable. Smartly dressed—and clean! Normally mud spattered and sweat drenched,this crew of hardened workers who would think nothing ofthrowing themselves into a mire in pursuit of an injuredanimal, shoveling barrowloads of excrement, or coveringthemselves with blood while stripping down a horsecarcass, suddenly looked like normal people, like you mightmeet out on the street. I didn’t even know that Steve had asmart jacket, but here he was, looking slightly ill at ease init, chain-smoking roll-ups while we waited for the examinerto arrive. I was particularly nervous, which took me bysurprise, because I had taken soundings from everyoneinvolved and had been persuaded that we had “almostcertainly” done enough to pass. It was that “almost” thatsuddenly came home to roost as we waited.
The government-appointed inspector arrived with PeterWearden, who would actually issue the license, should thatbe the recommendation. Peter winked at me, which wasslightly reassuring, but the matter was out of his hands. Theinspector, Nick Jackson, ran his own small zoo, a secondgenerationfamily operation with an international reputation,in Wales. So, he knew how to run a good zoo. We justhoped that he could discern the seeds of one in what wehad done. The walk-around—normally an unequivocalpleasure, showing people what we had got and what weaimed to do and watching them transform from wide-eyedskeptics to energized enthusiasts by the end of it—suddenly became deadly serious. Mr. Jackson was beingpaid to ask difficult questions, from a position of extremeinsight, and nothing was off-limits. He went into every singleanimal house, exposed every single area where we werelacking, and asked the most difficult questions. Meanwhile,Peter, in his role as Health and Safety Officer for SouthHams Council, had some criticisms of his own. “Robin’sNest,” for instance, where Robin had retreated to carry outhis enclosure design work and the construction of signs,was a loft that, no one had seemed to notice or thinkstrange, ended with an abrupt drop, next to his desk, oftwenty feet down to the concrete floor of the workshopbelow. Obviously, Robin was aware of this and knew to stayaway from the edge, but equally obvious was the fact that itwasn’t safe. “I want this addressed immediately,” he barkeduncharacteristically. “And I mean TODAY.” Other obviousoversights were the lack of signs on the doors of thedangerous animal houses for when people were working inthe enclosures. “If I was working out there, I’d like to knowthat there was a sign on the door telling the keepers not torelease the cats, just in case of a breakdown ofcommunication,” said Mr. Jackson. Though our operationwas small enough and tight enough for everyone to knowwhat everyone else was doing, it was a fair point, andDuncan radioed to Robin, who, his dangerous nest alreadybeing worked on, immediately began implementing thisrecommendation. I didn’t help; for want of something to saywhile we waited for the keys to arrive to the tiger house, Ipointed out that there was blood on the padlock of theexternal door. The inspector looked sharply at me andsmiled. “I hadn’t noticed that,” he said. “Poor workingpractices.” And he made a note. Damn.
At about five o’clock the inquisition was over, and rarelyhave I felt so relieved. But the day wasn’t over yet. Wemoved to the office, where everyone sat down and endureda full two-and-a-half-hour debriefing, going over every pointraised and being given some indication of our score on it. Itwas almost as grueling as the inspection itself, andalthough it was useful feedback in that we had scored quitewell, it still wasn’t conclusive, as the final report wouldcontain extra material. I was relieved that my padlockremark, though drawing attention to our deficits, hadactually played quite well, and was singled out by theinspector as part of “a culture of openness,” apparentlyquite lacking at previous inspections over the years. Hehad also asked for private interviews with keepers andother staff, away from their employers breathing down theirnecks, and had been impressed by what he had heard fromthem about their interpretation of what we were doing andwhere we were going. So no need to sack anybody there,then (just kidding). Unless, of course, the result came backwith “Application Declined,” in which case everybody wouldbe looking for new jobs.
I remember the next day vividly. I was (stupidly)unexpectedly exhausted, sitting on a bench outside thehouse with the children, when Rob came up to me. “I can’twork any longer with Steve,” he said. Rob was headkeeper, Steve was the curator, and their relationship wasvital to the smooth running of the zoo. This should havebeen a bombshell. I should have felt panicky, or at leastalarmed, but instead I felt, from very deep down, Whatever.
I felt that we owed a lot to Rob. He had held on to the park,keeping it out of the developer’s hands by taking on thecollection under the Dangerous Wild Animals (DWA)legislation when the license to display the collection held byhis grandfather was withdrawn. I had spoken to him andexchanged many e-mails during the negotiating periodwhen I was in France. Rob was one of the most importantpeople involved in us getting the park. I didn’t want to loseRob, partly because we owed him, and also because hewas multi-skilled, and had a depth of knowledge about thepark that would be impossible to replicate.
I waited. He suggested moving to working on thegrounds instead, which, after brief consideration, I thoughtwas a very good idea. With thirty acres to tend, we neededa dedicated grounds person (though we couldn’t reallyafford one), and Rob was a qualified tree surgeon whoknew the park as well as anyone. He needed a lessstressfuljob due to a change in his personalcircumstances, as he was now single-handedly lookingafter a daughter he hadn’t seen in four years. Moving togrounds would take him from under the direct control ofSteve, with whom he had a stormy relationship that seemedto reach the breaking point roughly every two weeks. UnderTony, with whom he had a less-uneasy relationship, hecould work outside, not worrying about other people’s rotasor changes in procedures he had grown up with beingimplemented by the new regime. He also knew a bit aboutthe many exotic plants that flourish all over the park, mostlygrown from cuttings by the green-fingered Ellis. (I havebrown fingers; any plant in my care automatically shrivelsand dies, though Rob told us early on that one rare plant, akind of creeper, had thwarted Ellis for forty years, but thatas soon as we arrived it had started to sprout leaves. Thiswas a strange, apocryphal tale that was nevertheless niceto hear.) It would be a simpler life for Rob, and I almostenvied him.
