Chasing a Monkey

A primate pursuit leads to a purveyor of exotic pets; PLUS Everest disaster, Into The Wild bus, Space Shuttle disaster and Moonwalkers

In the summer of 1887, the market town of Bishop Auckland in County Durham, England, was the scene of a startling simian spectacle:

“Yesterday afternoon, the market folk at Bishop Auckland were highly diverted by the antics of a monkey, which escaped from its owner, a young foreign player of an accordion. The droll-looking creature skipped along the high roofs with an agility that seemed to defy capture; and the crowds below roared with merriment as they saw it, ever and anon, gaze back impertinently at its pursuing owner, who, with his boots off, sternly took up the chase along the house tops. The fugitive was eventually captured, but not before the owner had had some hard work to recover his agile treasure.”

Monkeys were popular sidekicks for accordion players and, more traditionally, organ grinders. They were often brought to Britain by sailors as pets. And they became part of an expanding trade that was entirely legal but highly unethical.

Anyone wishing to purchase a pet monkey in 1887 need look no further than the Liverpool menagerie of William Cross, who claimed to be the biggest importer of animals in the world. In addition to monkeys, Cross advertised that he had 5,000 cages containing pet elephants, lions, and tigers. At the time of the Bishop Auckland monkey chase, Cross was running a parrot promotion:

“Parrots, Parrots — anyone purchasing one of these most interesting pets of any description from me, either Grey, Green, Lorie, or in fact any Bird, stands a chance of winning 50 guineas in cash, and pays only the ordinary price, 15 shillings, for the Bird; send for particulars. William Cross, Largest Importer in the World, Liverpool.”◆

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Recommended

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (1997)

In 1996, the journalist and climber John Krakauer was sent to Nepal by Outside magazine to write about the increasing number of guided expeditions to the summit of the world’s tallest mountain — Everest. Ascending as part of an expedition led by experienced guide Rob Hall, Krakauer successfully reached the summit. But then a storm hit, and he became a participant in one of Everest’s deadliest disasters. Krakauer survived to tell the tale, but eight other expedition members did not.

Weather, hubris, and commercialisation were all factors that led to the tragedy, and Krakauer believes that his actions may have contributed to the deaths of two of his teammates. His account is not without controversy — my paperback edition contains a lengthy postscript in which Krakauer rebuts criticism of his version of some of the events. Into Thin Air, like Krakauer’s previous book Into The Wild, is a classic of the outdoor adventure genre, a gripping, moving tale of a misadventure that turned into a tragedy.

The 2015 movie Everest, starring Michael Kelly as Krakauer alongside Jason Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Josh Brolin, is not directly based on the book (although Sony Pictures did acquire the rights). It’s worth watching, though, as a dramatic — if not necessarily fully accurate — depiction of the tragedy.

Krakauer’s Into The Wild, published a year before Into Thin Air, is the story of Chris McCandless, an idealistic young drifter who hiked into the frozen wilds of Alaska and never returned. (The book is an expanded version of the Outside magazine article “Death of an Innocent”, which you can read via the Internet Archive.) McCandless’s body was found in an abandoned bus around 20 miles from the nearest road.

McCandless became something of a hero among people who were similarly drawn to the escape of the frozen wilderness and the bus became a pilgrimage site. Eva Holland has written about the bus in a new Outside magazine article: “The ‘Into the Wild’ Bus Was a Pilgrimage Site in the Wilderness. Can It Hold Up in a Museum?”

If you have the capacity for another tragic disaster, the BBC documentary series The Space Shuttle That Fell To Earth tells the story of Columbia, which broke up on re-entry in 2003, killing all seven crew members. Nasa was aware that the shuttle had suffered potentially catastrophic damage during take-off, but failed to take action that might have saved the Columbia astronauts. It’s an infuriating tale of chain-of-command negligence and lessons unlearned from the Challenger disaster 17 years earlier.

Finally, on another space theme, I visited The Moonwalkers at Lightroom in London. It’s an immersive show narrated by Tom Hanks telling the story of man’s conquest of the moon, with footage beamed onto the large room’s four walls to create a kind-of surround IMAX experience. It’s fascinating, although perhaps a little too “sciencey”, and some famous footage isn’t featured. (Another notable omission is the story of Apollo 13, which is odd considering the involvement of Hanks.) But it’s an impressive tribute to the men who went to the moon, and the men and women who sent them there.

Visiting the show made me want to dig out one of my favourite non-fiction books, Moondust by Andrew Smith, in which the author attempts to track down the surviving Apollo moonwalkers.

You can find Into Thin Air, Into The Wild, and Moondust on the Singular Discoveries Amazon bookshelf.*

Coming soon: a new longread — the true story of a wrecked whaler, and an Arctic fight for survival. Please like and subscribe, and share Singular Discoveries with all of your many, many friends. ◆

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Sources: Northern Echo, 29 July 1887, Northern Weekly Gazette, 18 June 1887.

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