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Uncle Walter's elephants

• Message 1. 

  Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Sunday, 20th November 2005

  Sun, 20 Nov 2005 07:36:35 GMT
  
  Can some kind soul give me chapter and verse on an incident involving Walter Gabriel and two (?) elephants? It must be before my time because I think I would have remembered elephants in Ambridge!
  
  Thanks.

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by RosieT (U2224719) on Sunday, 20th November 2005

  For the Ambridge Summer Festival, in the early '60s, I think, Walter bought an elephant called Rosie*, and she came with her baby, Tiny Tim to give people rides. He had a pet shop with Mrs. Turvey, at one time, which is how (I think) he had connections to know how to go about buying an elephant. And he did fund raisng in a "Whie Elephant Club," for various charities, so he thought it would be a funny idea.
  
  *I've slimmed down since, honest

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by RosieT (U2224719) on Sunday, 20th November 2005

  "White". sorry.

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Sunday, 20th November 2005

  Sun, 20 Nov 2005 18:23:42 GMT, In reply to: RosieT [
  
  Thank you, Rosie. Was the episode before or after Gerald Durrell wrote Rosie is My Relative? And what happened to Rosie and Tiny Tim after the fête?
  
  Oh - I've just realised why the poster NotTinyTim chose that name - nothing to do with Dickens!

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• Message 5

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by RosieT (U2224719) on Sunday, 20th November 2005

  I had to googlre for the Durrell date, 1968. The Rosietheelephant year was 1965, and Vanessa hitburn's book says, "... to buy an elephant called Rosie with her baby Tiny Tim, and bought them to te Ambridge Summer Fete, something of a scene-stealer from Miss Anne Sidney, the Misss world of the time, who amazingly opened the Fete." it goes on to tell of the explodinf marrow, but mentions not the fate of the pachyderms after the fete, and I'd been a bit cringed by the name, so memory is hazy.

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