Steve was also delighted, and suggested that he wouldspend more time out in the park with the staff,encompassing the head keeper role, leaving more of theadministrative side of his job to his eminently capable wife,Anna. Everybody seemed to be pleased with this newconfiguration, and I felt a bit like a soccer manager who hadcome up with a new way of deploying players; instead of 4-4-2, we were going for a radical 1-1-8. Or something. Ihave to admit I’m a bit shaky on soccer, but that’s roughlywhat it felt like. Probably.
So, oddly jaded but also rejuvenated, we all set aboutfilling the time until we heard our fate. We had to assumewe would pass the inspection and open soon, but when,exactly, we could not predict. This was a complicatedissue, because publicity material needed to be printed withdates and opening times for distribution all around thecounty. When the printers, up against their last possibledeadlines, pressured us for information, we simply didn’tknow. In the end we went for “Opening Summer 2007.” Wehad better be.
Finally the day came when Peter Wearden summonedme to appear at the council offices in Totnes to hear theresult. I drove with Steve and my mum (maybe Peter wouldbe more lenient with an elderly lady present). The last time Ihad been there was to register Katherine’s death threemonths before with Ella, when I had played with herafterward in the small maze in the courtyard. But I tried toput this out of my mind because, as the King of SwampCastle says in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, about thewedding disrupted by the slaughter of many guests by theexuberant Lancelot, “Please! This is supposed to be ahappy occasion.” Peter smiled, I smiled, everybody smiled.
It was looking good. He handed me the report, which waslong but fortunately had a covering letter. “I recommend thatDartmoor Zoological Park be granted a license to trade asa zoo . . .” Wow. At last. We had done it. We thanked Peterand drove back elated, and presented the news to all thestaff, some of whom shed tears. We set a definite date forour opening, two weeks away, on 7 July—07/07/07—whicheverybody agreed was somehow auspicious.
Most important, it was just before the school holidays, atthe beginning of the busiest period, though it meant wewould have to hit the ground running. It would have beennice to have a gentler opening in June, to get a bit ofpractice at actually dealing with the public before exposingour newly revamped infrastructure to the (ideally) swarminghordes of July. If those hordes found any holes in our planthey would burst through them, impelled by market forces,and puncture the whole damn balloon. But 07/07/07 wasset in stone. We really were opening on that date, no matterwhat. If the restaurant wasn’t ready, there would besandwiches. If the kiosk wasn’t wired up properly, we’d runan extension lead. If the play area was uninstalled, we hadbouncy castles, lent to us by Adam’s Bouncy Castles, asecret part of our customer services manager Adam’sformer life. It was going to happen.
But the money had run out. We had tried—in vain, as itturns out—to keep track of our reserves. But by the timeJoanne, our bookkeeper, had got a grip on the situation, itwas to tell us that we had about ￡60,000 left, and about amonth to go before opening. An endangered zoo eatsmoney like a specially designed money-eating machine,and for the valiant army of Dartmoor Zoological Park,￡60,000 was a pittance. An industrial shredder speciallyadapted for banknotes couldn’t get through money anybetter. As well as hungry mouths to feed—lions, bears,tigers, monkeys, and otters, to name but a few—all thoseanimals require expensive veterinary dental checks, fecalscreening programs, routine vaccinations, microchipping,and a whole gamut of other services, which for a custodianof exotic animals, is the first priority.
But these are so unequivocally part of what the zoo isabout that they present no dilemma. The Day of the Dentistwas a memorable, and memorably expensive, inaugurationof just what is needed to responsibly maintain so manyexotic animals. Fudge the bear, as well as needing asecond go at cutting her claws, which had grownsemicircular and impeded her walk, looked like she hadtoothache. At twenty-nine, she could be expected to liveperhaps another seven or so years in captivity (though shewould have been long dead in the savage wild where herkind are down to perhaps five examples in the Pyrenees,and are still being hunted for sport in Eastern Europe). Herclaws were one issue, but she seemed subdued and slowmoving, and the occasional glimpses into her mouth sheoffered revealed a horrifying set of broken gravestones,cracked and covered in brown grime, as well as whatlooked like an abscess. It was enough to slow anyonedown, particularly a venerable old lady.
One of the pumas was also ailing, and dribbling, whichhad been consistently diagnosed as gingivitis and treatedas such periodically over the last several years. The troublewas that gingivitis is usually an acute condition—very rarelychronic—but this puma rarely showed her teeth to thekeepers, and was in fact recently revealed to be an entirelydifferent puma from the one we thought we had. An X-raytaken a few months previously showed that she had a metalplate in her leg, which she was not supposed to have, andmeant that she was someone else entirely. We had to findout who she was and what was wrong with her.
The third, and arguably most important, client wasSovereign, the Ninja-escapist jaguar and the mostendangered animal of the three. He had somehow crackedboth his upper canines, one of which was flat at the end. Ithad been suggested that both these teeth might need to beextracted, which bothered me, because Sovereign was stilla young adult and these teeth were the tools of his trade.
Obviously he didn’t need them for hunting at the zoo—wecould feed him mince, if he needed it—but I was concernedfor his psychological well-being if these teeth were lost. Hewould feel the loss. And I was concerned thatpreoccupations with preventing future abscesses would notinclude this in the calculations. I wanted to be there whenthese decisions were made.
So the Day of the Dentist was set, and we prepared.
How we prepared. Peter Kertesz is the UK’s leadingspecialist in exotic animal dentistry, and is also, mainly, aHarley Street practitioner on humans. He happens to havetaken an interest in animal dentition, and has become oneof the world’s leading experts. Nick Masters, from the IZVG,was going to handle the anaesthetic and carry out generalhealth checks on each animal while it was under. Both ofthem were booked, and we had to be ready.
