LOVE OF ANIMALS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21640, 4 November 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

LOVE OF ANIMALS

MR. BOSTOCK STARTS A ZOO " The menagerie business is in my blood. I cannot stay away from it. My love of animals has brought me back." These are the words of 66-year-old Mr. Frank Bostock who retired from the circus world three years ago to end his days fishing and gardening at his home at Woking, Surrey. He has now started a zoo at Southend. " When the Bostock animals went to Whipsnade in 1931, I kept a few of my special favourites and had them looked after by a friend in Grimsby in his private zoo," Mr. Bostock says. " 1 had imagined that it would be just heaven to settle down, for 1 love home life and gardens and flowers. " For a few months the new life was all that I had expected, and then 1 began to get tired of the garden and pushing a lawn mower about. 1 craved for the noise and the bustle and the excitement of my old circus and menagerie, for the clowns and the tinsel, and I wanted to talk again with my animal friends." Since the menagerie was broken up Mr. Bostock' has received requests from all over the world that he should again go on the road with his animals. " There were hundreds of these letters," he said. " One of them offered me the chance of opening a zoo here. I liked the idea, for 1 thought if X could spend one day each 1, week with animals I would be quite content, but when once I got a few together found I was spending almost every day with them.."