Dear All

Hope to see a few of you at the Bartlett Society AGM next Saturday (29th of October). My thanks to Gwyn Griffith for managing the Society's response to the continuing threats of development at the Dreamland site (Margate). The animal cages are in bad repair due the age and deterioration however their great age makes them unique certainly in a British context. If any of our friends on this circulation have any local knowledge of the site and Tesco's plans we would be delighted to hear from you. We have been approached by Mark Lambert who is performing an undergraduate degree at Nottingham relating to Colchester Zoo with the aim of ".. to determine the different ways in which the zoo has been laid out over the years, and the different techniques of animal captivity which it has employed" he is thus interested in material relating to ".. how decisions have been made regarding enclosure design, sign-age and so on".

The staff at Colchester are being very helpful - as they always are - however their records are limited as to the previous ownership. Update from Stephen McKeown at Chester Zoo "I’ve been in correspondence with the new Liverpool Museum re the two guides we have from the Liverpool Zoo and they are very keen to have them as part of their collection so we have agreed to donate them". It is good to see these valuable documents being returned to their city of origin. Stephen has taken the trouble to scan key pages prior to their return. A copy of these scans will be retained both at Chester Zoo and in our own society Archive mailbox. Please remember we are always grateful to receive any such scans. Thanks to everyone for such a great response to our Dartmoor appeal. The researcher is now being assisted by former keeper Jack Pressman and former owner Ellis B Daw.

Thanks also to the responses concerning Mickey the Liverpool Zoo chimpanzee. This has lead to a further question. Judging by the consistency of habits I suspect that Mickey was long lived and well travelled. However it is possible that several chimpanzees had this same name or that the name was re-used to disguise a death. How many chimpanzees called Mickey do people know of ? The last comment this month is an unusual one. Over the summer there have been several disappointing loses of items across the European postal system. The material we send is specialist so should be easy to identify. Has anyone experience of how encourage a physical search for such items. The on-line forms and phone number only achieve an apology and or offer of compensation whereas it is the item retrieval we wish. Regards, Paul M. on-line. The Bartlett Society. Email & Facebook < paul.d.murphy@btinternet.com