We Bought a Zoo. Benjamin Mee

but he wished the park well. More importantly, he had been appointed by Peter Wearden to oversee the dispersal of the animal collection to other zoos, should it be necessary. He was in daily contact with Rob, as holder of the DWA licence, and Peter, and as a man on the inside could not have been better placed. His unswerving support and sound advice were absolutely pivotal for us in securing the park.

      Weeks dragged on and the main positive development – apart from the arrival of Nick Lindsay’s report from ZSL which gave a ringing endorsement to the park as a future enterprise – was that a cash buyer was found for my mum’s house. But he was a cautious man in no hurry, and any inclination that we desperately needed the money right now would have almost certainly reduced his bid. Bridging loans – those expensive, dangerous arrangements offered by commercial banks in the hope of snaffling all your assets in a year – were arranged, and fell through. Commercial mortgages, likewise, were offered and withdrawn. Several high-street banks let us down badly. Lloyds three times extended the hand of friendship and then, just as we were shaking it, pulled it away, put their thumb up to their nose, and gave it the full hand waggle. Very funny, guys. Private banks were similarly fickle. Perhaps eight banks altogether promised support in protracted negotiations on which we relied, and then we passed the good news on to the naturally keenly interested other side, and committed more funds on the basis of. Then the offer would be withdrawn. Corporate managers were generally persuadable and good at giving you a 100 per cent verbal agreement and a physical shake of the hand. But the back-room boys with the calculators and grey suits, known as Risk Teams, invariably baulked. Lawyers were also busy. At one point a six-acre paddock disappeared from the map of what was included in the price, which I made clear to Maureen was a deal breaker, and it re-emerged.

      For light relief at the end of a 12-hour day of circular phone calls, we were watching the series 24, boxed sets of which were doing the rounds of the English mums in France. Kiefer Sutherland plays Jack Bauer, a maverick CTU (Counter Terrorism Unit) agent who, over several series, always has to save the world in 24 hours, shown in real time an hour at a time over 24 episodes. The ground shifts under his feet as he pursues leads with total commitment which turn out to be blind alleys, is betrayed by his superiors, double agents and miscellaneous villains, and faces new disasters with every tick of the clock. Allies become enemies, enemies become friends but then get killed, but he somehow adapts and finds a new line to go for. I knew exactly how he felt. Every day there were impossible obstacles, which by the afternoon had been resolved and forgotten, in preparation for the next.

      But the situation at the other end seemed far more desperate. Running costs – seven tigers, three lions and six keepers to feed – continued without ticket sales to cover them, interest on debts stacked up, and creditors brushed up close with increasing frequency. Then, just as the buyer for my mum’s house agreed to sign sooner rather than later, Maureen told me we had to begin paying running costs for the zoo in order to stop it going to the nursing-home developer. By now we were pretty committed, so Duncan and I melted credit cards to pay, by whatever means possible, £3,000 a week to keep our bid open. This was way beyond our means and could not last long, particularly for something which may not actually pay off. Luckily, Duncan conjured a donor, who wants to remain anonymous, who lent us £50,000, for a ‘semi-refundable deposit’. This was good news, but obviously it needed to be paid back, win or lose, and the lose scenario didn’t really have that contingency.

      By agreeing to pay a ‘semi-refundable deposit’ (we got half back if it fell through), we were now one of Ellis’s creditors. We were going up river to see Kurtz. We’d done the recce. Now we had to see if we could go all the way. All we had to remember was not to get out of the boat. Then, just as the sale of my mum’s house was finally agreed, we had our worst moment. My brother Henry, who had been supportive of the venture at the beginning, suddenly lost his nerve and mounted a costly legal battle against the rest of the family. Henry was executor for my dad’s half of the estate, so could delay the release of funds as he saw fit. He refused to be contacted except by letter sent through the post, which in a situation changing hourly was simply untenable for such a key player. Mum, myself and Duncan tried to go round and discuss it with him, several times, but he wouldn’t answer the door or phone. It was looking bad. We felt for Henry with whatever it was he was going through, but there was a bigger picture that every single other member of the family was in agreement on.

      Finally the whole family door-stepped his expensive lawyers (paid for out of the estate), and after being kept waiting for three hours, persuaded them that this was mum’s wish and the wish of all the beneficiaries of my dad’s will. We all wanted to buy the zoo.

      Eventually Henry agreed, as long as we all signed a clause that we wouldn’t sue him when it all went wrong, and each sibling took the full £50,000 they were entitled to under the Nil Rate Band legislation. This meant that there wouldn’t be enough to buy the zoo unless at least four of us gave the money straight back, which the other four siblings instantly agreed to, though in order to do so we each had to seek independent legal advice first. This meant finding another lawyer and paying for written evidence to show that we had been made aware of the risks, which was fun.

      Also, instead of the zoo being bought in the name of a Limited Company, a business and tax efficient vehicle and the basis of all our months of negotiations, it had to be bought in mum’s name. And no one lends a 76-year-old lady half a million pounds, however spritely and adventurous. Back-of-the-envelope calculations revealed that if everything went according to plan, there would be enough money to buy the zoo, pay all the legal fees and still have £4,000 left over, equivalent to about ten days running costs.

      We leapt at it. Well, my two brothers, sister and mum did. Katherine had remained slightly bemused by the idea throughout the negotiations, partly because of the inherent uncertainty about whether we would get the zoo, but also because running a zoo had never featured very high on her ‘to-do’ list. However, she thought about how much the children would enjoy it, she observed my enthusiasm, and investigated a role for herself doing graphics and money management. These were both well-honed skills from her days as art director on glossy magazines, and once she was able to equate the whole thing to organizing a large, complicated ongoing photo-shoot, she was fine and gave her cautious support. Now that it was becoming a reality, she knew what she had to do, and she was ready. The children, as you can imagine, were very enthusiastic, jumping up and down, clapping and squealing, though I’m not sure they still really believed it – but it was true.

       Chapter Three

       The First Days

      From the outset, we knew that it was going to be tough. Employ 20 staff, when we had never employed staff before? Take care of 200 wild and exotic animals? The house we had moved into was as rundown as the zoo over which it looked. Though once a grand, 12-bedroom mansion, now its plumbing groaned, its paper peeled, its floorboards creaked – but it was home. Most people, especially at mum’s age, are looking to downsize their lives, but we were upsizing dramatically, into an utterly unfamiliar avenue of work, and the stakes were high. Everything, frankly, that my mum and dad had worked for over fifty years together was on the table. And still we needed more – half a million more – just to be able to take the chance that the zoo might be able to reopen, and that when it did, it would work. Normally this level of uncertainty over something so important would seem impossibly crazy, but the late legal challenge from our own side had forced our hand, leaving us uncertain, penniless and paddling like mad to find some money. But, in the context of the last six months negotiations, it just seemed like yet another bad, but, probably, weatherable development.

      We were also comforted by the fact that although we hadn’t done anything like this before, and we didn’t have a licence to trade, nor even a particular curator in mind (Suzy in Australia was having health problems which put her out of the frame), at least we owned the entire place outright. This, surely, stood us in good stead with creditors. Plus we had a whole £4,000 left over.

      The meticulously researched business plan I had evolved with