This article is a follow up to two I posted in 2022:
The ‘Alligator Ladies’ of Hammersmith and Chertsey. Who were they and what became of them?
I would suggest the reading of those two before this one since they provide a complete background to why I was left wondering who Thelma Roberts and Enid Davis—the ‘Alligator Ladies’ who kept large crocodiles and alligators in their houses in Hammersmith, London, and in Chertsey in Surrey in the 1950s. My searches then had hit a brick wall in trying to identify who these two women were, where they had come from and what had happened next. I could find nobody of those names in the register of births, marriages and deaths of around the right age.
Still curious in 2026 I tried again. The initial breakthrough to the mystery came by searching for old newspaper articles that have appeared in online archives since 2022. In short these articles showed that I was on the right lines in 2022 but the reason I could not find either of the two women is that they both used aliases. In addition events at 346 King Street, Hammersmith in London proved important in linking people to place. Further searches provided the prequel to my previous article which began in the late 1940s and ended in the mid-1950s. Using search terms I could use from the prequel I then found an online article from 2024 that revealed what had happened to the Alligator Ladies in the 1960s and 70s and their role in creating a film star—the sequel. The 2024 article was written by Elizabeth Dale who has a blog under the title of The Cornish Bird; I shall refer to by that name since it looms large in later tales of the ladies and their crocodilians. Although the author made several what we now know to be misinterpretations with regard to the name of Miss Roberts she has provided an invaluable source of information on what happened in the 1960s and 70s.
The key finding to unravelling the life story of the two women was that Thelma Roberts was an alias which she used for decades before reverting to one of her real forenames. After her tragically brief marriage she also alternated her surname. The Sunday Mirror of 28 June 1955 provided that key under the heading, Her Croc was Sick:
A little elderly woman and her four pet crocodiles were happy last night. The crocs live in a cottage in Windsor-street, Chertsey, with Miss Guinvere [sic] Roberts. Some months ago one of the crocs became very ill. Miss Roberts thought Peggy would die. And where to bury her? After many enquiries Miss Roberts found that the P.D.S.A. cemetery at Ilford might help. THEN Peggy suddenly got better. “we’re a happy family again,” Miss Roberts said yesterday.
Then I found newspaper accounts of her using a stage name, ‘Katrina’. Miss Roberts was a reptile entertainer who also hired-out of her animals to the film and entertainment industry.
Having done all the searches of the genealogical sites and newspapers available online, I have a considerable information on who the two women were and what they did. However, there are still come unanswered questions as will be evident as their life history emerges.
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| Picture Post 10 January 1948 |
Flora Guinevere Roberts was born on 9 October 1890 at Richmond, then in Surrey, to Robert Owen Roberts (1867-1958) and his wife Flora Marian Gill (1868-1947). At her christening on 30 August 1891 her forenames were reversed to Guinevere Flora. Robert is described as ‘beer retailer’ of the Princess of Wales, Red Lon Street, Richmond. In other words he was a publican. For some reason her name seems to have been omitted completely from the 1891 Census.
The 1901 Census shows the family had moved to Hampton Lodge, High Street, Hampton, Middlesex. Robert had changed his occupation to builder (jobbing). A son, Robert Owen Gordon, had been born in 1897. The family was still there in 1911 (with Robert shown as a builder and employer) but Guinevere was not. However Thelma J Roberts, aged 20 and born in Richmond, was living ‘over the shop’ as an assistant of Elizabeth Godfrey Weaver, ‘shopkeeper, draper and milliner’ at 107 Kew Road, Richmond. This is the first use I have traced of Miss Roberts under her alias of Thelma. Just to be sure it was her I did check that there were no matching births of a Thelma in Richmond over a ten-year period around 1890.
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| 346 King Street From Google Earth |
It is in the 1921 Census that things turn even more odd. There have been several amendments. Initially answered ‘M’ for male, the entries have been changed to ‘F’. ‘Tenant’ has been changed to ‘Head’ possibly by the enumerator. The address is 346 King Street, Hammersmith and the occupants were Thelma F. Roberts and W. J. Davies aged 26 and 28 respectively. Miss Roberts was a dressmaker working at home on her own account and Miss Davies her assistant. for the places of birth Hampton Hill was incorrect for Miss Roberts and correct as Manchester for Miss Davies. Although not asked for those born in UK, Miss Roberts was ‘Irish, English’ and Miss Davies ‘Welsh’. Knocking a few years off the age at marriage for example was a common ploy of women at the time but why was Miss Roberts doing so here? And why was she calling herself Thelma—and Irish? I cannot help but wonder if she was trying to conceal her identity, if she was hiding or if she simply did not like the names her parents had given her. Did she fill in the census form or did some other occupant of the building?
From 1929 and throughout the 1930s the electoral registers show both or one of the two living at 346 King Street, along with other occupants. I noted in a previous article that Miss Roberts was a piano teacher, advertising in the local newspapers for pupils in 1931.
