More Outings

We could rarely afford a visit to London Zoo, although it was so near to where we lived, that you could hear the wolves howling at night, when the wind was in the right direction. But what we often did, was to walk along the side of Regent's Park that abutted on to some of the enclosures. You couldn't get right up close, but either by peering through the double fence from the gravel path at the bottom, or by climbing up the grassy bank and looking into the enclosures from the top, you could make the acquaintance of not only the wolves, but all kinds of antelope and deer as well. It was not as good as going inside, but it wasn't bad for free.
Everything about the zoo was expensive, the entrance fee and even the large, orange ice lollies, which were the only ones they sold inside. They were sixpence, which was twice as much as what we normally paid for an ice.
Afternoon rides on the animals were not cheap either. Elephants had a row of three seats slung on either side of their broad, grey backs. The world looked different somehow from the top of an elephant, as the animal lumbered slowly round its circuit, lead by a keeper in a peaked hat. Rides on bactrian camels, the ones with two humps, were also very popular. I remember, as a small child being seated on the bendy neck of one of them, and thinking what fun it was as I sailed off, the camel's feet, as big as dinner-plates softly and patiently trudging round the well-known circuit. There were also rides for the more faint-hearted, but which I found rather tame. You could trot round in a little cart pulled by a llama and probably there were pony rides as well. Or were they in the Children's zoo? - that exclusive corner with unfortunately a prohibitively high entrance fee, where you could cuddle the animals. I only went in once, and I didn't find it as interesting as the elephants.
Bruno the baby brown bear was all the rage when I was young, rather like Knut in the Berlin zoo. I remember catching a glimpse of him from high in the terraces, but he was too far away to be interesting, and anyway, the crowds were so dense, that we soon left to find a quieter part of the zoo.
You were allowed to feed the animals in those days. People used to buy packets of monkey-nuts at the entrance or bring bread and things along with them. I remember trying to coax sleepy-eyed owls to sample the nuts I offered them, but they never took much notice. The monkeys were much more rewarding from that point of view.
I suppose my favourite was the reptile house. I used to like talking with the snakes. It was only much later that I found out that snakes are deaf , so my efforts at verbal communication were in vain. But I found the whole concept of deadly venomous bites absolutely fascinating. The more deadly the snake, the more I was held in thrall. On one occasion, when I was about five or six,
I had climbed over the barrier so that I was literally inches away from an extremely dangerous puff adder. I remember even now, how that huge snake followed my finger as I moved it up and down on one side of the thick glass, while he slithered up the other, showing his beautiful cream underbelly while doing so. It was a wonderful game, and evidently I gathered quite a crowd round me. But then my mother, who had been frantically looking for me, suddenly arrived on the scene, and ordered me in no uncertain terms to climb back over the barrier and behave myself. She was so cross that she didn't even give me a penny to throw on one of the crocodiles' backs, which people did, in a vain effort to get them to do something.
Zoos have come a long way since that time. I remember, even then feeling sorry for the lions, leopards and tigers as they padded endlessly around their small concrete-floored cages. And I remember the hippos, in their murky pool, just patiently waiting for people to throw food into their permanently gaping mouths. Someone threw a rubber ball in once, and killed the hippo. After that notices began to spring up everywhere. 'Do not feed these animals.' But the public continued to feed the elephants, long after that. The huge animals would teeter on the edge of the high side of the dry ditch which surrounded their enclosure, stretching out their trunks for buns and suchlike which the public loved to give them. But I think even that is stopped now.
Paintings of ancient elephant ancestors lined the rounded walls of the tunnels which lead under the Regent's Canal to the part of the zoo on the other side. I used to love being in these echoey caveman tunnels, and used to love looking at the pictures of mammoths, mastedons and sabre-tooth tigers.
All good things eventually come to an end, and the moment would arrive when we would approach one of the tall black-painted turnstiles marked 'Exit'. Most probably, we would be walking all the way home, a distance of about two miles. But the walk home did have its compensations. After a quick visit to the playground near our exit of Regent's Park, there was always the fountain to climb on. This was a bronze lady atop a heap of most inviting dark boulders. She was great fun.
Then of course, there was the pet shop half way down Park Way, with its adorable kittens, puppies or baby rabbits in the window. I was a bit older now and was beginning to understand the power of persuasive arguement. But it never seemed to work at the pet shop, and I never was the proud owner of one of those adorable bundles of fluff. "They are probably full of worms anyway." My mother would mutter under her breath as we made our way down to Camden Town.
There, we could have got a bus of course, but my mother used to say, "We're half way home now, so we might as well walk the rest." So walk we did. At least, by this time, I had found quite a good way to make her slow down. I would complain of stitch, bend over, and grab my side in pain. Sometimes it was genuine, but at other times, it was the merest twinge which I exaggerated like mad. I remember once I even negotiated a penny ice-lolly out of the situation. I was getting rather too good at it, and my mother was anxious that we got home before it got dark.
That night as i lay in bed, I listened for the woves howling in the distance, but it couldn't have been full moon. All I could hear, no matter how hard I listened, was the occasional swish of a car and the reassuring chimes of the Market Clock.