OXFORD FANTASY

 One of my favourite places is Oxford. Not only is it beautiful, but it's populated by people who are either magical and charismatic or borderline insane. Over the years we have shared a pub meal with a Fairy, given on the spot advice on how to tie a neckerchief to a group of 19th century chimney sweeps, shared a picnic on Christchurch meadow with a pantomime cow and had a ghostly encounter on Holywell Street. The following story is something I heard many years ago or possibly dreamed.

The Natural History Museum has many fine specimens and we have spent many happy hours poking around here and in the Pitt Rivers museum. From what I recall, a dead giraffe was offered to the museum and they accepted it without really thinking about how such a large creature would be prepared for display. Not a problem, they would take the corpse to the nearest knackers yard where it would chopped up, the flesh boiled off and the resulting bones reassembled into a rather fetching skeleton which would look very well presented in the museum. So off the animal goes to the nearest yard, which was quite central in Oxford, this being the 19th century where such establishments were commonplace. All good so far. The knacker man, or "Ket Fella" set about his task with enthusiasm which soon dwindled as the enormity of the task sank in. Very soon he had some pretty enormous pots on the go, full of giraffe portions. Little by little, he managed to boil the majority of the beast down to bones until he was nearly mad with exhaustion. This being done, he was left with a great deal of what can only be imagined as a sort of giraffe soup. This was a problem. The stuff was everywhere and it smelled terribly, even to his seasoned nostrils, so In desperation, he waited till nightfall then tipped the whole lot into the street which resulted in that area being temporarily flooded with decaying giraffe parts.

You'd think a lesson would be learned here, but some time later the museum was offered a dead hippo. You'd think they'd politely but firmly turn it down, but no no, a hippo skeleton was just what they needed, the jewel in the collection so to speak, so hippo tucked firmly under an arm, (not exactly, but you get the gist), they excitedly went to call on the knacker man, who, unsurprisingly wasn't at home.

Now they had a dilemma. Here they were, in possession of a nicely maturing hippo with nowhere to get it prepared. Reluctant to give up on the idea of a majestic hippo to display, someone came up with the idea of letting nature take its course and leaving the fair hippo out in the elements. The next question was where. They could hardly leave it in the yard or put it out the front on the pavement, and leaving it in a park was out of the question. Then some bright spark suggested a flat area up on the roof, so, running out of time and options with the hippo gently fuming, it was hauled, God knows how, up onto the roof.

Time went by, understandably, no one was keen on visiting the hippo to see how it was doing and what with time and tide and staff changes, the hippo was more or less forgotten until it was discovered by workmen many years later.

Now, this could be a complete work of fantasy, or like many of these stories, there could be more than a grain of truth in it. I'd so love to know. I tend to think that it is apocryphal, but this is Oxford we're talking about and it's just as likely to be totally true...