Did this war hero donkey make an ass of the RSPCA?
HE was honoured as a famous, four-legged war hero and awarded the animal equivalent of a Victoria Cross for bravery.
Jimmy ‘The Sergeant’ was just a donkey but was said to have saved countless soldiers’ lives on the front line, carrying equipment and troops during the First World War.
He was trained to raise his hoof in salute, and such was his legacy that he was even commemorated with a monument after his death.
But a historian now claims the whole story was made up by the Jimmy’s owner to make the donkey more saleable.
The story goes that Jimmy was
‘Animal bought from gipsies’
born in France after a shell wounded his pregnant mother during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and that he was adopted by The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles).
Troops reputedly reared Jimmy amid falling shells and gunfire on the frontline and weaned him on tins of condensed milk. He spent two years on the front line before being demobbed to a new home with the RSPCA in Peterborough.
When the donkey died in 1943, he was buried in Peterborough’s Central Park, where he is still commemorated with a monument. In 2012 he was awarded a posthumous Dickin Medal for bravery, the highest military honour for an animal, and honoured by the Cameronians’ museum in Hamilton, Lanarkshire.
But now Peterborough historian Neil Mitchell has cast doubt on Jimmy’s credentials, sparking a row with regiment historians. Speaking in a BBC Radio Scotland programme going out on Tuesday, Mr Mitchell claims a dealer named George Walding bought the animal from gipsies and invented the heroic story to sell it on.
Mr Mitchell said: ‘Jimmy was supposedly bought in Southampton, put on the railway and delivered to Peterborough, where the dealer was hoping to sell the donkey to the circus. They didn’t want him, so he took him to the cattle market and tried to sell him with this elaborate story about being born on the Western Front.
‘A gentleman from the RSPCA decided that perhaps they could raise some money and buy him to represent the RSPCA.’
Jimmy became a hugely popular fundraiser for the charity, and an animal legend. His story seemed to be confirmed when he was recognised by a soldier, Private Dudley, in 1920. But Mr Mitchell said: ‘Private Dudley was with the medical corps and attached to the Scottish Rifles, and it was he who elaborated on Jimmy being the mascot of the regiment. He informed the newspaper it was Neddy, although the dealer had called him Jimmy.
‘It hung together until eventually the son of the dealer actually told the newspapers that the whole thing had been a hoax. In fact, the donkey was purchased from some gipsies.’
But war historian Sam Morrell, a member of the Cameronian Scottish Rifles Regimental Association, insists Jimmy was a war hero: ‘He was wounded seven times – I’ve seen a photograph where you can see on his back the marks where he was damaged by shrapnel.’
Jimmy the War Donkey? will be broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland on December 23 on Good Morning Scotland, the John Beattie Show and Newsdrive.