As your author wandered passed David Wynne's 1961 statue of Guy the Gorilla in Crystal Palace Park at the weekend it was, as it so often is, covered in little people, climbing all over him and enjoying the experience thoroughly. It is perhaps fitting that Guy remains an attraction for youngsters, given that the statue remembers a real gorilla who delighted many thousands of children at London Zoo.
We are told that the original Guy arrived at the zoo as a baby on Guy Fawkes night in 1947 and lived there until his death in 1978, and it is surely a testament to Guy's achievements in gorilla-ing that this huge black marble statue of him was commissioned when he had not yet reached the age of 16, and that a bronze, sculpted by William Timyn, can also be found at ZSL London Zoo’s Barclay Court, erected after his death.