Sepia Saturday 244: 6 September 2014

This week's Sepia Saturday theme features a monkey, people in hats - it's all a bit of a circus really, though the little girl doesn't look very happy.  I think she's got the sniffles.

I am delighted to be able to produce monkeys from my mother's photo album from 1950.

She went to Taronga Park Zoo in the August Holidays.  She would have been 14 years old.

This is her writing underneath and it says "The monkeys playing with a balloon at Taronga Park."

Here's another photo.

It says: After the ballon (sic) had burst the monkeys had to amuse themselves.

My mother was an only child like me and no doubt had to amuse herself when she got home by pasting in the photos in her album and writing captions underneath in white ink, once the photos had been processed.  

I wonder what type of monkeys these are?  I think they might be black-handed spider monkeys.   And because I am a freshly hatched Librarian and we like to classify things, here's the drum:

Scientific Name: 
Ateles geoffroyi

Phylum: CHORDATA Species class: Mammalia Order: PRIMATES Genus: Ateles Species: geoffroyi

I wish I could say that I knew that but I completely copied it from the Taronga Park Zoo website. 

Let's have a closer look at that second photo.  See the humans over there to the right.  Do you think that Mum has lifted her little girl up on to the enclosure so she can see better? The little girl seems to be wearing a scarf. Please note that the men are wearing suits.  And the women hats.  Better standard of dress in those days I think.  

This is where Taronga Park Zoo is.

This map shows you how far it was from her home to the zoo on the other side of the harbour.  I think they would have caught a train and then a ferry.
But they might have caught a bus.  It's more fun on the water though.

When things get hectic at work, I usually start whistling a dreadful merry-go-round theme that indicates madness.  What about you? 

This video is a bit unsteady to begin with but the music is what I'm trying to convey.