When it came to which name being used by Miss Roberts Thelma was used in advertisements and some census returns but for events like births, marriages and deaths the real name had to be given. Thus we find a marriage certificate from 2 September 1938. Guinevere Flora Roberts, aged 39 (she was still 37), a spinster of 346 King Street, Hammersmith, the daughter of Robert Owen Roberts and of independent means, married Finlay Matheson, aged 51, a widower, an electrical engineer, also of 346 King Street, the son of Finlay Matheson (deceased) a livestock auctioneer, at Hammersmith Register Office. The witnesses were J.H. Orchard and W.M. Davies.
Sadly, the marriage was followed only 12 weeks later, on 17 November, by Finlay Matheson’s death at Fulham Hospital of myocardial degeneration with chronic bronchitis as a secondary cause. On the death certificate the informant was his ‘widow Thelma Matheson’—final confirmation when I first found it that Guinevere and Thelma were the same person.
Guinevere must have known little about Finlay’s family in Scotland because she inserted an advertisement in the Aberdeen Evening Express of 17 April 1939:
Will Any Relatives of FINLAY MATHESON, resident of 458 Clifton Road, Woodside, Aberdeen (1929,) recently deceased, or Any Person ever having known him, please communicate with GUINEVERE MATHESON, 346 King Street, Hammersmith, London.
Given this tragedy in her life it is not surprising that at the emergency census taken on the outbreak of war in September 1939 Guinevere was with her parents. It was not the first tragedy of the family in the 1930s. Guinevere’s brother, Gordon, had died on 25 March 1934 of rectal carcinoma at 50 Thornton Avenue, Chiswick, which his father, the informant of the death to the registrar, also gave as his address. Gordon was an electrical engineer (retired) according to his death certificate and his usual residence was given as The Manor House, Lee near Ilfracombe in Devon. At some stage the father, who had clearly made a bob or two as a builder in London, and mother retired to that address which came with tenanted land and it was there that Guinevere can be found in September 1939, giving her status as a widow and her occupation as housekeeper in private service.
At the same time the Roberts family were together in Devon, ‘Winifred Margaret Davis’ as written by the enumerator and born on 6 October 1889 was in the flat at King Street, Hammersmith, listed as ‘housekeeper’.
At this stage it is worth pointing out that Guinevere’s parents lived in Devon until their deaths. Her mother died on 10 November 1947; her father on 16 August 1953 at Warcombe Farm, a short distance from his home of the Manor House, Lee. He left £37,604, the equivalent of nearly £1 million in 2026. However, the will of Robert Owen-Roberts (note the hyphen which had been inserted), described as Lord of the Manor of Lee, made the William Hickey column of the Daily Express of 2 February 1954. He offered £1,000 “to such person, institution, or society instrumental in bringing about and accomplishing the abolishing of the cruel use of the steel (or gin) trap used for catching rabbits”. He left £5,000 each to St. Dunstan’s (for blind war veterans), the RAF Widows and Orphans Fund, and to the Royal Institute for the Blind. In addition he made bequests to tenants on his land. The total bequeathed exceeded the £37,604 and each bequest had to be scaled down in proportion. I do not know if Guinevere received anything. If she did it would have been a small fraction of what she might have expected as sole heiress.
It would seem that Guinevere/Thelma was soon back in London since in 1941 a note in a newspaper stated that the alligator she used to help promote war bonds ‘came into her possession ‘soon after war broke out’. The Weekly News of 30 August:
Miss Thelma Roberts, who lives in Hammersmith, London, has kept and trained her ten-year-old Mississippi alligator, 4 ft 3 in. long. He now shakes hands with visitors and hisses at intruders, and politely takes tit-bits from the fingers of givers. Peter is going to assist War Savings in the district—by shaking hands with investors in Savings Certificates.
The syndicated story appeared in newspapers throughout the USA. As we shall see Peter looms large in later accounts and with a name change came stardom.
On 10 May 1947 the Middlesex Independent & West London Star contained a hilarious account, worthy of a Victorian melodrama, of a reporter’s visit to 346 King Street. I am reproducing it in full:
Our reporter has a horrible experience ALONE (IN A SMALL ROOM) WITH A 7-FOOT ALLIGATOR. He cleaned the teeth of a crocodile—and gave it a cigarette
My stomach has returned more or less to its accustomed position, and I can write and talk about it all now, writes our reporter.
At least, I can write about It, but to talk about it......Well, I've tried, but the polite smiles of incredulity of my friends have dried me completely up. Even the Editor has queried my sobriety.
I've not even dared risk the laughter of the family, but maybe your intrepid reporter's story, in cold print, will convince my sceptics.
If only I had taken photographer along...
Let's get It over with. Let's get this awful sentence out while the pencil performs only semi-gyrations. Here goes.....
I HAVE BEEN ALONE • IN A SMALL ROOM WITH A SEVEN - FOOT 15-STONE ALLIGATOR.
