Beasts on the loose. Journalists love them.
A raccoon has legged it from Auchingarrich Wildlife Centre near Comrie. It has lived in the shadow of the old prisoner of war camp at nearby Cultybraggan so its flight has something of the great escape about it.
So far it has been spotted in Callander, around 30 miles away. Quite a feat for little feet.
Animals making a run for it always make good copy for journalists, especially on a quiet day. Fugitive creatures don’t stick to any script so stories are guaranteed to take unexpected and interesting twists.
My first experience of animals making the news was during my time in The Courier’s Perth office 30 years ago. In those days, Perth Bull Sales were held at the mart in Caledonian Road just off the town centre.
The bull sales did not just serve a commercial purpose but were also a social gathering for farmers and farm workers. The unusual sights and sounds were great fun for young reporters too … bulls getting their hair brushed, the auctioneers’ chants and the coalescence of dialects, accents, beer fumes and laughter in the heaving bar.
But the highlight for any young hack was when a bull broke free. In my experience, they never got too far before they were rounded up by farm workers with big sticks. The beasts usually hoofed it down York Place towards South Street before they were halted.
I never did get the bull in the china shop story. That would have required the animal to have charged a bit further along South Methven Street, swing a right down High Street and a hard left into Watson’s china shop.
But, digging into our archive, I discovered that one of my predecessors in Perth office did get the scoop I had always wanted.
In 1962 an Aberdeen Angus bull almost made it into a china shop — Anderson’s in either St John’s Place or St John Street.
That was quite a rampage through the middle of the town, probably half a mile or more. There must have been a few surprised shoppers in South Street that day.
The photograph above shows two policemen and what looks like two farm workers grappling desperately with the bull while a third policeman tries to reel it in with a rope.
You could make up a story like this but no one would believe you. But fact can indeed be stranger than fiction and that is one of the reasons news reporting manages to retain its appeal for so many of us in this business.
Just out of interest, does anyone recognise anyone in the photograph? I am sure they would have dined out on that story for many a year.