![\"Ralfe](\"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bv\/Dodo-Ralph-Jonathan-bones-10cm1.jpg\" "\\"Dodo")
<\/a>Ralfe Whistler chats to Jonathan Broughton<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cYou found me all right then?\u201d he called in greeting as we (Jonathan Broughton and John Humphries) arrived. He picked out two large logs from a pile of chopped wood. \u201cYou can park in front of the barn.\u201d He pointed to a space in front of a large red brick wall. To the right, stuck into a hedge, two flags waved in the breeze. National colours, certainly, but which countries?
\n\u201cCome in, come in.\u201d<\/p>\n
His open front door had, as its knocker, a Dodo\u2019s head. In the hall stood a giant Dodo with a pot plant attached to its back. From the ceiling hung a flying Dodo made out of metal scraps and odd bits of material; on a glass-fronted bookcase stood Dodos made from plastic, ceramic, wood, porcelain, stone, bronze, glass and pewter.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Dodo pictures in Ralfe Whistler’s lounge<\/p><\/div>\n
Another large Dodo, carved in wood, sported a red tie. Prints and pictures showed Dodo\u2019s running, laughing, eating, loving and being witty. And this was just the hall. As you may have guessed, Ralfe Whistler is a passionate collector of all things Dodo. He describes himself as a ‘specialist in artifacts, ephemera, books, sculptures, prints and paintings of the Dodo’. His large lounge, which boasts two open fires on which he placed the logs, overflows with Dodo ephemera. As does every room in the house.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to think I\u2019m keeping the art of the Dodo alive,\u201d he mused. We sipped coffee from Dodo mugs. \u201cI reckon I\u2019ve got examples of Dodo art from about thirty-five countries.\u201d Stained glass Dodos hung in front of the windows, and fractured the light with colour.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last live Dodo seen in this country was in 1650. They used to walk it up and down Piccadilly in London.\u201d<\/p>\n
At our feet, a thick rug, woven in Cuba, featured a happy Dodo surrounded by lush vegetation.\u00a0\u201cWhen the London Dodo died, it was stuffed and kept in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. By 1755, it had decayed so badly that they removed the head and the right foot and burnt the rest.\u201d The little that is known of the Dodo has come from the extraction of DNA from these miniscule remains.<\/p>\n
The Dodo was native to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. Flightless, as no natural predator hunted it. When Dutch settlers landed around 1600, who brought dogs and the rats who scavenged on board ship, they found it made easy sport for bored sailors. The Dodo went extinct before 1700, less than a century after its discovery.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Dodo bones – property of Ralfe Whistler<\/p><\/div>\n
Ralfe has a small collection of fossilised remains. \u2018Leg bones and a small sliver that is part of a wing.\u2019 The Dodo stood about a metre tall and weighed around forty-four pounds. As a species it is related to pigeons and doves. The Latin name for the Dodo is Raphus cucullatus<\/em>.<\/p>\n Ralfe\u2019s father sparked his interest in birds. \u2018My dad\u2019s bird collection numbered fifty thousand.\u2019 He smiled wryly at our looks of astonishment. \u2018In those days, the nineteen twenties and thirties, people didn\u2019t think about conservation and the extinction of species as they do now. He kept them in the barn.\u2019 He pointed to the large red brick building.<\/p>\n \u2018After he died the Natural History Museum stored them in their warehouse. They have perfect air-conditioning to stop the exhibits rotting. You can still view the birds if you make an appointment.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Taxidermist George Bristow<\/p><\/div>\n Ralfe\u2019s early interest in ornithology led him to George Bristow\u2019s shop in Silchester Road, St. Leonards. By this time, the early nineteen forties, George was an old man. He taught young Ralfe the craft of taxidermy. \u2018George\u2019s shop was so interesting. There was always something going on. He had a great collection of guns.\u2019 Ralfe showed us the three specimens that he had worked on under George\u2019s tutelage. One of them was a starling. \u2018I wasn\u2019t very good at it. My hands are too big. It\u2019s such delicate work.\u2019 \u00a0Ralfe took the only known picture of George Bristow, (which we featured in the article The Scandal of the Hastings Rarities<\/em>\u00a0in the December 2011 edition, number 81), on his box Brownie camera.<\/p>\n \u2018I don\u2019t think George stuffed all those birds for the money. He was a very likeable man. I know it was a great scandal, but it was just a sideline for him. He was a keen gunsmith, with a fantastic selection of firearms.\u2019<\/p>\n Which, we wondered, in his vast Dodo collection, was Ralfe\u2019s favourite? More dodorabilia cover every available surface, as here, in Ralfe’s hallway,<\/p><\/div>\n His granddaughter began cataloguing his collection, but gave up when she reached four hundred. Such an extensive collection merits its own special museum. Many of the hand-made exhibits are exquisite, unique and delightful.<\/p>\n Ralphe gave us each a tea towel as a memento of our visit. A large blue Dodo adorned the front. And the flags in the hedge, which countries did they represent? [Interview, February 2012, by Jonathan Broughton; photos by John Humphries].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ralfe Whistler, born in Cornwallis Gardens, Hastings now lives in a large bungalow overlooking the rolling Sussex countryside. Ralfe Whistler chats to Jonathan Broughton \u201cYou found me all right then?\u201d he called in greeting as we (Jonathan… Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[157,109,163],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14921"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14921"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27329,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14921\/revisions\/27329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
\n\u2018This one.\u2019 He showed us a large ceramic Dodo sitting on what looked like a hefty millstone. \u2018I brought that home on the train. It was so heavy.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nOutside, he pointed out two huge eucalyptus trees from Australia. \u2018I planted them when they were saplings. I\u2019m a bit worried about them now, they\u2019ve grown so tall.\u2019 Perhaps, I suggested, import some koala bears to nibble them.
\n\u2018No. I think I need to find a good tree surgeon.\u2019<\/p>\n
\n\u2018British Columbia, a lovely part of the world.\u2019 Ralphe\u2019s travels have taken him around the globe. \u2018And the other one is Mauritius.\u2019
\nOf course.<\/p>\n