by Benjamin Mee
Mike Thomas, the reassuring voice of wisdom on the phone, finally materialized at the park, and ended up helping out considerably with this. It was great to meet Mike in the flesh, to shake his hand, and thank him for all his help in getting the park, without which it quite simply wouldn’t have been possible. Mike and his lovely wife, Jen, had the solid, comforting air of people who knew what they were talking about. With his white beard, ready smile, and faded denim shirt, Mike looked like a cross between the British wildlife TV programmer Bill Oddie and the BBC’s Animal Hospital host, Rolf Harris. In fact Mike’s animal pedigree was far more impressive than those of these keen amateurs, as we were to find out.
Jen looked like a real “Born Free lady,” someone who could bottle-feed a baby chimpanzee while getting on with her daily routine unfazed. Mike and Jen had both been through a similar experience to ours, more than a decade before, at Newquay Zoo. Now that we had time to chat, I asked Mike how he had managed taking over Newquay with no experience of running a zoo, as his background was in design and teaching. “Oh, I just called Gerry, and he was very helpful.” Gerry? “Gerald Durrell at Jersey Zoo. You’ve heard of him, I hope?” Heard of Gerald Durrell? One of my heroes, as well as being a superbly evocative writer. My Family and Other Animals alone has probably engaged as many people with the natural world as David Attenborough. Durrell was the premier conservationist of his, or possibly any, generation. Founding Jersey Zoo in the teeth of opposition from the zoological world, Durrell then used it to change the center of gravity of that world toward active conservation, as opposed to simply exhibiting animals. Astonishingly, captive breeding programs of endangered species for reintroduction to the wild, and for learning about their breeding habits to inform our conservation and management of them in the wild, were still sometimes actually considered a bad idea as recently as the 1960s and 1970s.
According to Lord Zuckerman, president of the Zoological Society of London, addressing the World Conference on Captive Breeding of Endangered Species held at London Zoo in July 1976, because extinction is part of natural selection we shouldn’t interfere but merely document the process for the benefit of zoological science. “Species have always been disappearing,” he said. “There will always be rare species.” I remember that year’s fantastic, sticky summer of glam rock, skateboards, and California sunshine making everything seem perfect, as an eleven-year-old at primary school, happily oblivious to the president of London Zoo’s almost nihilistic perspective on animals. But even as a child I would have known he was wrong. I was probably sitting sweating and fidgeting in assembly as Zuckerman addressed the zoological community. Gerald Durrell was sitting, writhing apoplectically, in that audience. He was already a man with a zoo, and a man with a mission, and I expect that on hearing those words, from that source in that place, Gerald Durrell would have simply renewed his vows to himself for the thousandth time. When other people simply gave up, he just dug in deeper. He saw it through, against a lifetime of people telling him it wasn’t possible. He was a conservation giant, a maverick, and a writer on a grand scale. And now it transpired that one of the main guiding lights on our final approach to buy the zoo, Mike Thomas, was a receptacle of Gerald Durrell’s teachings. Wow. I’m not a religious person, but it did seem like the clouds had opened up a bit and our flimsy efforts were being endorsed from on high.
Mike and Jen helped us a lot in those crucial few weeks, as they had done when they steered us through the negotiations. This time they were more hands-on, frequently driving up from Cornwall to give advice and unpack endless boxes with Mum. One evening, around the old trestle table in the stone-flagged kitchen, with the dilapidated rusted range in the background, a legal document needed to be processed, which absolutely required us to come up with a name for the park. I have blocked from my mind most of the more depressing suggestions, but many were generated in the need to find something that echoed the mostly positive forty-year history and brand recognition of Dartmoor Wildlife Park, while distancing us from the bad publicity of the more recent past.