In the predawn darkness of 6 AM the team started toassemble at the park, and most of the normal routineprocedures and feeding began. By 8 AM, Steve hadendured his increasingly familiar dance with Sovereign,who had been darted successfully and transported to thepark’s shiny new vet facility. Sovereign made a spectacularfirst patient for the vet room, his beautiful markingscontrasting with the sterile white environment and greencoatedmedics. On examination, both Sovereign’s twochipped upper canine teeth exposed some of the pulp, sothere was a real possibility he might lose them. But Peterwas unfazed and simply trimmed them, using a terriblyefficient little grinder which makes all the worst noises thatyou don’t want to overhear during human dentistry. Havingstabilized the external structure of the teeth, he set aboutperforming root-canal work. For us, this involves a specialpipe cleaner about two inches long, which is inserted intothe hole in the center of the tooth where the dentine oncewas, and shuffled back and forth to clean all the residualtissue out of the cavity deep in the bone. Thank God foranaesthetic. For Sovereign, the pipe-cleaning probesneeded to be at least five inches long to get deep enoughinto his enormous roots, but also to travel the extra inchesof the length of the teeth themselves, for Peter to dig out allthe pulp. Fortunately, for such a dangerous patientSovereign was as good as gold. Nick Masters ensured thathe was under a closely monitored general anaesthetic;there were tubes in his mouth, monitors on his heart, andmachines that went beep. After some very in-depthreaming, and then a similarly comprehensive filling,Sovereign’s root-canal work was complete, and he wasreturned to a bed of straw in his enclosure.
Then it was the turn of a female puma, who we thoughtwas probably Holly, who had been dribbling saliva in anunusual way. We carried the prostrate cat on a stretcherthat had been lent by another zoo for the occasion. It was ashort haul, with a relatively small cat, and the drugs wereinternationally recommended, so I didn’t feel tooapprehensive about this. The transfer went well, and onceshe was on the table, Peter immediately saw that theproblem was a couple of premolars on her lower jaw, whichhad nothing above them to chew against. For the lastseveral years she had been biting against her gums, whichwere bleeding and causing the dribbling, and nowextraction was the only option. But this was all routine toPeter, and forty-five minutes and two extractions later, theprocedure was completed, and Holly was on her way backto her enclosure to recover in her bed of warm straw.
Everybody broke for a late lunch, and a refreshed teamfaced what they hoped would be a simple task of clippingthe over-grown claws of the park’s oldest mammal, Fudge,the twenty-nine-year-old European brown bear. Fudge wastricky to sedate. Her weight was unknown (it turned out tobe 147 kilos on the scales in the vet room—she’s a smallbear), so it was difficult to get the dose right. And she wastough. Eventually six people managed to transport asleeping Fudge to the operating table, where wemanhandled her into position for Peter and Nick. Nick, asanaesthetist, had priority initially, to stabilize her, and hisarray of beeping machines ensured that she was safelyunder, with all her vital signs monitored. As soon as thiswas established, Peter took over with a flourish. NeitherNick nor Peter are tall men, but both are fit and extremelyprecise in their movements—archetypal medicalprofessionals—and it was a real privilege to watch themwork. They looked the part too, both choosing blueparamilitary-style boiler suits with leg pockets, Peter’s tocarry the rechargeable battery pack for the elaborateheadlamp he wore throughout, sometimes fitting it withextra optical devices, like a sort of jeweler-surgeon. Which,I suppose, an exotic-animal dentist probably is. Peter isperhaps twenty years older than Nick, and though in theglamorous role of specialist, he gracefully deferred to theanesthetist whenever he needed access to check the tubesgoing into Fudge’s mouth or made recommendationsabout how long he could take. He’d stand back, tools in theair with all the time in the world, saying, “You do what youhave to do. I’m just the technician.” But though Peter wascharming, he also constantly supplied a monologue aboutwhat a superb job he was doing. “Look at that,” he’d say,cutting around the gum and deftly extracting a minor rottingtooth, then stitching up the gum with one hand. “I’m probablythe only person in the world who could do that. Fromdiagnosis to extraction in under twenty minutes. Good jobI’m here.” There had been rumors that Peter would arrivewith a new, attractive female assistant, and he did (healways does). Unfortunately, though extremely competent,she was not quite as fast as Peter demanded, and he gaveher several ruthless dressing-down. But of course, this wasa serious business. The bear could only stay under for solong, and all the people involved had been working formany hours, with several more to go, during which no onecould afford to make mistakes.
The more Peter looked, the more bad stuff he found. Inthe end Fudge had five extractions, and the molars,particularly her remaining upper canine, were not twentyminutejobs. “Bears’ teeth are built to last,” said Peter as hestruggled with Fudge’s well-rooted dentition, which involvedusing a small stainless steel hammer and chisel. It was allhands on deck as the dental nurse, Anna, Steve, Duncan,and I all held Fudge steady while Peter tugged and cajoledthe teeth out and sewed up her bleeding gums. Sovereign Ihad met before under general anaesthetic, and his languidmusculature had been no surprise. “Holly,” the puma, waspast her prime, and had seemed like just a very bigdomestic cat—though one you wouldn’t want to mess with.
But Fudge seemed unbelievably solid, perhaps like the wildboar that Leon had so wisely declined to pursue in France.
She felt like she could go through anything, and Nick wasimpressed with the strength of her vital signs throughout. Iwas totally impressed with Fudge. She was really a beast.
And during these procedures, it became clear why Fudgehad been moving slowly for some time.
Peter uncovered and drained an abscess the size of agolf ball in her lower jaw, which if left untreated would sapthe immune system and could be fatal. One of the earliestexamples of a skeleton of early man was found by a lake inAfrica and diagnosed as having died of a dental abscessthat had eaten at his jaw and killed him, probably verypainfully, in his prime. In the wild, Fudge would have neverlived this long, as this abscess would probably have killedher.
