"To appear almost starry eyed"?, true when I was a child and I first started to hang around circuses and getting to know the people in it, it was just like Mr. Gallianos Circus by Enid Blyton. The older you get the wiser you get and I continued visiting circuses into adulthood, by then of coarse it was not the fantasy world it was when I was eight years old, it was a very hard life and it got even harder to travel an animal circus in this country as time progressed. I can honestly say that the circus people who I associated with were not cruel to their animals, in fact they lived for their animals, a first cousin of Mary Chipperfield is one of the nicest, most decent people I have ever known. As for Mary and Roger's £8,000 fine, this was by the way £20,000 including court costs. A lot of money yes but not the end of the world for people in such a strong financial position. The punishment was far greater than that, their business and reputation in tatters, having to leave the country for Spain afterwards, hate male, death threats etc. How would you like it if it was your mother and people were stating on facebook yesterday after a member of this group furnished us with details of a page which included a tribute to Mary, "Hip Hip Hurray, that's made my day"?, coincidently this comment was made only minutes after this link was posted on here. Perhaps Mary was specifically targeted for investigation as she was considered to be the best in the business , so what did that make all the others in the same line of business?
I believe that Mary Chipperfield would certainly not have handled many baby chimps in her time. I don't know the exact history of 'Trudy' but from what I have read it appears she was born to adult Chimps owned by them, then handraised. (Indeed she may have been the only one they ever raised like that). Were these ones formerly kept at e.g. Longleat perhaps as they had them for a while on an island, and then disappeared? I also believe her actions in respect of the Chimp could be likened to those RSPCA cases where dogs and cats are found living in atrocious conditions but the owners didn't 'mean' to be cruel. Her actions were performed out of a mixture of ignorance and impatience. Anyone having any proper knowledge or experience with young Apes would know that placing a young Chimp alone in a box away from any company is totally against its natural instincts, yet she persisted in trying to force it to do so by beating it like a naughty child. A glittering (so called) Circus career spent handling Big Cats, Elephants or whatever would have given her no preparation or experience for what she was attempting here.
I don't know exactly how many chimps Mary owned over the years but she always had one or two in her possession throughout her circus career, her mother Rose also had experience with chimps in fact raising one to good health that her husband Jimmy bought from a dealer that was in such a poorly state that he thought buying it would be a complete waste of money
Interesting. As Nanook suggested above, I still suspect the treatment of Trudy may have been rather a one-off and reflecting someone not having a great deal of understanding of the species.
I recall some years ago a well known show jumper, just like Mary Chipperfield who was well known to the public and also a household name, being prosecuted for being a bit too handy with the riding crop. I agree that he just like anyone else should have been prosecuted for animal cruelty, but did he receive the same reception from the public as experienced by Mary?, No. perhaps the reason for this is that show jumping is middle/upper class and circus is somewhere just frequented by the plebians after being given their corn dole and is therefore just a very easy target.
I understand Mrs. Rose Chipperfield had helped Mary with Trudy, she lived with her daughter and was in her eighties at the time.
Southampton Zoo I for one will not be sorry to know Mary Chipperfield died last year. As a teenager I witnessed dreadful cruelty at Zoo's and Safari Parks that the Chipperfields happen to be involved in.
Lets not all get sad spiteful and bitter here. The Chipperfields make up a large part of our zoo history we cant just pretend they dont exist.Yes by todays standards some of their practices unacceptable . Lets leave them where they belong in history with a curteous nod.
I know it's bad form to resurrect a long dead thread, but I've just rewatched this documentary on youtube, documenting the treatment of animals by the Chipperfields, and it reminded me of how people were almost defending this woman's actions. I suggest those people watch it too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYgDa3nSp9I
