What do you call a badger that climbs on to roofs, chews telly aerial cables, and has a fondness for jam tarts?
Answer: A raccoon. No, we haven’t been smoking banana skins here at Bizarre Bradford this week, but instead have been riveted by a story that rocked Ilkley in March 1977.
Residents of the Glen Rose Methodist Home for the Aged in Grove Road in the spa town were denied their favourite TV shows when all the sets suddenly went dead in the residential home. Initial reports were that a badger had been seen on the roof, noshing down on the cables.
Now we’re prepared to believe in a lot here at the Bizarre Bradford desk, but badgers that can scale roofs? We reported, however, on Marsh 25 that “two naturalists” (still makes us think of Benny Hill sketches) had been called in who had positively identified the beast as a raccoon. Which, when you think about it, is even more bizarre.
Odder still, three days later the T&A reported that the good folk of Ilkley had taken the raccoon to their hearts, and it had developed a taste for jam tarts and eggs.
We wrote: “One family in particular have taken to the raccoon. The Robertsons, of Grove Road Nurseries, have been fascinated by its antics. Fourteen-year-old Julie first spotted the animal and her father John soon found it was partial to jam tarts. Eggs and bread were also gratefully accepted.”
The wily raccoon also evaded attempts to catch it, nimbly nicking the bait from a trap left to snare it without springing it. But what happened? Anyone out there care to enlighten us as to the ultimate fate of the Ilkley raccoon?
We all remember jokes on lolly sticks, but what about, as our headline of January 27 1977 had it, a “Riddle in a crisps packet”?
It’s quite a yucky tale, so those of a queasy disposition should look away now. We wrote: “The mystery of how a first aid dressing got into a packet of Smith crisps was still unsolved, Bradford magistrates were told yesterday.”
The manufacturers, of Richmond, Surrey, were fined £30 and ordered to pay £15 costs after the plaster was found inside a pack of the potato snacks. But how did it get there?
“The plaster found in this packet may have been worn by a workman or a sub-contractor,” we wrote, thankfully adding: “Renewed efforts were being made to prevent a recurrence.”
There was an even greater mystery earlier that month, on January 15, when we reported that police had nicked a knicker nicker and had been left with £3,000 worth of stolen clothes to try to reunite with its owners – and in 1977, three grand could buy you a lot of clobber.
The clothing – not just knickers, but all sorts of kit taken from washing lines in Allerton, Fairweather Green, Lower Grange and Thornton had been recovered when police arrested a suspect. In a bid to match up the items with their owners, the clothes were put on display at Bradford police station.
The story sadly does not say whether the suspect, upon being arrested and cautioned with the time-honoured phrase “anything you say will be taken down”, responded with the exclamation: “Trousers!” but we do hope so.
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