Staying “Dartmoor Wildlife Park” was not a good idea because of the previous prosecutions, and, shall we say, perceptions of it on the part of the wider zoo world and local suppliers. We needed a relaunch, and quickly. Dartmoor Zoo was ruled out because all our neighbors had already monopolized that, some would say predictable, format; Exmoor, Paignton, Newquay, and Bristol have already well tested the concept of local area plus Zoo as their title—which works for them. But we wanted to explore new possibilities. South West Wildlife Park, Dartmoor Wildlife Conservation Park, and all sorts of unsuitable horrors surfaced and floated around before finally being punctured by Mike, at our kitchen table, almost certainly with a glass of wine in hand. He suggested, “Why don’t you call it Dartmoor Zoological Park?” It had continuity with the past, but also a clear reference to serious scientific activity in the future. I liked it; we all liked it, and that is the trading name we entered into Companies House, the official government register of UK companies. I was particularly pleased because, as well as establishing a new identity and ethos pointing toward the world of science, this gave us a Z in the middle of our logo.
Katherine seemed less impressed with this typographical development, and politely ignored my suggestions about how the Z could be used at three times the size of the D and the P, creating a Zorro-like dash. Katherine set to work with the brisk certainty of a skilled expert on home ground. She’d chosen her colors and collected examples of other logos from successful zoos, we’d discussed the broad outline of the brief, and I watched her go into her familiar routine of pasting up swatches of colors and fonts, fretting, squinting at things from arm’s length, and working to tight print deadlines.
We had a “definite” lender in our sights, and, through Mike, even Gerald Durrell’s vicarious blessing. DZP, as we now jauntily called ourselves, was going to work.
But in those weeks before the money arrived, things were still very strained indeed. The cold, wet winter weather exacerbated the feelings of despair and unreversed decline that we were supposed to be addressing. Very little real progress could be made because even the smallest tasks required some money. Everything we had or could borrow from credit cards was used to pay staff wages. My small income from my Guardian column and another in Grand Designs magazine was the only actual income for the park, and nowhere near enough to pay the wages of our not-so-happy little band.
Staff morale worsened, and the uncertainty that had been creeping in was now a full-time presence. I spoke to the NFU Mutual mortgage company every day, and their representatives assured me that everything was in hand, but the lawyers were taking their time drawing up the documents. The problem was that if they took much longer, the business wouldn’t be there to lend to anymore, and we’d have to put it back on the market. There was a very tangible feeling that the lawyers behind the scene really didn’t care whether this happened or not. They weren’t going to be rushed, and if in the meantime the transaction moved from the active to the receivership pile, it just meant more paid work for them, or their kind.
Three days before the money finally arrived, a new secretarial employee on a month’s trial opened up a statement from Lloyds, who had promised us a loan three times, only to withdraw the offer each time at the last minute. In the course of this charade, Lloyds had set up accounts in the name of Mee Conservation Ltd. (the name of our newly formed company), issued checkbooks, and begun sending us monthly statements. The problem was that the statements said things like 0.00, nil, etc., in row after row of austere columns, which, to the untrained eye of someone worrying about their job security, looks bad. This secretarial wannabe screamed across the office “They’ve got no money. Look! Look!” etc., waving the apparently incriminating paper around for everyone to see. The effect was not calming, and at about eleven that morning an unusually strained Steve, our brand-new curator of animals, visited me in the kitchen of the house, where I had just finished clearing away breakfast. “I’m real
ly sorry to bother you,” said Steve, and he clearly was sorry but also deeply concerned. “I think you’d better come over to the restaurant. Everybody is there.” I looked longingly at my unsipped coffee, and headed over with him.
