Animals were truly
THE Farrars were extraordinary characters. These days the lions at Colchester Zoo stay safely in their enclosures – but 50 years ago the lion cubs of Southport Zoo enjoyed life within the Farrar family household in Westbourne Road.
Following our revelation that there were three lion cubs kept at the Farrar’s Birkdale home, we can now update that there were in fact four – we missed off Limpopo, who arrived as a one-year old in July 1960.
Our last few features have concentrated on Rajah and now we continue the ‘tail’ looking at how it all started for the Farrar family’s zoological aspirations, beginning with the garden park zoo off Scarisbrick New Road, at the former Kew Gardens in the 1880s.
Most estate agents worry about rats, but Frank Norman Farrar was rather different. The Story of Colchester Zoo – which features the Farrar family and was written by SC Kershaw – tells us that Frank had ‘a young adult lioness living in his house’ (unnamed) – but presumably Sammy.
No 36 Westbourne Road, Birkdale was situated just a roar from the coastal sandy hillocks perched on the Irish Sea, within one of the most desirable areas of Southport, described as an ‘attractive and wealthy northern seaside resort in Lancashire’.
Here, in this Victorian villa (built in 1893 within a new thoroughfare) – described in the history books as one of the many ‘castles in the sands’ which sprung up in Birkdale – is where Frank lived with his second wife, Helena.
But just who was Frank Farrar? Well, the Yorkshireman was certainly someone who grew up to be no stranger to risk and excitement – more of that next week.
We are told in SC Kershaw’s interesting book about Colchester Zoo and the Farrars, that the young Yorkshireman ‘spent his teenage years working in the short-lived but substantial zoo his father had opened in 1924 near Scarisbrick New Road in Southport’ although we have yet to verify this interesting snippet.
Southport’s 12-acre Zoological Park (Kew Gardens), which had started in at least the 1880s, is last recorded in the directories in 1914. Visitors would travel via horse tram to enjoy the zoo gardens with its pavilion and lake, which even featured gondoliers.
Tragedy had struck the zoo in 1908 when a serious fire ravaged W Simpson Cross’s exhibited collection of animals, birds and reptiles.
The fire appears to have been the start of the zoo’s downfall, then the trams stopped running down Scarisbrick New Road so Kew Gardens and its zoo closed shortly after World War I.
In 1924 only the Richmond Hotel is recorded on the site, situated close to Ormesher’s Boundary Farm, the Kew Gardens Poultry Farm and Pickwick Lawn Tennis Club.
Frank Farrar’s attempt to revive the zoological park is very interesting, so we hope to find more details on that.
We are informed that Frank volunteered for the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1940, three days after Prime Minister
Winston Churchill’s declaration that the Battle of Britain was about to begin, when the British air force was the last remaining obstacle which blocked Hitler’s crazed dream of global demolition.
Thanks to the bravery of all those young men such as Frank Farrar, in the summer of 1940, the RAF provided Hitler’s first military defeat.
The origins of the old Southport Zoo began in 1953 when Frank and Helena Farrar developed just one acre of land next to Pleasureland, as a Pet’s Corner.
Due to their passion for big cats, Frank and Helena Farrar opened their first ‘Southport Model Zoological Garden for Children’ close to the resort’s seafront and, over a decade later, had built up an impressive and varied collection of animals and birds, including breeding programmes, within their now six-acre site.
Meanwhile, the couple always kept a tame, house-trained lion cub at the home by the sea – the first of which was bought (rescued) from a pet shop. The dynamic duo, with their vivid personalities, fitted in very well with the colourful and creative people who inhabited the mainstream movie world at this time.
Given that their animals were so expertly trained and well-behaved, and that handsome payments were forthcoming for such appearances by Rajah, as featured last week, it is hardly surprising that their film-making venture was merely the beginning of a long association between the Farrars’ animals and the world of show business.
The American film star, Kirk Douglas, was presented with a lion cub called Spartacus (what else!) by Frank in appreciation of Douglas’ film role.
Birkdale’s famous Indian lion did, in fact, make numerous media appearances, but now long forgotten so it is impossible to list them all.
The same goes for other Southport Zoo inhabitants that took to the small and big screen, including Frank’s tame leopard Chiefy (aka ‘Big Chief Horrible Noise’).
Chiefy had been born in India (possibly Bengal) in June 1954, and came to Southport Zoo around March the following year.
He soon appeared in many highprofile films and TV programmes.
Postcards of him were on sale here grandly declaring he was ‘The World’s most famous leopard’ – which was probably not too far off the mark, as it is safe to suggest that it is a good chance that any British (even American) films made between 1955 and 1965 which feature a male leopard, will be Southport’s Chiefy.
Frank and Helena Farrar had, without doubt, been making far more money than could have been expected from such a small zoo as Southport , charging a few pennies per head no matter how busy it might have been.
He had already given up his estate agency work by this time, along with some of his other business interests.
Claims that individuals such as Rajah and Chiefy were having careers spanning more than 130 major film and television appearances can be regarded as broadly accurate, as it seems that this was the Farrars’ main money-making venture.
The price put on one of the Farrars’ film contracts, for example, was in excess of £100 a day (equal to nearly £2,000 today).
By 1962 Frank Farrar was again being offered the opportunity of settling down to a quiet life.
Even ignoring the lucrative film work, Southport Zoo had become an enduring success bringing in just about enough money for him and Helena to live a reasonably comfortable life together.
Sandgrounders at the time felt a strong attachment to the town’s zoo