DescriptionELEPHANT
Around 1959/60 a circus came to Greymouth and set up in a paddock in Arney St across the road from the Gilmer Hotel. We couldn’t afford to go to the circus show, but we went down to Arney St to have a look at the animals. We had a good look around, and were about to go home when Kevin gave the elephant that was chained up with a shackle around one leg, a handful of grass. But inside that handful of grass was a matchbox, the wooden match type box. In those days you could get wax matches, which, instead of the wooden stem you had a stiff wax string, and they were a better match. They were banned for safety reasons, as they could burst into flames through friction within the box in your pocket. It didn’t take the elephant long to realise the match box was in the grass, and it reached out with its trunk, wrapping it around Kevin’s waist and raised him up in the air, as high as it could. It held him up there for a few seconds and I thought it was going to drop him to the ground, in retaliation for the match box, but it just gently lowered him back to the ground, placing him on his feet. My baby brother, the villain, was a hero to the crowd who didn’t know what he had done.
Date of story events1959/60Map[1]
Relates to
Location (city or town)GreymouthLandmark (Place)Arney St
West Coast New Zealand History (11th May 2015). Circus. In Website West Coast New Zealand History. Retrieved 10th Apr 2026 15:50, from https://westcoast.recollect.co.nz/nodes/view/910