Everybody was indeed there, from Paul the van driver to gentle Robin the draftsman, all the keepers, and the new secretarial tryout, Sarah. They sat in a circle of chairs, arms folded, with an empty chair for me. It was an uncanny moment, with these normally polite and compliant people turning into inquisitors, and the unusualness of the situation emphasized its gravity. I wasn’t nervous, but I knew I had to project myself or be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of uncertainty in the room. I explained as openly and honestly as I could about the promised money from the NFU, how I was expecting final confirmation any day now, that we’d signed the last of the last documents, and were now just waiting for lawyers to finish dithering. My frustration with the situation was every bit as intense as theirs, but more so, as I was privy to the intricacies of the mechanisms of procrastination. I told them that I was regularly promised the funds by a particular date, but that these arrangements were regularly broken. That previous Monday, for instance, had been a firm promise cast in stone, but had passed without even a communication from the bank. I hadn’t believed the promise, so I hadn’t told the staff about it, as it was frustrating enough for me without having to apologize for the bank to everyone else every time they let me down. “I didn’t tell you about that deadline because I didn’t believe it would happen,” I said. “I will only believe it when I see the money in the account—and I do believe that it will come, but when, I can’t tell you. But I will tell you when it’s there. My feeling is that it will be within the next week. That’s the best I can say to you.”
I looked around the room. They were all looking intently at me, making economic decisions. Who was this young joker who had bought the place without having enough money to run it? Could he be trusted? What were the alternatives? The secretarial assistant had a question about her own wages, which I suggested was a separate issue for a private meeting. Her end-of-month review was coming up, and it was not going to go well. I looked everyone in the eye in turn and asked if they had any more questions. In the end I think it was John who stood up and said something like, “That seems fair enough.” Other chairs scraped back as people got to their feet. The spell was broken. The inquisition was over. I’d got through by the skin of my teeth. Now I just needed to convince myself. I had been convinced before the meeting, and also during it as I’d managed to convince the others to hang in there. But afterward, the fact that I had been put in the position where the business was on the absolute brink of disintegration, by a bank, made me question whether they really were actually going to come up with the goods. I had believed Barclays, I had believed Lloyds, three times. I’d believed Arbuthnots, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and a host of others who had ultimately, utterly without compunction, let us down. I thought about the NFU. Their contact, Andrew Ruth, was clearly a nice, honest, and conscientious man, but he had no control over the backroom boys, who in this case were not the risk-assessment team, but the lawyers.
When institutions behave badly, it’s easy for the little people like us to get caught in the machinery, which will not slow down as it grinds you up, repossesses your house, and sends the bailiffs in to evict your children. They are chilling people. All smiles when preparing to lend money, as long as your spread sheets are in order, and you sign over all your assets as security. And their expressions barely change as they watch the prospect of you getting snarled up in the small print and everything ebbing away.
One problem we encountered was that we weren’t borrowing enough. The amount, £550,000, seemed like a lot to me, but apparently that officially made us small fry. “Anything under a million takes time,” we were told by one bank. “It’s the highest risk sector there is.” I toyed frantically but briefly with the idea of asking for three million, but even my economically naive brain quickly realized that we would encounter spreadsheet difficulties quite quickly going down that route.
Having eventually found understanding lenders in the National Farmers’ Union was reassuring, but the terrible uncertainty of having money promised but not actually available lasted for three agonizing months and had a massive impact on the business plan, the staff, and the idea of opening for Easter in April. When the NFU finally came up with the money, on 8 February 2007, our elation was tainted by the knowledge of the unnecessary damage already done by the delay, caused by our own brother’s actions and the nature of financial institutions, which had made our target of opening for the all-important Easter bank holiday virtually impossible.
But far, far worse than this, for me, was the knowledge that the good news of the money arriving had been completely over shadowed by the very worst news of all.
5
Katherine
Living together as an extended family—Mum, Duncan, Katherine, Milo, Ella, and me—would take some adjusting to. For the kids, it must have seemed like a huge adventure. It was going to be an adventure for all of us, a largely positive one, we hoped. But Katherine’s illness changed all that. A few days before our first Christmas at the zoo, my wife and I received just about the worst news possible: her brain tumor was back.