Three and a half hours later, the operation was over, andFudge was returned to her enclosure through a parkshrouded in darkness once more, as when we had begun. Ithad been a long and fairly gruesome day, and though it wasimpossible not to reflect, at least for a moment, on the cost(￡8,000 vet bill, plus vet room, staff, etc.), it felt great tohave diverted some funds from the world in general andchanneled them into this hugely worthwhile cause. Now atleast, if we ever did have to disperse the animals, thesethree would be healthier and a more attractive propositionfor rehoming. But it was more than that. The optimist in mefound it enormously satisfying to be able to provide suchhighly skilled, expert care for these amazing animals herein our own facility on the site. There was no doubt that Nickand Peter were, quite literally, world-class professionals.
And we had managed to deploy them to address long-termhealth problems in three animals in our care who hadn’tpreviously been treated.
I looked on Peter’s Web site and there he was, with arange of animals and in locations far more exotic than ours:
the most impressive shot was an elephant on its back, with,I counted, twenty-nine people hauling it into position so thatPeter could perform an extraction, probably of a tooth thesize of a rugby ball. Compared to that, six people onstandby for fourteen hours and a man with a large gunposted outside was small potatoes, and it was an honorthat he asked if some of the pictures taken could go on hisWeb site with the others. But it had been exciting for usnonetheless.
All three animals made excellent recoveries, and far fromseeming subdued by their day at the dentist’s, all threeanimals seemed to have an extra spring in their step astheir long-term painful conditions were finally addressed.
The next day Sovereign eagerly stripped a huge piece ofmeat with his newly filled teeth, Holly the puma ate somediced chicken, and Fudge happily crunched through abucket of apples, despite the many stitches in her gums.
Vets’ bills make up just one column on the spreadsheet.
In the bigger picture, it’s just a necessary expense in therunning of the business. The trouble was, there still was nobusiness. Several potential lenders had pointed this outearly on, and some had even cited it as a reason not tolend us money. How unreasonable, I’d thought at the time.
But I was beginning to see their point.
Obviously, we had now passed our license inspection,and we could soon open to the public and begin trading.
But unfortunately, the date for this to happen had keptslipping further down the calendar—April, then Easter, thenJune—until it had hit the very worrying month of July. Sixtyfivepercent of the year’s trading in a seasonal attractionlike this takes place in July and August. If any of July wentmissing from the figures, we would be in serious trouble.
And we still weren’t there yet. We had enough to pay thewages and essential creditors until October, then that wasit. People had to come in July and August, and in significantnumbers. If they didn’t, we could close at the end of our firstseason. It was sobering, but we ploughed on, using thingswe already had in stock, recycling existing materials, andenthusiastically turning off lights at the end of the day,though this probably had little impact on the staggering￡6,000 monthly electricity bill.
The license had come with a few conditions, mostlythings we could address over the next twelve months, butone or two things—like the restaurant—needed to bebrought up to standard before we opened. It was all inhand, though, and probably on about 1 July, Adam happilyinformed us that the bar was now fully functioning, able toserve wines, spirits, and draft cider and bitter, our very dryale. And Stella Artois. As Adam’s taillights disappeareddown the drive that night, Duncan and I and Max, acameraman with whom we had bonded particularly well,opened up the bar and began sampling this importantcommodity, for quality control purposes, of course. The barbecame a convenient place to meet at the end of the day todebrief each other and discuss story lines that neededfollowing up with Max. Strictly business meetings, ofcourse. Ten days later, the eighty-four-pint barrel wasempty, Adam having sold about six pints to the payingpublic. “I can see that in order to make a profit on the StellaI’m going to have to charge about ￡12.50 a pint,” helamented, perhaps slightly tetchily. We sniggered likenaughty schoolboys as he walked away—though I am sixyears older than Adam, and Duncan and Max areconsiderably more. Of course we realized that this was noway to run a business, though it seemed necessary at thetime.
With one day to go before opening, the restaurant wasactually ready, the shop was stocked with appealing fluffytoys and DZP-printed merchandise, the meat andvegetable rooms for the animals were gleaming, the newpaths were surreally flat and groomed, and the picnic areawas dotted with restored picnic tables in front of the newkiosk, whose power and water supply was almost completein anticipation of the hordes who would, we hoped, soon beswarming around it. Even more striking were the staff,newly kitted out in their pristine uniforms, green for keepers,blue for maintenance, white for catering and retail. Eachshirt was emblazoned with Katherine’s logo of a tigerstripedDZP, the last thing she ever designed, destinednow, apparently, to outlive her by many years.
The only thing that wasn’t playing ball was the weather.
Having passed through the wettest June on record, earlyJuly showed no inclination toward becoming summereither. The rain was relentless, and we even had prolongedperiods of fog, making it impossible to see more thantwenty yards. As Kelly succinctly put it on the eve of our bigday, “We’re opening tomorrow, and we’re living in a fuckingcloud.” There was nothing to do but have one last tidy-up,one last walk-around, then turn off the lights and see whattomorrow was going to bring.
Chapter 9 Opening Day
So, the day of 7 July 2007 dawned, and we were going toopen to the public at 10 AM. And, amazingly, for the firsttime in about six weeks, it was sunny. It was actually hot.
The sky was cloudless, even the park itself was cloudless,for a change. Down in the car park a small crowd wascollecting from half past nine onward, and a ribbon hadbeen strung across the entrance, ready to be cut as the zoowas officially reopened for business for the first time infifteen months.
Mum, Duncan, and several of the smartly dressed staffwere already down at the bottom when I arrived, but wewere far out numbered by the expectant crowd of mumswith buggies, family groups, and the odd OAP (old-agepensioner). The day before, the weather would have madethis highly unlikely, but this sudden gap in the clouds waslike the curtains unexpectedly opening on the cast of a play,long in rehearsals with the opening date constantlythreatened with delay. Suddenly we were on. These werereal customers, all genuinely wanting to visit a real zoo.
