‘Um,’ she said, and walked off. Cholmondely had that sort of effect on people.
Having Cholmondely living in the house with us was, of course, a fascinating experience. His personality and intelligence made him one of the most interesting animals I have ever kept. One of the things about him that impressed me most was his memory, which I considered quite phenomenal.
I possessed at that time a Lambretta and side-car, and I decided that, providing Cholmondely sat well in the side-car and didn’t try to jump out, I would be able to take him for excursions into the countryside. The first time I introduced him to it, I took him for a round trip of the golf-links, just to see how he would behave. He sat there with the utmost decorum, watching the passing scenery with a regal air. Apart from a tendency to lean out of the side-car and try to grab any cyclist we overtook, his behaviour was exemplary. Then I drove the Lambretta down to the local garage to have her filled up with petrol. Cholmondely was as fascinated with the garage as the garage man was with Cholmondely. The ape leaned out of the side-car and carefully watched the unscrewing of the petrol tank; and the introduction of the hose and splash and gurgle of the petrol made him ‘Ooo’ softly to himself in astonishment.
A Lambretta can travel an incredible distance on a very small amount of petrol and, as I did not use it a great deal, about two weeks had passed before she needed filling up again. We had just come back from a local water-mill where we had been visiting Cholmondely’s friend, the miller. This kind man, a great admirer of Cholmondely’s, always had a brew of tea ready for us, and we would sit in a row above the weir, watching the moorhens paddling by, sipping our tea and meditating. On the way home from this tea party I noticed that the Lambretta was getting low on fuel, so we drove down to the garage.
As I was passing the time of day with the garage man, I noticed that he was gazing over my shoulder, a somewhat stupefied expression on his face. I turned round quickly to see what mischief the ape was up to. I found that Cholmondely had climbed out of the side-car on to the saddle, and was busy trying to unscrew the cap of the petrol tank. Now this was surely quite a feat of memory. Firstly, he had only seen the filling-up process once, and that had been two weeks previously. Secondly, he had remembered, out of all the various gadgets on the Lambretta, which was the correct one to open in these circumstances. I was almost as impressed as the garage man.
But the time Cholmondely impressed me most, not only with his memory but with his powers of observation, was on the occasions when I had to take him up to London, once to appear on TV and later for a lecture. My sister drove me up to London, while Cholmondely sat on my lap and watched the passing scenery with interest. About half-way to our destination I suggested that we stopped for a drink. You had to be rather careful about pubs when you had Cholmondely with you, for it was not every landlord that appreciated a chimpanzee in his private bar. Eventually we found a pub that had a homely look about it, and stopped there. To our relief, and Cholmondely’s delight, we found that the woman who ran the pub was a great animal lover, and she and Cholmondely took an immediate fancy to each other. He was allowed to play catch-as-catch-can among the tables in the bar, he was stuffed with orange juice and potato crisps, he was even allowed to get up on the bar itself and do a war dance, thumping his feet and shouting ‘Hoo … Hoo … Hoo.’ In fact he and the landlady got on so well that he was very reluctant to leave the place at all. If he had been an R.A.C. inspector he would have given that pub twelve stars.
Three months later I had to take Cholmondely up for the lecture; by that time I had forgotten all about the pub in which he had had such a good time, for we had, since then, been in many other licensed establishments which had given him a warm welcome. As we drove along Cholmondely, who was sitting on my lap as usual, started to bounce up and down excitedly. I thought at first he had seen a herd of cows or a horse, animals in which he had the deepest interest, but there was not a farm animal to be seen. Cholmondely went on bouncing, faster and faster, and presently started ‘Oo … ooing’ to himself. I still could not see what was exciting him. Then his ‘Ooing’ rose to a screaming crescendo, and he leaped about on my lap in an ecstasy of excitement, and we rounded a corner and there, a hundred yards ahead, was his favourite pub. Now this meant that he had recognized the countryside we were passing through, and had connected it with his memory of the good time he had had in the pub, a mental process which I had not come across in any other animal. Both my sister and I were so shaken by this that we were very glad to stop for a drink, and let Cholmondely renew his acquaintance with his friend the landlady, who was delighted to see him again.
In the meantime I was still continuing my struggle to find my zoo, but my chance of success seemed to recede farther and farther each day. The collection had to be moved from J. J. Allen’s, of course, but here Paignton Zoo came to my rescue. With extreme kindness they allowed me to board my collection with them, on deposit, until such time as I could find a place of my own. But this, as I say, began to seem more and more unlikely. It was the old story. In the initial stages of a project, when you need people’s help most, it is never forthcoming. The only solution, if at all possible, is to go ahead and accomplish it by yourself. Then, when you have made a success of it, all the people who would not help you launch it gather round, slap you on the back and offer their assistance.
‘There must be an intelligent local council somewhere,’ said Jacquie one evening, as we pored over a map of the British Isles.
‘I doubt it,’ I said gloomily, ‘and anyway I doubt whether I have the mental strength to cope with another round of mayors and town clerks. No, we’ll just have to get a place and do it ourselves.’
‘But you’ll have to get their sanction,’ Jacquie pointed out, ‘and then there’s Town and Country Planning and all that.’
I shuddered. ‘What we should really do is to go to some remote island in the West Indies, or somewhere,’ I said, ‘where they’re sensible enough not to clutter their lives with all this incredible red tape.’
Jacquie moved Cholmondely St John from the portion of the map on which he was squatting.
‘What about the Channel Isles?’ she asked suddenly.
‘What about them?’
‘Well, they’re a very popular holiday resort, and they’ve got a wonderful climate.’
‘Yes, it would be an excellent place, but we don’t know anyone there,’ I objected, ‘and you need someone on the spot to give you advice in this sort of thing.’
‘Yes,’ said Jacquie, reluctantly, ‘I suppose you’re right.’
So, reluctantly (for the idea of starting my zoo on an island had a very strong appeal for me) we forgot about the Channel Islands. It was not until a few weeks later that I happened to be in London and was discussing my zoo project with Rupert Hart-Davis that a gleam of daylight started to appear. I confessed to Rupert that my chances of having my own zoo now seemed so slight that I was on the verge of giving up the idea altogether. I said that we had thought of the Channel Islands, but that we had no contact there to help us. Rupert sat up, and with an air of a conjurer performing a minor miracle, said he had a perfectly good contact in the Channel Islands (if only he was asked) and a man moreover who had spent his whole life in the islands and would be only too willing to help us in any way. His name was Major Fraser, and that evening I telephoned him. He did not seem to find it at all unusual that a complete stranger should ring him up and ask his advice about starting a zoo, which made me warm to him from the start. He suggested that Jacquie and I should fly across to Jersey and he would show us round the island, and give us any information he could. And this accordingly we arranged to do.