My name's Jean Dyson, I have a memory of Fenella the Holmfirth tiger that goes back a very long time.

 

It was round about 1940 when I was ten, and we were on holiday at Cleveleys and there was a caravan quite near the beach with a sign outside that said if you paid a sixpence you could go in and see a tiger.  Well the family wouldn't allow me to do this (I think they remembered about Albert and the lion and didn't want me to meet the same fate) but using a sixpence that I'd been given for ice cream - got into trouble but it was worth it because I went into this caravan and there was this magnificent creature I've never, ever seen anything like it.   And to be able to touch it and speak to it was unbelievable.

 

And there was a lovely lady with it who explained how they'd brought her to England and on the back of a settee in the caravan was a tiny little skin and she told me that it was Fenella's twin who'd died and explained how Fenella was once so tiny.

 

And today I am at Holmfirth Library where they are doing a revival of Fenella and I think it's wonderful that the stories that we've heard today aren't going to allow this unique experience to die.  She was a wonderful thing and how many villages can have owned a tiger that walked about quite freely amongst everybody?

 

I have another memory about this tiger you know - it was in the family, about a cousin who was walking with a friend up the valley very early one morning, and there was a mist, and they were going through a stile and all of a sudden over the wall came a tiger! Well, can you imagine the shock?

 

And today it was absolutely wonderful to actually meet the lady who owned Kassie [sic] and she confirmed abut remembering going to Blackpool with the tiger so that really made my day complete.