Some would even be wanting to buy a toy, have a meal,and go to the toilet; so, for the next eight hours (for the firsttime in our lives), this was our job: to see that this randomlyselected cross-section of the public got what they wanted,and left content with their experience.
Mum made a short speech thanking everyone for comingand the staff for all their hard work, then declared the parkopen and cut the ribbon. Watching her cut her firstceremonial ribbon in seventy-six years, I thought she mighthave been thinking a little about the house where she wasborn, which was not even a two-rooms-up, two-down inSheffield, but a one-up, one-down plus a small attic on top,with tin baths in front of the fire in the living/dining/kitchen/bathroom. But in fact that was just me beingsentimental, and Mum was thinking along much morepractical lines of, “Thank God there’s finally some moneycoming in” and “How can I get up to the top of the drivebefore all these people?”
As it happened we were carried up the drive at the headof the surge on a huge wave of positive energy andoptimism. Apart from me worrying about the steep gullieson the side of the drive which, it had been helpfully pointedout to me many times over the last few months, could easilysnap an ankle if someone went over one the wrong way(though in forty years they never had). Everyone in myimmediate vicinity somehow made it up the drive safely, butsoon they would be at the top, and the first complaintsabout the restaurant would start to come in, then about thekiosk, the pathways, the toilets, and the rubbish bins. Andthen, of course, there would be the Code Red. Animalrightsactivists cutting some wire, or an excited keepermaking a mistake, and suddenly Solomon is runningacross the picnic area with a baby in his mouth. Thescreaming crowd disperses never to return, and the sale ofthe zoo doesn’t cover the claims because we only had ￡5million public liability insurance.
Everywhere I looked, there was something that could gowrong. I constantly fiddled with my radio, checking that itcould scan both frequencies simultaneously, so that I couldpick up customer services catastrophes as well as animaldepartment disasters. I wasn’t actively expecting thesethings to happen in a pessimistic way, but I wouldn’t havebeen in the least bit surprised at this stage if any of themdid. The emergency mode had been going on for so long, itwas hard to stand back and see this day for what it was. Anenormous, unqualified success.
People were coming—pouring—up the drive, wanderingaround, enjoying the facilities. They were buying ice cream,cups of tea, lunch, and toys in the shop and smiling.
Furthermore, they were saying nice things to us and thekeepers. How well everything looked, what a refreshingchange it was, how happy the animals seemed, how hardwe must have worked. None of us were used to this. Upuntil now, most visitors from the outside world had beenofficials, bankers, inspectors, lawyers, or creditors of onesort or another, stressing the extreme seriousness of ourposition, the enormous amount of work ahead, and thedisastrous consequences if anything at all went wrong. Buthere we were, having finally got it right and being praised,continually all day, by a smiling and even grateful public.
Toward lunchtime I made my way up to the picnic area, andSolomon was nowhere to be seen, safely behind the wire,entertaining rather than eating his public. And the publicwere eating at the kiosk. Every picnic table was full; peoplewere sitting on the grass, relaxing and sipping tea—teathey had bought from the kiosk—while small children insocks burned off energy on the bouncy castles. I couldn’tresist a head count, and that first one revealed forty-twoadults visible from the bottom corner, which, times ￡8entrance fee, translated into ￡336. Right in front of me wehad raised enough money to more than pay for thatincredibly expensive power drill we’d had to buy threemonths before. Plus coffees and teas, plus all the otherpeople milling on the site and in the restaurant. Maybe itwas going to work after all.
Then I received my first complaint. “Why have you gotthese bouncy castles here?” demanded a mildly iratemother. “I brought my child here to see the animals, but hewon’t come off. They’re just a distraction.” I didn’t knowquite what to say, so I tried out my new customer servicesmode, apologized, but pointed out that many people usedthe bouncy castles as a chance for a break so their childrencould go back to looking at the animals when they’d burnedoff a bit of excess energy. This platitude seemed to work.
Though I took the complaint very seriously, as it wasoffered, and it made me question the core idea of playfacilities momentarily, I was confident enough by now thatevery zoo and almost every leisure attraction has a playarea of some sort, after all, and this was all we could affordat the moment. Usually it’s seen as a form of public service.
But there really is no pleasing some people, as I havediscovered, though that was the only complaint of the day.
As the day wore on, nothing bad happened. The keeperswere smiling almost in disbelief at being showered withcompliments, praise, and positive feedback. It had been along haul for them too, the old and the new, in very tryingtimes and with a level of uncertainty about their future thatmost had not experienced before. What they hadexperienced before, however, was the public, and I wasstruck how at ease they all seemed in moving through thecrowds, giving impromptu talks, then getting on with theirroutines. It made sense, of course. None of them hadworked in an empty zoo before they came here; crowdswere normal.
The only zoo I had ever worked in, however, was this one,which had always been empty. Any member of the publicon the site was our responsibility and had to be escorted atall times. In between being granted the license andopening, less than two weeks before, the local school hadasked to visit. I had said yes, and though it was technicallyallowed as a private visit, it had not gone down well withSteve, Anna, and Peter Wearden. Under strict supervisionit had been a tense time, shepherding twenty-six vulnerableyoungsters and their six or so adult caretakers through theminefield of dangers that, I had been trained, the zoopresented. Now, suddenly, there were children everywhere,running and laughing, virtually unsupervised and oddlyunharmed. I loved seeing them, recognizing the glee ontheir faces that said they were having a special day out.
Here, in our zoo. It was hard to take in.
The restaurant was also a teeming success: cakes,coffee, tea, panini, hot meals prepared by Gordon, our newchef, all selling well, all being consumed happily,nonchalantly even, by a satisfied public who took forgranted that this should be the case. If they had only seenthe room where they were eating even a week before, noone would have thought this achievement possible.