In April 2004 we were married after nine years together. By June she had been diagnosed with an aggressive glioblastoma brain tumor, and given about a year to live. The excellent French medical services extracted the tumor and she underwent eighteen months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy afterward. When her body could physically take no more, the treatment stopped and she was monitored every month with an MRI scan to see if the tumor had returned.
Katherine celebrated the end of her treatment in her usual way, with a bout of intense hard work. Cleaning, sorting, gardening at a frenetic rate. I told her that the doctors had advised rest, but she said she felt fine, and sometimes it’s better for people to feel good about what they are doing rather than lie low. One day I went to the shops for supplies, and when I returned, Milo was at the gate to meet me. “Mummy’s fallen over but she’s all right now,” he reported, obviously agitated but under control. I asked Katherine about her fall. She was looking dazed but denied it totally. Gradually we pieced together what had happened. While making some tea, she had suddenly fallen to the floor and started shaking all over. Both children eagerly performed vivid impersonations and pointed to the exact spot where it had happened. Ella had started crying because she thought she had died, but Milo pointed out that she couldn’t have died because her eyes were open. “Then I tried to give her some bread to make her strong,” he said. We phoned the doctor and went for another scan, where it was confirmed that this was her first epileptic seizure, which is why she had no memory of it. Epilepsy is very common in people who have had brain surgery, as the brain is a closed system and doesn’t like being disturbed. Her anti-epilepsy medication was increased and tinkered with over the following months, as the combinations of drugs caused some quite serious side effects, including debilitating depression.
Eventually it was all stabilized, and we learned to look out for the symptoms, which could be brought on mainly by tiredness. I briefed the children on what to do if it happened again. The bread was a nice idea, but in fact you are not supposed to go near someone’s mouth if they are having a seizure; with every neuron in the brain firing at once, the person can inadvertently bite your finger off. We told the children not to touch her if it happened again; she wouldn’t hurt herself because she was unlikely to flail around, and the best thing to do was simply wait for it to finish. After her long months of anti-cancer therapies, Katherine had to endure perhaps the most frustrating treatment of all for her: taking it easy. She did this in her own way, by taking long afternoon naps and then working hard with a mattock in her vegetable garden as the day cooled. Gradually the naps grew shorter and her muscle tone began to improve. We dreaded the monthly scans, but with each clear result, our confidence grew. The epi
leptic episode was a warning shot, but it also gave us a less-scary interpretation of her occasional symptoms of giddiness or tingling in her hand.
Throughout that summer of 2006, I was on the phone negotiating to buy the zoo, and by October, that was finally achieved and I had moved in with Duncan and Mum. Katherine arrived about a month later, after tying up our affairs in France, and for me it felt like the last piece of the puzzle was in place. With Katherine on board, we couldn’t fail. She never failed. She wouldn’t allow those around her to fail either. Watching the budget with a beady eye, she also wouldn’t tolerate overspending.
Just before Christmas 2006, shortly after moving to the zoo, Katherine developed a tingling on her right-hand side that didn’t go away with the epilepsy medicine. I phoned the GP to request an MRI scan, and was amazed that one was scheduled in three weeks’ time. In France a car would arrive to take you to the hospital the next day. I telephoned the hospital to get it moved forward and found that the faxed request from the GP had arrived on the desk of the wrong specialist, who was on holiday anyway. I called the GP again and explained to him what a glioblastoma was, what it could do, how quickly it grows, and gave him the fax number of the right specialist. And this time—good man—the doctor asked for an emergency scan and we went to the hospital two days later. There was a week to wait for the result, which we passed clinging to the hope of epilepsy, as the tingling seemed to lessen the more Katherine rested.
But it wasn’t epilepsy. The MRI scan revealed a recurrence of the tumor. She quickly developed a speech deficit, leaving her unable to get past certain words, making her repeat the same word again and again, which was extremely frustrating for her and quite frightening. She lost movement of her right hand very quickly, and her right arm suddenly became an encumbrance. Around us, the zoo was lumbering on, and we were caught between two worlds.