Not content being the star of the show at Glasgow Zoo, one morning Freda the elephant packed her trunk and made a break for it - and she wasn’t about to travel solo.
The ton-and-a-half pachyderm was one of the biggest draws at the city’s Calderpark Zoo during its early years.
She arrived as a baby in April 1948 and soon grew to become the premier attraction for generations of local kids who would sit on her back.
But right from the get-go, Freda was no fan of confinement and made it clear that she needed plenty of company.
On the train up to Glasgow, Freda had tried to smash her way out of her travelling box to be with her keeper, Victor Rowlands.
“However,” said Mr Rowlands at the time, “I compromised. I went in beside her, and she was quite happy.”
Freda’s attempted escape was just a taste of the extraordinary incident that was to unfold a couple of months later.
'Prison break'
In the early morning of July 6, 1948, Freda made headlines up and down the country when she staged a ‘prison break’.
The canny youngster burst out of the elephant house then proceeded to release a camel from an adjoining enclosure.
Sign up to our Glasgow Live nostalgia newsletters for more local history and heritage content straight to your inbox
A newspaper report from the following day recorded: “A keeper and overseer of the zoo were roused by the animals.
“They found the camel grazing quietly in the zoo park, but found Freda went farther afield and wandered among the buildings.”
Freda and her camel accomplice were eventually rounded up “without difficulty” - but not before the elephant hoovered up a fortnight’s ration of bran and ate a keeper’s oilskin coat.
The charismatic elephant had a real character about her, according to her keeper.
Writing about his growing bond with Freda, Victor Rowlands told the Sunday Post: “For one thing, she's as temperamental as a film star. If I haven’t a biscuit in my pocket, she sulks.
“She loves ice cream. Once a day she refuses to pass the zoo refreshment kiosk until she gets a cone.
“When she’s been extra smart, I tickle her chest. She loves that. Her ears come forward and she trumpets with delight.
“You might think Freda is a handful - but I’m lucky to be her keeper. It’s the most fascinating job in the zoo.”
Tragically, Freda died in 1954 due to a stomach complaint. She was aged just 11 and far short of her life expectancy.
Attracting around 150,000 visitors a year at its peak, Calderpark Zoo closed its gates in 2003 in a haze of spiralling debts and accusations of poor animal welfare standards.
