Monkey business at Winchester Hat Fair

Milo gets the soft sell on Mikey the Monkey

This lovely article by Steve Cluett is reproduced with permission of www.playgroup.com.

In these days of the aggresive hard sell, it was really refreshing to encounter a particularly ‘soft sell’ the other day.

We were at the wonderful Hat Fair in Winchester, which is the UK’s largest festival of Street Theatre. Milo, our little lad, had spotted a number of kids carrying around fairly convincing monkey puppets and he just had to have one. Eventually we found the Monkey Man’s stall and Sharon went to ask how much they were – twenty minutes later, we were still there.

Chris, the monkey handler, informed us that we weren’t allowed to buy a monkey. We could adopt one, but only if the monkey agreed to go with us. These were vulnerable monkeys that had been treated badly when they were young and their mummies had left them – that’s why they were being so quiet. Chris got down to Milo’s level and only showed him the little monkeys. Milo immediately fell in love with Mikey. He listened intently as the Monkey Man laid down some adoption rules. Mikey was to have bananas or banana sandwiches every day and if you take him into MacDonalds or KFC an alarm goes off from a microchip he has in his ear. If he becomes really unruly you can gently rub his ears to calm him down (apparently this also works on ladies). If it doesn’t work you can call him and he’ll come and pick up all the unruly monkeys in a big lorry (also full of naughty children). Milo had to promise to look after Mikey, and Mikey eventually agreed to come home with us.

Milo doesn’t think Mikey is real. But he is enjoying the responsibility of looking after him. We’re going through bananas like there’s no tomorrow.

Incidentally adoption costs for a small monkey are just £7. Almost all of the puppets are sold by street traders, who bring a playful spirit to our streets, entertaining children and adults alike. At the same time they raise awareness of the plight of our primates and raise some cash for their rehabilitation, with a proportion of all sales going to The Orangutan Foundation.

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Mighty Banana