Then something did hit me: Katherine. Throughout theday, amongst the stream of general well-wishers, severalpeople had come and shaken my hand to offer theircondolences about Katherine. News of her death hadreached the local paper, which had sent a reporter a coupleof weeks afterward to cover it. I hadn’t minded, as thequestions were suitably restrained, and the young reporterwas suitably uncomfortable asking them. Until thephotographer turned up. He was a talker, a spiel merchant,which probably served him well with uncertain old ladieswhose cats had been rescued by the fire brigade or surlylandowners with oversized marrows. It didn’t irritate memuch, until he asked for the photo of Katherine he hadwarned me in advance they wanted to reproduce. I didn’tmind this either, and handed over the only photograph I hadof her—one of my favorites, which, to me, could haveadorned the cover of Vogue. I asked him to take care of itand post it back afterward, but he said there was no needto take it away, he’d just take a close-up digital picture of itwith his vast Nikon, and that would be fine. Even better.
But when I handed it to him, he said, “Oh, great. She’sbeautiful. Yeah, lovely,” and by the time he had thephotograph of Katherine in his viewfinder, somethingclicked in his brain and the spiel came on again, as if hewas talking to a living person, in his tacky, squalidmonologue. “That’s it, lovely. Beautiful, looking goodthere”—click, click—”Yeah, that’s it, my lovely, come on,one more”—click, click, click. I can’t tell you everything thatwent through my mind; suffice to say that I realized thatkilling him would probably be counterproductive, so Iwandered off.
This article and this picture was produced over a fullpage in the local paper quite prominently, page three Ithink, and had been widely read by the local population, itseemed. On opening day, perhaps fifty people came up tome to offer congratulations, and maybe seven of themoffered their sympathy about Katherine; one or two really hita nerve I hadn’t known was there by saying, “I’m sure yourwife would have been proud,” or words like it. Obviously,with any comment from any member of the public, you areforced to trawl the validity of their observations, as with thecomplaint about the bouncy castles. And I had to concludethat perhaps Katherine would have been proud to someextent (though she’d have said something suitably sarcasticabout it all). But I wasn’t expecting to have to think aboutthat on this day, until other people brought it up. I wasexpecting a Code Red, but not one from inside my head.
To be fair, I had had some warning, though not really intime. The day before the formal opening we had held a VIPreception, where local councillors and various people wewere indebted to—or soon to become indebted to—wereinvited to experience the newly revamped facilities and eatand drink at our expense on one of those jollies I had sooften experienced—virtually lived on, in lean times—as ajournalist. This, again, was no problem and though a newexperience to be on the other side of the fence, it was adelight to be hosting, until people started pulling me asideand saying that same thing: your wife would have beenproud.
I was required to make a short speech, and to thankvarious people for their help, so I went to the office toprepare something, with the party audible a few roomsaway. Unfortunately, there was the article with Katherine’spicture, unearthed and left out by some well-meaningmember of staff for me to take over to the house. It was toomuch, and too unexpected on this day. I felt like I hadprepared for everything else, during which processes I hadmanaged to put Katherine to the back of my mind most ofthe time during the day. But here she was, smiling at me,looking so gorgeous and carefree, little knowing that in afew years she would be dead, under the ground in Jersey,about a mile from where the photograph was taken, leavingher two little children motherless. Such an undeserveddeath. Would she have been proud? She’d certainly havebeen pleased to be there, just to have been alive for onething, but she’d also have absolutely made the occasion,with her effortless, genuine charm. I couldn’t come out of theroom for at least an hour. When I finally emerged to makethe speech, which was indeed very short, I forgot to mentionby name one or two members of the staff, who promptlywent into a sulk. I tried to apologize later, but the sulkcontinued, and though I didn’t mind, my mum was vergingon apoplectic. She finally sought out the sulkers and gavethem a stiff dose of her plain northern speaking, which, takeit from me, you don’t want to be on the receiving end of. Acouple of days later, the sulk was at an end.
But we had other things to think about, like the next day,and the next, stretching into the distance as far as we couldsee. It had occurred to me while guiding the dumper truckthrough some of the narrow gateways of the park, whichhad taken a few weeks to learn how to do efficiently, that Icould be driving a dumper around this park for the nexttwenty-five years. I liked the idea. I’d once spent sevenyears as a contributing editor on a glossy magazine, andrealized that more than half a decade of my life wasmeasured by the yard or so of copies of this mag pressedtogether on my bookshelf. What was I doing in August1996? Researching and writing the pieces published undermy name in the September 1996 issue, and so on. I hadmany happy memories, I’d learned many skills, been sentall around the world and met many interesting and lovelypeople, but it still suddenly seemed like a bit of a treadmill,or a gilded prison. Okay, I’d been sent out on an icebreakerin northern Finland to meet a husky team and godogsledding for three days; I’d done several free-fallparachute jumps from 14,000 feet (the horror, the horror);I’d been paid to go snowboarding at Lake Tahoe,California, for ten days; I’d swum with dolphins in theFlorida Keys (those pesky dolphins were the ones whosnapped me out of it). And driving a dumper truck full ofmanure in the rain may seem less glamorous and moreagricultural, but it contained the seeds of something farmore important, far more worthwhile. The depth of potentialfor internal expansion and development on this site inpursuit of such a worthwhile cause was limited only by theimagination. It didn’t seem like a prison at all. As one goodfriend said to me, when we first started at the zoo, as I wasenthusing to her on the phone, “It’s like your whole life hasbeen a preparation for this moment.” And it does seem likethat. It feels like a vocation.
Milo and Ella were also thoroughly enjoying the exposureto these sorts of experiences—what child wouldn’t? At firstthey used to tell everyone they met that they lived in a zoo(usually met with total disbelief), and that Daddy climbedtrees in the lions’ den to feed them. Gradually they havedeveloped a deeper understanding of the animals and theirneeds, cross-referencing their daily exposure with aboundless appetite for natural-history documentaries.
