BY VICTOR SPINK
In 1947, Chertsey was experiencing snow, freezing temperatures, power cuts, and a quick thaw followed by severe flooding. The winter of 1948 was slightly better and this was when two Chertsey ladies found fame-kept alligators as pets.
According to one source, Miss Thelma Roberts had got her first alligator William, a five foot six Chinese reptile just before the war, and he was to suffer a broken forearm in the blitz. They lived in a small terraced house No 31 London Street opposite The Vicarage. Living there with her was a long time friend Miss Enid Davis and two other animals, a 22 year old 7 foot female named Peter who once lived in a Madagascar temple, and an 8 year old Nile crocodile named Peggy.
Picture Post reports the Chertsey Urban District Council were concerned and uneasy about the situation, but the neighbours were not. Ivy Turner lived at No 33 and had the party wall to the alligator’s front room of No 31 next door. Years later a new buyer who bought No 31 was told by Ivy Turner that she could hear through the party wall the thumping of the alligators tails as they were put in their tanks, and that rattled the ornaments in her room on her side.
The weekly magazine Picture Post had sent a reporter and their No1 photographer Charles Hewitt to do an article on them that would appear on January 10th 1948. A copy of this is housed in the research room of Chertsey Museum.
The gardener asked Miss Thelma Roberts, if William, one of the beasts had ever bitten her. “Oh no” she said, “he is very well behaved”. He saw a mark on her hand and said. “But what about that mark on your hand, ma’am”. “Ah well” said Miss Roberts, “sometimes he forgets himself”.
In the features page of issue no Vol. 20, No 9 28th Feb. 1948, the two spinsters of the Parish of Chertsey are described as ‘Two Old Women’ but Hewitt’s photographs show two middle aged ladies. Meat, like most things was rationed after the war but not fish and there were no ration books for pets. There were shops which sold horse meat for human consumption and for pets off ration, and market stalls that sold horse meat for pets stained green off ration too, although there were no recorded examples of either in the town.
In both magazines we see a photo one of the alligators being given a fish and another being given a drink by Miss Davis out of a jug while Miss Roberts holds the beast up. Local farmers would bring round dead crows for the gators consumption. The animals were kept in a cold water tank and long zinc baths. A kettle of hot water is close by to adjust the temperature of the tank water. One has to suppose that the food bill for them all was quite high.
British Pathé sent a film crew down to the ladies home in 1949, and it is clear from the plummy voice commentator that his knowledge of local geography is lacking as he describes them all as living in a cottage in Middlesex!! The Pathé description of the short film reads` “Tame alligator at Chertsey, Surrey”. To see this film Google up -’Tame Alligators – British Pathé’.
‘Thelma Roberts would take one of the alligators up to the town on a lead to do some shopping. Queueing with ration books outside on the pavement was the order of the day, so one might expect that the sight of an alligator crawling up Guildford Street would have dispersed the queue outside the butchers shop in fairly short order.’
The Alligator Ladies had bought the building sometime after 1949 and sold it in 1959. Margaret Robinson hired the same gardener for Denmark House garden that ‘The Alligator Ladies’ had employed. He told Margaret that the ladies would come out and talk to him about the alligators being hired for films and TV. Margaret Robinson moved into Denmark House in Windsor Street with her new husband in 1960. In the present 2021 sales catalogue for Denmark House there is a line “It is rumoured that the owners prior to our vendors, kept a pet alligator in the house and claw marks can still be seen on the dining room panelling!”