Giraffes on Devonshire Green

Someone reminded us in an earlier post that they had seen a whale on Sheffield Moor -which as a youngster I can definitely confirm.

Some years after this I recall a slightly eccentric chap in the Nursery Tavern on Ecclesall Rd complaining that a cricus giraffe had bent over its railed enclosure alongside Fitzwilliam St and gobbled up his fish and chips.

The chap was a brilliant but slightly batty cake icer called Victor Collins related to the city bakers Collins on Glossop Rd. In anguished moments -usually when tipsy -he would descibe himself as just a human biro scratching an existence in decorating novelty cakes.

He was banned from several pubs for his frequent tendency to indulge in bloodthirsty monologues related to the war. His outbursts involved shifting beermats,glasses and ashtrays to simulate the scenes of battles.

He didn't attract much sympathy from the landlords by bringing in his own bottled beers and spirits into the pubs and offering to pay corkage.

Just another nutter1

Carefull Hal:blush: do you mean excentric.

Was it true then?

dude

i think the post died a while ago lol, what the hell did you search for to find this??

girraffes?

giraffes eating fish and chips?

Well, this thread is certainly a blast from the past, and I dunno about a giraffe with a penchant for fish & chips, but "Jonah" the preserved whale was definitely displayed in Sheffield in about 1954.

Well, it IS a fact that there used to be a regular circus on what is now Devonshire Green. We went on a school visit at roughly the same time as the whale was displayed on The Moor [about 1952 ? ].

Giraffes ? Circus ? Devonshire Green ? I also remember Victor Collins very well and he was an extremely kind, entertaining and talented eccentric. His stories were always well-told and very funny. It's hard to imagine him in today's pubs. It would be difficult to hear him above the rap music and gaming machines.

On top of that, I seem to remember he might have been a smoker [ Oh My Gawd ! ] so the Elf & Safety Officers might well have found some other way of getting rid of him.

Devonshire Green used to be called "Devonshire St. bomb site" (http://www.picturesheffield.com/cgi-bin/picturesheffield.pl?_cgifunction=form&_layout=picturesheffield&keyval=sheff.refno=s01285) and since the 1940s had been a convenient city-centre open space for funfairs and such temporary structures as a circus big top. "Cinerama" was set up there in 1965 and two action-packed films Cinerama Holiday and Seven Wonders of the World were shown in surround-screen format. I still have my ticket: http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u219/twigmore/Cinerama.jpg

Now that Hillsboro has confirmed the news about Devonshire Green and the visiting Big Tops, is it likely that circuses had any giraffes in tow ?

There were a few fish and chip shops in that area so old Victor Collins ' story gets more plausible by the minute ! I mean it IS the sort of thing that would have happened to someone like him. After listening to some of his more bizarre war stories, giraffes nicking one's fish and chips on Division Street seems fairly humdrum, in comparison.[ One had to meet him to get the full flavour of his stories ].

Incidentally, Hillsboro is correct, too about the ' Bomb site ' tag. A lot of the area between the city and William Street got bombed and almost each corner had its ' bomb sites '. They were put to all sorts of uses----punch-ups, bonfires, second-hand car companies, love nests and general playgrounds. No need to travel far in that area for a bit of fun, drama or love !

I can confirm the story about the Giraffe on Devonshire street because I have a photograph of myself feeding it.:hihi:

That Giraffe had some neck pinching a blokes fish n chips

In fact, to be honest, I don't think that giraffe gave a monkey's.