They’ve watched so much of Monkey World on Skytelevision that they probably know more about chimpanzeegroup dynamics than I do. When we finally get our bonobos(or gorillas or orangs), I’ll probably have to employ them asconsultants. But it’s the hours at a time spent out in the parkactually watching the animals close up that is really givingthem such a thorough grounding in how the world works,and their place in it. Ella hasn’t decided yet, but Milo wantsto be a zoo director when he grows up. This zoo directorwouldn’t necessarily recommend the position, though itdoes have enormous benefits. Most of the time is spent onmore-or-less tedious matters of infrastructure worries, staffissues, and other concerns that come with running abusiness open to the public. But every now and then youare called on to spend quality time with, or make a decisiveintervention about, the animals. Which is what it’s all about.
I can’t imagine investing this much time or emotionalenergy in any other cause that repays it all so fully.
Mum, too, is delighted with her new and invigorating roleas a zoo director. Though still caught up in the daily runningof the place, she always makes time to walk around thepark, coo to the animals, and enjoy them—particularly thebig cats. Having stroked lions in Namibia instead of retiringto a life of memories in her late seventies, she is notchingup other exotic-animal petting conquests—bear, tiger,jaguar, and puma (all anaesthetized)—which leave herfulfilled and make her the envy of her contemporaries. Oneof these days, she’ll be out there as we planned, with hersketchbook, drawing from life her own tigers.
Without the animals, there is nothing I can envision thatwould have lured me from my life in France—and nothingthat could have helped us all so much to cope with theterrible loss of Katherine. With the animals, there is a clearmission, which everyone here feels part of.


Epilogue
The day after opening, a Sunday, was also a scorcher,and more people came. Again we were flooded withvisitors, awash with praise, and nothing went wrong. It wasastonishing. It was a weekend, of course, but before theschool holidays had begun this could only be considered agood turnout. Now all we needed was a summer full of suchdays, and the seamless plan would glide effortlessly intothe future.
Unfortunately, after our wettest June, we thenexperienced the wettest July for a hundred years as well.
But on the good days, it was unbelievably good. Peopleflocked to the park, spending the whole day here, buyingstuff, having a nice time. And learning about animals andconservation, and experiencing the natural world fromcloser up than most had ever seen it before. This was amassive, unexpected pleasure. I loved seeing the peopleswarm over the park, enjoying themselves, enthralled by theanimals. It is uniquely infectious being amongst a crowd ofpeople who are so clearly having such a good time, andknowing that you have in part been able to provide it.
Seeing the animals I had become accustomed to—thoughnot blasé about—through new eyes, particularly those ofchildren, was enormously refreshing.
The animals liked having the public there too. A lot ofvisitors say that they like the intimacy of this zoo, where youcan get much closer to the animals than is usual. This is notbecause the enclosures are small—many are far largerthan those of bigger zoos. We just have fewer of them, andseveral are designed, like Tiger Mountain and the jaguarand bear enclosures, so that there is no wire betweenviewer and beast. This creates an intimate—and oftenspine-tingling, hairs-up-on-the-back-of-the-neck—experience, which seems to work two ways. On thatopening weekend, the animals were out and about muchmore than before. The tigers and the wolves in particularwere clearly showboating. Of course, having been born onsite, they were used to crowds (though not so many inrecent years), and seeing people milling around restoredtheir normality. It was good to see them sniffing the air,taking it all in, and settling down somewhere conspicuousto watch us watching them.
August was less wet, almost like a proper summermonth, and packed with busy days, many of them breakingrecords set the previous week. On August bank holiday wehad nearly twice the number of visitors as on our openingday itself—according to Robin, who has been here fornearly twenty years—as busy as any day he had ever seen.
Other good news was the arrival of the lynx from France.
We had been trusted by another zoo to look after agorgeous, young Siberian lynx, on the stud book and readyto breed. We would need to build her an enclosure, but inthe meantime she could go into quarantine in the enclosureSovereign had vacated when he went back to hisrevamped home at the top of the park. (Sovereign’s oldpad had been passed by DEFRA as suitable for thispurpose.)The lynx was gorgeous, so much more sleek and lithethan the elderly lynx, Fin, we already had, for whom she wasto be a companion when she finished her quarantine,though obviously she was a bit tense at the unfamiliarity ofher surroundings. She was deposited successfully into thequarantine pen, which we were confident she could notescape from; if Sovereign couldn’t get out, no one could.
And I hardly saw her for the next six months, partly becauseshe was a bit shy, but also because it was a nuisance tonegotiate the gates and footbaths necessary to maintainthe quarantine.
The rest of the summer passed in a blur, up early, bedlate, a blizzard of meetings and decisions in between, butall moving in the right direction. One slightly sad adjustmentfor me was that, shortly after opening day, the camera crew,having got what they needed for their four-part series,packed up and left. As a journalist I had got on well with thecrew, and the core group— Francis the producer, Joyce,Max, Charlie, and Trevor—had been embedded with us forso long that they seemed like part of the staff, only lessprone to bickering. Over the months they had watched usdevelop, and we had watched them—particularly Trevor,who had arrived on his first day in a gleaming rental car andunpacked a brand-new pair of walking boots from the back,still wrapped in tissue paper in their box. He didn’t look likehe’d last long, but Trevor was quietly steely, and by the endhe was usually spattered with mud, and his boots wereunrecognizable, worn in and virtually worn out on a singlejob. At the start I had related to the crew at least as much asthe staff, because they were from a world I knew. But by theend, hearing them talk longingly of Paddington Station,where they arrived after their week’s shift in the countrysideyearning for overpriced cappuccinos and Soho eateries, Irealized that I had changed. I didn’t yearn for these things,and the few times I had been required to go to London, Icouldn’t wait to get out, and back to the clear air and bigtrees of the park. But I missed their banter. Trevor had aparticular phrase when he was pleased with a sequencehe’d shot: “That’s TV gold,” he’d announce, grinning andputting down his camera if something had gone well, likewhen an animal had strolled into the shot.
