And so I got, and I was only there, I’d only been there a couple of months at the time and I’m in Wild Asia and, you know, being the, the zoo freak that I am, and you know, I’m looking at all things like, well, you know, why have… Read More
Why have they done it this way? Anyway, I’m stand, I’d had way too much beer and I’m standing on the loading dock and this guy in a suit comes up and he goes, well, so what do you think of Wild Asia?… Read More
My first interaction with, with Bill Conway was amusing and unfortunate. They had not finished, opened Wild Asia and they had it a weird system, Astor, who had basically bankrolled the, the Wild Asia project. She’d given some money for a party, but they couldn’t have everybody there. So if… Read More
Did you ever, ever have an opportunity to interact with the director?… Read More
I went back to, my parents still lived on Long Island and I went back for a visit and, and of course I visited the Bronx Zoo. And again, you know, I was curious that, you know, any vacancies, I got an interview with the head of, I suppose what… Read More
Yeah. Why?… Read More
And so we all moved back up there and I went into the zoo for a visit and I was chatting to one of the keepers and it was, I said, do you know, is there any vacancies?… Read More
He said, yeah, actually there is. And so I managed to get an interview off the cuff that day and called up a week later and I was like, I’ve not heard anything yet. He said, alright, right, yeah, you’ve got the job. And that’s how I landed my first… Read More
I’d started out as most people do, by writing letter after letter and getting no result at all. And I’d actually been living in London. I’d come back from America to, I’d been half promised a job at London Zoo that never materialized. And so after doing a bit of… Read More
’cause he knew all the guys in the circus. So it was, it was that, it was that first look behind the curtain as to how worked, and I mean all that did was, you know, it just made me even more wildly interested to find out more to be,… Read More
First of all, how did you get your first J Zoo job at Edinburgh Zoo?… Read More
Absolutely no question. That the it, I just wanted to know every aspect of them, what went on behind the scenes. I mean, as I, I think I, I mentioned earlier or about Joe Davis at the Bronx taking me on a behind the scenes tour after my, my chat… Read More
When you were young, did you have the idea of working in a zoo?… Read More
Most years before we immigrated to North America, some, I mean, I can remember very vividly my first trip to London Zoo was in the summer of 1966. We were down on a family holiday, beautiful hot day, which most Scottish people are not acclimated for. And my parents being… Read More
What are some of your loose memories of zoos Going to Edinburgh Zoo on Easter Sunday?… Read More
So I didn’t actually get to see a giant panda till till much, much later. So yeah, my first zoo was Edinburgh Zoo. My second zoo I visited was painting zoo again on a family holiday. And my third zoo was London Fourth Zoo, probably Riverdale Zoo in the old… Read More
Since the pilgrims, What did your parents do?… Read More
My mother was, she did a bit of office work. My dad was, and Scotland was a proof reader for various newspapers. When we eventually ended up in America and getting a job in the papers, it was a union closed shop and my dad ended up being the assistant… Read More
What was your childhood like?… Read More
Initially, very stable and then my family decided that the grass was greener and we did the worst researched immigration to North America. Read More