Monkey poo

A news story on telly last night about giraffes made me realise that Flamingoland in North Yorkshire is not only still open, but still rates itself as a tourist destination. I hadn't given the place a thought in years, thinking by now it must have closed down and an Aldi built on the site. But no, Flamingoland is still open and presumably, as the ads used to say in the 1970's, still "on the Malton to Pickering road".

Anyway, the reason for this ramble is that Flamingoland reminds me of another animal park - Lambton Lion Park, which was closer to home. It sticks in the memory because of a family trip there in the 70's in dad's brand new car. Dad was driving, mam was in the passenger seat, and us three noisy kids in the back. I was probably playing Bay City Rollers tapes. So there we all were, driving around the wildlife section of the park admiring the monkeys when one of the cheeky beggars jumped on the new car bonnet and stared through the car windscreen direct at my parents. It then had a really big, stinking, smelly poo on the new car bonnet in front of the five of us. We could only sit and watch. Well, what would you have done?

Mam panicked a bit, us kids in the back of the car laughed and screamed and dad just sat there, quiet. When the monkey business finished, did dad get out of the car and clean the muck up? No, he did not. He drove very slowly and very carefully all the way back to Sunderland so as not to disturb the big pile of steaming monkey poo on the bonnet and when we got home, he put it straight onto the soil around his prize-winning leeks.