However, after the summer, the numbers dropped offsharply. So sharply, in fact, that several people got nervousthat the business was going to fail, and one or two evenresigned to look for safer jobs. I was glad to see them go.
With their kind of loyalty, the business would surely workbetter without them, but it increased the workload and therecruitment process was inevitably time consuming. I amhappy to say that we now have a full complement ofdedicated, harmonious keepers and maintenance andcatering staff who all seem to get along seamlessly, thoughin my new role as Someone Who Sacks People, perhapsI’d be the last to know if they didn’t.
Soon, the mild autumn and the marketing of the neweducation officer produced regular snaking, gabbling,grinning convoys of school parties, holding hands in pairs,making a sound like a mobile babbling brook, watchedover by fraught, young (so young!) teachers. These boostedour income, increased our profile locally, and provided theeducational service we’re here for.
It had been a stormingly successful summer, in terms ofgate numbers on sunny days, spend per head, customersatisfaction, and feedback. But I knew the bank wouldn’tsee it like this. And they didn’t. As far as they wereconcerned, July hadn’t produced as much money as wehad said it would, and they refused to extend our credit (“Itwas raining, guys, but more people came on the otherdays.” “That Does Not Compute . . .”) for the winter if weneeded it, even though they had promised that they would ifthe basic business model seemed to be working. Which itclearly was. But once again, we were on our own. And onceagain, it was looking bad. The late start to the season hadcost us dearly, as had the rain, and the reserves weneeded to pay wages and running costs for the winter werenot as big as we’d hoped. Even closing for a few months,as many attractions do, would make little difference, as weneeded core staff to keep going, and the bills would keepcoming. We sensed distant lawyers reaching for box filesand dispassionately perusing repossession clauses.
And then the TV series started.
Ben’s Zoo went out on BBC2 from late November toearly December, from 8 to 9 PM, and was watched by anaverage of 2.5 million people a week. Things started tochange. During the first program, Adam monitored the Website and reported a thousand hits during the transmission,many of them much-needed animal adoption enquiries. Thenext weekend, fortunately mild, the trickle started, and roseto a torrent over the next few weeks. By the time theChristmas holidays had begun, we were inundated. Andeveryone had nice things to say. Mainly locals, many ofwhom had been to the park before and drifted away duringthe years of decline, congratulating us on theimprovements. It was a lovely feeling, like summer all overagain. Keepers were being recognized and given presentsof chocolates and flowers by an adoring public, and I foundit impossible to move about the park without beingcongratulated every few yards by a gaggle of well-wishers.
Though it meant having the same conversation about fiftytimes a day, I didn’t mind in the slightest, and I wasgenuinely, enormously grateful to everyone who came. Thecrushing handshakes became a problem, though, as all themen around here seem to have huge, strong hands unlikemy “women’s” hands, made delicate by fifteen years oftyping for a living. One old man in particular, a little guy oncrutches, actually gave me a sprain. I asked him, whilemassaging my hand, what he had done for a living,expecting him to say crushing rocks with his bare hands ina circus. “Graphic designer,” he replied, which wasn’t goodfor my ego.
Inevitably, after such public exposure, there were peoplewho wanted to sympathize about Katherine. And again, itwas usually the men who moved me most. From women,who are usually better at communicating emotions, youexpect sympathy and soothing words. But for men it ismuch harder (I could bore you for pages on why this is so,so write in at your peril). One woman hailed me from adistance to say, “Ben, I know what you’re going through. Ilost my husband nine years ago and I still haven’t got overit,” which I thought was a bit insensitive. But one man inparticular stands out. He stood out at the time. At least sixfoot five, built like a rugby player, and with the inevitablycrushing handshake, he looked into my eyes, his own fillingwith tears, and simply said, “Well done.” Enough said, hestrode off, message delivered. That’s male communicationfor you.
Speaking of male communication, my dad was also aman of relatively few words. Not that he was taciturn—hejust didn’t believe in filling the air with unnecessary waffle,and he had the gift of précis, even in speech, so that hisutterances were precise and measured, and usually lacedwith a desert-dry wit, which often took a while to sink in.
None of this would have been possible without my dad,whose lifetime of diligence, hard work, and devotion to hisfamily happened to give us this remarkable opportunity tosave this run-down zoo after his death. Of course, he wouldnever have approved, and would probably be renderedspeechless if he could see us now. But the rest of us couldafford, thanks to him, to be a bit more reckless. Mum, mysister Melissa, and brothers Duncan and Vincent, allwithout hesitation put in everything they possibly could tomake this harebrained back-of-the-envelope plan work.
And it has. Boxing Day was our busiest day on record, andthe winter has been nearly as busy as the summer, so thatdespite missing a third of the season, we have just—just—managed to get through the winter without more supportfrom the bank.
My dad was also called Ben, but just Ben, whereas myfamily knows me as Benjamin. It irked a bit that the TVseries was called Ben’s Zoo, largely because this was inno way the effort of a single person. But in a way it’s apt. Itis Ben’s zoo, but a different Ben from the fatuous front man,me. It’s Ben Harry Mee’s (1928-2005) zoo.
To say it’s been life changing is an understatement. Butwatching the stream of people pouring through every day,leaving energized and enthusiastic, having learnedsomething about the natural world, and being in a positionto expand this amazing facility, recruiting animalsincreasingly from the IUCN Red List to protect for the future,is a rare privilege indeed. It’s been hard work, but it doesn’tfeel like work. It feels like a vocation. Thanks, Dad.

The End