The elephant we'll never forget
YOU could have described him as a media circus elephant...
His name was Charlie, he came from India and weighing in at six tons and standing 10 ft tall was said to be the largest pachyderm in captivity.
This gentle giant was the star attraction at Craigend Castle Zoo and the focus of a worldwide campaign to save him from being processed into 22,000 tins of dog food!
When the zoo closed the collection of 2000 animals was sold off with the exception of Charlie whose 20 a week food bills were proving too much for the Wilsons.
Andrew Wilson reluctantly announced that Charlie would have to be destroyed unless a new owner could be found.
Newspapers took up his plight and soon had the Lord Provost of Glasgow appealing for clemency. A co-op society sent a ton of hay and money poured in from all over the world.
Film star Gordon Scott, in Britain to make a Tarzan movie, turned up with a 100 cheque and was photographed sitting astride the pachyderm.
There was talk of zoos and circuses around the world being interested, but Charlie's bulk made transport difficult although the Donaldson shipping line offered him free passage on one of their cargo vessels bound for Canada.
Another shipping company was said to have offered to take Charlie to India and turn him loose in the jungle.
Lots of really nutty solutions were banded about. Someone suggested Charlie could be inflated and floated to his destination. An English woman offered to ride him over the Alps, following the route taken by Hannibal.
A businessman who wanted to buy Charlie for slaughter and transformation into pet food, was scared off by the elephant's mahout, Singhn Ibrahim who warned him: ''You shoot Charlie, I shoot you!''
Stories abound of Ibrahim and Charlie's exploits. On one famous occasion a thirsty Ibrahim tethered Charlie outside the now demolished Woodlands Bar in Sinclair Street. The elephant got bored and wrecked the doorway trying to join his master in the pub.
One of the elephant's greatest pleasures was to bathe in the Abie Loch, but that was stopped after locals became tetchy about what this might be doing to their water supply.
Ibrahim even slept in Charlie's quarters at Craigend, laughing off warnings that his heavyweight pal might roll over in his slumber and crush him.
Charlie was no stranger to drama long before becoming the centre of worldwide media attention. Born in the wild in southern India, he was five years old when captured by hunters who drove his herd into a trap. He was too young to sell and was ''adopted'' by the children of the hunters' village. Years later it was said that the elephant's docile behaviour with children showed he had never forgotten their kindness.
The elephant later became the star of a Chinese circus which was in Singapore at the time the Japanese invaded. Charlie became a prisoner of war, his handler being forced to goad him with a bayonet while the animal was worked into the ground, clearing trees.
After his sojourn at Craigend Castle Zoo, Charlie was rescued from the slaughterman by Billy Butlin who took him to his holiday camp in Ayr.
The eventful story of Charlie the elephant ends on a somewhat sad note. The once proud and magnificent tusker is now a stuffed exhibit in a museum in Brazil.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Milngavie
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: East
