Plymouth Zoo

I loved visiting Plymouth Zoo when I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s. I think it was a shilling to get in at the time. We'd buy big bags of popcorn, which were very sweet, and feed it to all of the animals. I'm sure that it couldn't have been very good for them! My favourites were the chimpanzees but there were a whole range of exotic wildlife including polar bears, giraffes, camels, seals, other types of bears, a hippo and an elephant. When we first visited in 1968, a pelican followed us all around the zoo until we left. It was like he was showing us around!
A few years ago, I collected together as many photos of the zoo as possible and put them on a website at
http://www.derektait.co.uk/zoo.htm (now gone unfortunately).
Recently, I read a letter in the Herald written by Vina Shaddick (pictured) who worked at the zoo in 1965. She was writing down her memories and wondered if she appeared in the background of anybody's photos. I wrote to Vina and told her about my website and amazingly, she found herself on the site! She's pictured here leading the pony and cart ride.
Vina wrote:
'That's me with the pony and cart on your website! It was a delight to see this and other photos of the animals that I looked after so long ago.
In case you are interested, the name of the baby Indian elephant (who died 1965) was Tammy, the pony in the photo with me was Mandy, I knew the girl holding the donkeys but have forgotten her name, and one of the donkeys was called Jenny. The Bengal tiger, retired from Chipperfields Circus, was Bengy. One of the Russian brown bears, Honey, was also from the circus and was brought in to be mated by the zoo's male bears.
I was filmed with my friend Adele by Pathe, looking over the fence at the tortoise, and thanks to your site was able to see the footage for the first time. My son bought it for me for Mother's Day, so I now have it on a DVD.'
I've very fond memories of our visits to Plymouth Zoo and there's more about it on my blog at
http://plymouthlocalhistory.blogspot.com/2009/03/plymouth-zoo.html