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a true story
It was Hazel who said we needed real stuffed foxes. Of course we did. “We stop at nothing to get a good photo”, she said. Right. Absolutely. (O.K. it was she who found the hire place but somehow it was me who pulled the short straw re picking them up).
One hot sunny day, (almost the only such last year) I set off to Islington from Sussex. Yes, a bit of a hike but we couldn’t find foxes in Sussex so off I go.
It was very relaxing on the train; all the rubbish on the track was temporarily covered by brambles and bluebells; the train seemed to meander like a river, a lazy day lost in time.
I cross London and tramp past the Angel, (note Angel that’s us) up the Essex Road, which hasn’t changed at all since I worked in North London, you need to watch out for yourself as well as hang on to your bag.
Not that easy when you are carrying two stuffed foxes, as I soon discovered.
The hire shop was on a corner. Entry was via a couple of metal grids and very rusty giant padlocks. Inside there were all sorts of animals waiting to be borrowed; lions, tigers, poor moggys, parrots; it was a veritable cornucopia of dead and stuffed creatures. I decided not to hang about. There was no entry system; you had to hammer and wave and basically look pretty stupid.
Not as stupid as you do carrying the foxes though. I stood on the street corner trying to hail a taxi, holding one fox by the scruff and awkwardly hefting the other over my shoulder. The foxes had been handed to me in what can only be described as bits of black bags, so they were scantily clad and barely disguised; in fact not.
I did get a cab although the driver didn’t like the look of me at all and particularly not my cargo, but what did he expect on the Essex Road? Surely London taxi drivers have seen dead foxes before? What do they do The Knowledge for, if it is not to prepare them for this? There was no need for him to be quite so squeamish; after all I hadn’t murdered them myself. Still, I know he was glad to see the back of me, (he made this very plain), as I stumbled out at London Bridge.
On the train it got worse. I sat in the suitcase area so the foxes didn’t get squashed or damaged; (they had to be returned in perfect condition and I wasn’t about to argue on this point with medallion man the Islington dealer). Still I caused a bit of a fracas. Teenage girls saw the dead foxes and screamed, middle-aged ladies asked if I was part of a hunt and a bevy of nuns came to take a closer look, peering and chortling ho ho ho.
I was very glad to get home.
You might not know this but stuffed foxes are in great demand and expensive to hire. We had to crack on straight away with our film; to take these foxes back late would be a lot worse financially than an overdue library book.
So it was a case of film, camera, shoot. Our, (we felt they were “ours”), foxes came everywhere with us; in and out of the landrover, in and out of our office, in and out the hire shop, on location in gardens, fields and hedgerows, up stairs and up ladders, up up up…….culminating in our great finale on the roof of The Old Fox House. (Of course).
We and they were non-stop for two days before they had to go back to town.
The funny thing was I drew the short straw for the return journey back to the Angel. Yes Hazel, “we” will do anything to get a good shot.
This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.