Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Fascinating history behind the myth of zoo’s phantom parking attendant
Tristan Cork reports that there might just have been a grain or two of truth in one of the West’s longest-running folk tales
FOR 20 years it has been one of those world-famous urban myths – but now reports have emerged that could show some truth in the story of the Bristol Zoo car parking attendant.
New research discovered by a campaign group fighting to stop visitors to Bristol Zoo parking on the nearby Downs has unearthed a fascinating history, which they say might explain where the myth came from.
The group say there is no evidence that people unofficially collecting parking ticket money from zoo visitors did anything illegal, or even wrong.
Instead, the myth was born out of the unorganised way the zoo’s parking worked for decades, it is claimed.
That story is, of course, one that has circled the world regularly, each time a new kind of social media evolved online – first it was through round-robin emails, then on early internet funny story websites, next on social media like MySpace, Reddit and Facebook.
It is now about to be turned into a TV comedy series and has been the stuff of legend for decades online.
Each time the myth is basically the same – that for 20 years a man collected money from visitors parking outside Bristol Zoo.
One day he didn’t turn up for work, and it turned out that Bristol
City Council thought he was collecting for the zoo, and the zoo thought he was collecting for the council. Meanwhile, he’d collected the money for himself and, as the urban myth finishes with a flourish, disappeared with a fortune to retire to a beach in the sun.
Bristol Zoo has always consistently said the story isn’t true – and it isn’t.
But the campaign group Downs For People said it has unearthed the kind of historic situation with regards to zoo parking dating back decades, which shows where the story could have come from.
The group is a coalition of local residents and environmentalists who have, for more than 10 years, been trying to stop the use of a large area of land on the Downs opposite the entrance to Bristol Zoo being used by the zoo as an overflow car park.
The land has been leased to the zoo for temporary use on busy days for decades by the Downs Committee – made up of half city councillors and half members of the Society of Merchant Venturers.
Downs For People is currently taking the Downs Committee and Bristol City Council to court in a legal challenge to a controversial decision by the committee to grant a 20-year lease to the zoo for that car park, and said that in researching exactly what has been going on with regards to zoo parking, they’ve unearthed a rather ad-hoc and chaotic arrangement dating back for decades – since the 1920s and well into the 1980s.
In the long term, the parking issue at the zoo will become irrelevant – Bristol Zoo has announced plans to close its historic Clifton site and move the zoo to its edge-of-Bristol location at Wild Place, on the other side of Cribbs Causeway, within a few years’ time.
The campaigners have been crowdfunding for legal help to mount their challenge in the courts, and it is believed to be the first time anyone has delved deeply into the archives of the minutes of the Downs Committee, every time they considered the issue.
The group’s spokesperson Susan Carter explained that there were people who took it upon themselves to collect parking money from motorists pulling up onto the Downs to visit the zoo, and no one quite knew who they gave the money to.
“We made a surprise discovery when doing research in the Bristol Archives for our current court case: There is truth behind the myth of Bristol’s phantom zoo parking attendant,” she claimed.
“The failure to provide properly for zoo visitors arriving by car goes back a century, to the 1920s,” she explained.
“For almost 30 years, from 1958 until the mid-1980s, and quite likely for 30 years before that, people were able to make their living as parking attendants, collecting ‘voluntary’ donations from motorists parking on rough ground outside the zoo.
“It is unlikely that anyone made a fortune, and from 1958 onwards attendants were authorised either by the Downs Committee or, from 1983, the zoo (probably – that is when confusion may have arisen).
“It is not clear when the system of voluntary donations ended; attendants only started wearing uniforms in 1988, when a system of parking stickers was introduced,” she added.
So for decades, volunteers not in uniform and ‘authorised’ by a loose mix of the Downs Committee or perhaps the zoo, organised the parking, and took money from visitors telling them because they were volunteers, they might want to make a donation.
Downs For People even found the
For almost 30 years, from 1958 until the mid-1980s, and quite likely for 30 years before that, people were able to make their living as parking attendants, collecting ‘voluntary’ donations from motorists parking on rough ground outside the zoo SUSAN CARTER, DOWNS FOR PEOPLE
name of one of these volunteer supervisors – although there is absolutely no suggestion he did anything untoward with any money he received. In fact, Downs For People wants to try to trace him or his family to find out more about his role.
“We even found the name of an attendant: Mr S W Barrett of 35 Westbury Lane, who supervised parking from 1978,” said Ms Carter.
“He issued tickets making it clear he was unpaid. Maybe Mr Barrett or his relatives will read this and tell us more about his role.
“Unsurprisingly, motorists objected to this ‘voluntary’ system. Not only did they pay: the parking was chaotic and unsatisfactory,” she claimed.
“But the real losers, then as now, were the people of Bristol, deprived of the use of parts of the Downs by parking for zoo visitors, not just outside the zoo but on the grass off Ladies Mile,” she added.
By the late 1980s, the zoo had formally taken over the area in front of its main entrance.
Interest in the myth of the solitary Bristol Zoo car parking attendant comes in waves every few years.
Right now, Bristolian film-makers Paul Holbrook Amy Trevaskus and Broadchurch actor Joe Sims are developing a comedy series based on the story of the urban myth.
In the real world, the legal challenge from Downs for People is continuing, despite the news in Novem
ber last year that then zoo would be moving away anyway, and the issue of the Downs being used as a temporary car park apparently over. Although closure will bring an end to zoo parking on the Downs, Downs for People remains very concerned,” said Ms Carter.
“The city council and the Downs Committee do not agree that parking on the Downs is lawful only when related to activity on the Downs. They argue that they have a power to use any part of the Downs as a car park at their discretion. Downs for People is worried about that.
“And what is to happen to the North car park? This should be restored and go back to the Downs. Downs for People is concerned the Downs Committee may wish to keep it as a car park or for some other use to raise money,” she added.
The court case being brought by Downs for People over the granting of a 20-year lease a couple of years ago resumes next month with a judge expected to decide whether or not it should go ahead to a full, ‘substantive’ hearing later this year.