THE SUNDAY SNAP

Have you heard the one about Magna Carta, the vicar and an elephant?

We’re heading into Magna Carta week: the anniversary of the peace negotiations between King John and his barons in June 1215, which eventually led to John granting the first edition of Plantagenet England’s great charter of liberties.

Regular readers may recall that I live very close to Runnymede, where those negotiations took place. Indeed, the town I live in is mentioned in Magna Carta, for it is where the rebel barons hung out, while the king skulked around his castle in Windsor.

The photograph above was taken at a zoo in Surrey in February 1934, and it shows the vicar of Staines, the Reverend J.R. James with an elephant.

The vicar seems to have been an active and even an athletic chap: he was a President of London Irish rugby club and a founder of Staines RFC. (Americans - these are British sports teams.) He was visiting the elephant because he was learning to ride it in preparation for a huge pageant to celebrate Magna Carta, which was held at Runnymede that June.

More than 5,000 actors were involved in this 1934 show, and there were to be four elephants on parade. However, according to this article on the British Library’s website, the elephants were withdrawn at the last minute. I wonder how the vicar felt about this. He doesn’t look especially happy in this photograph, in contrast to the elephant, who seems to he having a blast.

Enjoy the image - and have a good week. I’m back home momentarily, so there’ll be new posts from me on History, Etc. We’ll also do a subscriber thread and I’ll try and make it two weeks in a row for First Draft.

Promises, promises.

dan x