Daring escape act – eluding capture for six months
The bird completes a hat-trick of sightings at the rugby club. Alistair is left feeling as sick as a parrot after chasing Jack around the pitch to fans’ amusement. took photographs of me in my gauntlets with my net and put them on Facebook.”
Clearly a sports fan, Jack also visited the local football club, Linlithgow Rose.
“He was sitting on the goalposts. The away fans were going absolutely daft saying he was the Rose’s lucky mascot,” said Alistair.
Jack was finally recaptured when he flew into a chicken coop in a family’s garden and they closed the door on him.
Even then he was wary of coming back into the fold.
Main picture: Andrew Cawley.
Another sighting at Linlithgow Academy.
The pesky tearaway is spotted by youngsters at First Adventures Nursery, High Street, Linlithgow.
Who’s a naughty boy then? Jack is spotted at the cemetery. The parrot is seen at the
academy again.
“I took a cage down with corn on the cobs hooked on to tempt him in.
“Jack went up to the door, turned and looked at me and reached his claw in – he couldn’t reach the corn so he climbed up on to the roof, moved the hook the corn was hanging on closer to the door, went back to the door and reached in for it – he never actually went into the cage.”
Alistair finally deployed his net and Jack’s months of freedom came to an end.
“It was a real dilemma about catching him – he was really loving it out there – but in the end we were concerned about his well-being.” Even though he is back in his cage, his fame lives on with the local bowling club creating Fre e Ja c k T- shirts which they wore at the town’s festival, Marches Day, earlier this month.
A l i s ta i r revealed: “Now we walk down the street and get stopped by people asking how Jack is. “We’re famous because of this
parrot!”
IF Alistair and Jill had read The Sunday Post’s book, Pass It On Tips From The 1950s, they might have recaptured Jack quicker . . . possibly. Our book, a collection of homely hints sent to the paper, includes how to dust behind an immovable wardrobe or chase an annoying fly out of your house.
One tip reads:
The tip was sent in by Mrs E. Brown, from Portsmouth.
The Sunday Post didn’t test the tips. We weren’t brave enough to contradict the women who sent in their domestic secrets – but it might have worked! To buy the book, see page 65.
Two sightings – at Linlithgow Primary and having breakfast at Kettil’Stoun Mains.
Back to school: scoffing dandelions in fields at the
academy.
Jack is tracked to Linlithgow Palace.
Linlithgow Rose net themselves a new
lucky mascot. Coop swoop: after months of freedom Jack is back in his box after landing on a hen coop.