“Jason the lion loved ice cream”

- Animal keeper Margaret Gutteridge

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Margaret (right) (Emma Drabble)

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Margaret was introduced to Whitson Zoo by the lion that no-body wanted. Born in Goldcliff, Margaret was the daughter of a First World War veteran who became a steel worker at Lysaght’s.

“I went to St Joseph’s Convent and then college to do typing, book keeping and shorthand.” She learned to drive and was delivering bread around Goldcliff, Whitson and Nash when she encountered Olive Maybury’s Whitson Zoo and the loveable lion cub.

“He came from a children’s home in Chester. They didn’t want him so Mrs Maybury said, ‘All right, we’ll have him.’ He arrived with the children in their mini bus.” Margaret learned to bottle feed the cub - “he used to like an ice cream” - and was soon caring for other exotics.

There was the goat that climbed into a workman’s van: “She’d sat in the driving seat and wouldn’t get out! She was a terror, but she was gorgeous.” Then there were the two Himalayan bear cubs rescued from a Newport pet shop window after protests from the public.

The zoo closed in the 1980s and Jason joined the lions of Longleat. He fared better than the Himalayan bears which could not be re-homed. They were put to sleep and sold to a taxidermist from Dolgellau.

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Life on the Levels

“We had nothing but we were happy."

- Kath Johnson, farmer’s daughter

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Kath Johnson (Emma Drabble)

Kath Johnson paints a graphic picture of life on the Levels: “It was more of a community then, wasn’t it? Everybody you saw, you knew.”

Her family led a make-do-and-mend existence interspersed with unexpected delights like listening to the roar of lions at night. “Mrs Maybury had Whitson Zoo. She was a lovely lady. If we had an animal die on the farm she gave it to these lions.”

When she passed the entrance exam to Chepstow Grammar Kath travelled to school in a neighbour’s stock truck. “Mr Jones put benches in the back of the van, because he also hauled calves to market in it”.

A family crisis put paid to her ambitions. “I wanted to be a policewoman, but Dad had a heart attack so I left school at 16 and I’ve been on the farm ever since.” She harbours no regrets, remembering family evenings playing cards by the light of the Tilly lamp, Monday’s wash day and Sunday’s bath nights, “me first, then my brothers, then uncle, Dad and finally Mum.” 

The land was mostly managed by hand, raking the reens, grafting garden roses onto hedgerow briars with raffia and clay, and catching eels with bean pole fishing rods. “How can I put it? We had nothing, but we were happy.”

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Life on the Levels

Life on the Levels Interview:

Kath reflects on growing up on a farm in Goldcliff, childhood lessons around the reens and how they work, lost animals from Whitson Zoo, school time at Goldcliff and the village bobby, childhood games, farming, wildlife and otter hunting.