Animal transit lounge

Press, 24 September 1983, Page 18

Animal transit lounge

Animals by Air. By Neville Whittaker. Sidgwick and Jackson/ Hutchinson, 1983. 207 pp. $24.50. (Reviewed by Lorna Buchanan) Unlike most writers of books about animals, Neville Whittaker is neither vet, nor breeder, nor conservationist. Instead, the greater part of his working life was spent at the R.S.P.C.A. hostel at Heathrow Airport, outside London, attending to the needs of all forms of life, other than human. Creatures transhipping, waiting for quarantine, or waiting for delayed flights, all rested briefly under the compassionate umbrella of R.S.P.C.A. care in the form of Neville Whittaker and his girl assistants. The means of transport were almost as varied as the animals themselves — fish in plastic bags of water, a crocodile in a crate, a sea cow in a canvas sling supported by a steel frame. In the case of eight Canada geese, part of a consignment of 38, the

birds left over the paddock fence under their own wing-power. Two were never recovered. But a stork that escaped through the kitchen window, and Freda the monkey who made her getaway from the freight sheds, were. Freda, a large female rhesus monkey, stayed free for two months, providing entertainment for local residents and for television — and an embarrassment for the R.S.P.C.A. An amazing range of food had to be found, including such bizarre special tastes as spiced buns for a white rhinoceros and strawberries for a gorilla with exotic tastes. From boy-help for donkeys on Blackpool sands, to zoo-keeper, to supporter in a stage-show animal act, and finally to R.S.P.C.A. hostel supervisor, Whittaker has a lifetime of animal stories to tell. Funny and tragic, unusual and commonplace, they are all told in a pleasing but unassuming manner.