Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales
It’s Monkey World, as seen on TV – but as usual chris’s mind is elsewhere!
Iwent to Monkey World last weekend. I realise there are many who feel this is where I should have been all along, but it was actually my first visit.
For those who don’t know, Monkey World is a primate rescue centre in Dorset which has achieved fame through a long-running reality TV series. The series follows the day-to-day life of both apes and staff, and so they’ve all become stars in their own right. My wife Lorraine loves it, mainly because she’s a massive fan of primates – especially massive primates, which is probably the reason I stood a chance with her.
To acknowledge this, and in a “meet the family” type gesture, for her Christmas present I purchased tickets to Monkey World.
From the moment we walked through the theme park-style gates, Lorraine became more energised than I’ve ever seen her – something which may say as much about living with me as it does about Monkey World.
I watched incredulously as she ran from enclosure to enclosure, almost beside herself with excitement. Lorraine never runs, anywhere.
One moment she’d be pointing at a grinning chimpanzee shouting, “It’s Bart, it’s Bart! I can’t believe it’s Bart”, the next she’d be shouting “Tau, Tau, look over this way!” at a tiny Capuchin monkey, instantly recognising him despite the fact he was sitting among 23 almost identical compatriots.
Amazingly, it was indeed Tau. He looked round at Lorraine with an element of monkey-surprise, as if to say “Who, me?” To Tau’s credit he then walked to our edge of the enclosure and tipped his wig to us. Have you ever seen a Capuchin monkey? They have a mop of dark hair on the tops of their heads, and when they communicate (usually by raising their eyebrows) the whole lot seems to move up and down