Pachyderm parade

Winter has arrived early with a vengeance. Wild West Berkshire, normally sub-tropical until January,  has been turned into a white featureless desert (turn the map over you fool). I decided that I needed cheering up and fired up iPhoto on my trusty MacBookPro to look at some warmer memories.

I've not had a break this year, so my selection of recent feel good photos was limited to the few that I took walking to work in the summer. I thought my pictures of  the Elephant Parade in London, an event held in May/June this year, looked cheerful enough.

The purpose of the Elephant Parade was to raise money to improve the lot of real endangered elephants. The Parade comprised over 250 decorated elephants at various locations around London, mostly on the streets. After the public display the elephants were auctioned and over £4 million raised for elephant relief.

Above: The group of elephants around City Hall on the South Bank of the Thames. This is very early in the morning with few people around and the sun low in the eastern sky.

Each elephant was decorated by a different artist and all of them were for sale. 

The lone tourist, meticulously photographing and recording each elephant, asked me where we were. My childish sense of humour nearly got the better of me and I was very tempted to point out that the Tower of London was just across the river so this part of London was known as the Elephant and Castle. 

However, I told the truth - Queens Walk in the Borough of Southwark. I probably didn't do him any favours, he will never be able to pronounce Southwark correctly and would have probably been much happier with Elephant and Castle.

The decorative art work on the elephants varied from just a flat single colour to the most intricate and imaginative designs. The one below is my favourite with its really stunning opalescent finish.

Return to list of posts