By Tania Poole - (the only member of CFZ Australia who could make it to North Devon this year.)
While I sleep in a conservatory next to a tank of rare
caecilians, the household of Myrtle Cottage, headquarters of the CFZ, was
readying itself for the second day of the Weird Weekend.
At the Woolfardisworthy Community Centre where they hold the
event, everyone gathered at midday for the next instalment. Jon began with the
question ‘What is cryptozoology’ in which he asked the youngsters, (some who
are crew or just ‘gophers’) and they could not answer – or were too shy to.
Even I asked for the microphone to give 3 categories of it – I was right,
except for another category – the study of out of place animals.
Nick Wadham was back with his bugs – dangerous ones (or just
creepy looking ones) – consisting of large snails, spiders, tarantulas, centipedes,
cockroaches, stick insects and scorpions, even an Argentinian Boa. He got the
kids up the front to hold the creatures and described how their victims were
killed and eaten.
After some lunch, Max Blake spoke about the Analysis of the
Borley Bug – Margaret Wilson, an artist, saw a strange creature one day in the
garden of the Borley Rectory (the most haunted house in Britain), describing
it, and sensing that it was supernatural, and getting a friend to paint the creatures (right), Max’s talk was to perhaps work out
exactly what kind of bug it was, the closest thing it could have been was a
dragonfly.
Jon McGowan did a talk about large cats in Britain –
focusing on his location in Dorset. Jon is one of those very few people that can
prove big cats do haunt the British countryside because he goes out into the
wilds three times a week and watches their movements. His findings were
amazing, and knowledge of big cat behaviour is brilliant.
Glen Vaudry spoke about Scottish Sea Serpent carcasses, and
spoke about many findings that occurred in previous centuries as well as the
more recent ones – quite often the carcasses turn out to be rotting basking
sharks, complete hoaxs, or made up.
Jan Bondeson, who I also saw talk at the Fortean Times
Unconvention in London, in November 2011. He’d spoken then about Talking dogs.
This time it was another dog - Greyfriar’s Bobby. Most people know about the
small mongrel that apparently mourned his master’s death and sat by the grave in
the kirkyard for several years around the 1860s and 70s, but Jan had wanted to
find out whether that was true – indeed he had existed – a dog called Bobby did
indeed live in the Kirkyard, but it was not known that he mourned by the grave.
He was well fed, even attending a restaurant where he got fed, at 1 o’clock
after the gun went off daily at the castle, and had many friends in places he
used to visit. It may have been romantic story tellers or journalists that made
Bobby a loyal dog that never left its master’s grave. He may have not even had
a dead master!
After Jan was the annual award giving – people who have been
incredibly valuable in the CFZ, a great helper, or a great speaker and explorer
get acknowledged by being given a Golden Baboon award, and certificate. It’s
typical tongue in cheek CFZ humour and honour.
The night ended with a documentary called ‘Heads!’ about the
Hexham Heads and other mystery stone heads of North England. It must have gone
for close to 2 hours. Some more raffle prizes were handed out, and then Silas
Hawkins read out another ‘Bedtime story’ from Richard Freeman’s book ‘Green Unpleasant
Land.’ It was my favourite story – Drakes Briar – which I found out was everyone
else’s favourite too. Including Richard Freeman.
The Saturday Weird Weekend of 2012 ended at midnight, yet
most people went straight to the bar. Another successful day!
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