OVER recent editions we have given plenty of coverage to readers’ memories of visits to Dudley Zoo in days gone by — with the focus especially on the elephants which have always been a big attraction in more ways than one, and not just because of their physical size.
Readers have also brought up the subject of Sabu, the young the star of the “Elephant Boy” film in the 1930s, who several recalled visiting Dudley Zoo at some point in its early history.
Well, proof of that visit, if it was needed, has come to us from M. Stanley of Oldbury, who has supplied a newspaper cutting from 1937, including a picture (above) of Sabu, then 14, getting a ‘leg up’ from one of the elephants — named Yuvaranee.
This elephant and another (Maharanee), came to the zoo from the stables of the Maharajah of Mysore, under the charge of the chief ‘elephant boy’ Dastagir, also seen above, who had tutored Sabu in earlier times.
Sabu knew both the elephants from his jungle hunt days, and they recognised him too with great affection, by trumpeting their welcome and rubbing their trunks against their onetime young master.