There goes my stomach again!
You are wrong quite wrong. It was ALIVE. It was LOOSE. It was FREE, free as the air I wasn't breathing for long periods.
The alligator squirmed round my feet. I squirmed too. It flopped, if alligators perform that movement, this way and that along the carpet, getting all tangled up in chairs and furniture. And that tall, that curled tall! One lash and I knew I'd be spending the rest of my life walking on my hands.
Oh, my stomach, will ye no come back again? How fearfully It turns over when I think of cleaving an alligator's teeth, of lighting and placing & cigarette be-ween a crocodile's lips. What a morning! -and I'm no Dick Barton.
"This is your storyteller, the man in... appointment with fear, appointment with fear.... I must keep calm, keep calm - thank you Harry, for the aspirins—and try to explain with a true reporter's detachment.
Alone with Peter
I ASCENDED the stairs of a house which lies Just over the Chiswick border, in King Street, completely at ease, full of sang froid.
I chatted merrily to my hostess, "Katrina." Then beard a thud that shook the stairs.
"That's Peter getting out of his bath," explained "Katrina"
"Must be a portly fellow this ablutionist," I thought.
"Katrina" opened a door, told me to enter and wait, and closed it.
Now if that door had been only slightly on the flimsy side 1 should have shot straight through it and out.
I was with Peter. He made no move, just looked at me, and for once I did not regret the impoliteness of the host in not coming forward to greet me because my host was a seven foot alligator.
Then Peter started moving round that small front room. I started moving round as well, keeping one eye on the tall, and jogging the memory to breathe every five minutes At Last Katrina entered, and I retrieved my stomach exiting through the window.
"You two friends?" she wondered. I muttered I hoped so.
The sun had momentarily departed as, from the maximum distance away. I saw Peter take his morning constitutional round the room, then clamber dexterously into his water tank.
And, so help me, he grinned.
"Katrina" had left me again, but I was now more at home with Peter more at home, and almost nonchalantly I peered into the tank of the second occupant of the room, that of s docile young Egyptian crocodile named Peggy. However, my inspection was somewhat abrupt what with Peter between me and the door.
“Katrina" called, and I mounted another flight of stairs to see William. Our introduction as I entered the room was, I thought, not too happily phrased. "This is William, he's dynamite."
The 'stuffed' crocodile
I WENT into the room cautiously, stepped over a stuffed crocodile fitting most of the carpet space near the door, and glanced around.
I was about to conclude that I’d been directed to the wrong room when I saw the "stuffed" crocodile, which was brushing my feet, move. I doubt whether William saw me move. I moved up and across. I can still vouch for the fact that I moved up.
There's still plaster from the celling in my hair.
When "Katrina" had stilled my whimperings I hurriedly took refuge in a cigarette.
Which was a silly thing to do. for "Katrina" Informed me that William liked cigarettes and would I like to give him one.
"Give him one!"
Hours later (or so it seemed) I was still saying "No. I had another appointment" and "Katrina" was still smiling and challenging. And all the while William was peregrinating round the room and I was ready to take a flying leap at any moment.
But what s a so-called male to do? With hands that were anything but firm I it a cigarette, “Katrina" opened William's mouth... and that set me back another twenty minutes.
Finally, wondering whether my successor would also die on the Job, I placed a cigarette in his mouth. The jaws closed and William puffed away contentedly at my tuppenny gasper.
I was witness to the fact that not once did the cigarette drop out, that it burned evenly. and that Willem actually puffed.
The door closed on William and gradually I became the reporter again, on to a good story—and "Katrina's" fascinating tale of herself and Peter, and William and Peggy was unfolded.
Temple was his home
WE’VE all read and heard of strange beliefs and rituals and rites that go on in darkest Africa.
Certain species of alligator are regarded as gods there, and Peter is one. In those far-off days Peter's name was Nattakina; he was kept in a holy temple where he was worshipped and adored.
What happened nobody knows but for some reason the temple was suddenly abandoned and Nattakina, only three feet long at the time and wearing phosphorous paint, was given to "Katrina" by a young Mahomedan.
I saw Peter's distinctive and beautiful markings, his human-like “hands", characteristics
"Katrina" assured me, of the alligator gods.
Some years ago, said "Katrina," attempts were made to steal Peter from her, probably (she thinks) by African worshippers, and at that time she sought police protection from burglary. (Peter would be a tough proposition to elope with now, and he's still growing. He should double his present length during the next two hundred years, if he is scheduled to live that long).
There are spiritualists who insist that Peter is a reincarnation, and "Katrina," whilst not really superstitious, is ready. to admit the existence of black magic.
Man kicked him, died
SHE told me how, early in the blitzes she realised that no harm could befall the sacred alligator, and she instanced occasions when she and Peter remained unharmed with bombs falling all round. And she told how, soon, people were begging to stay the night with her pet during raids.
(Are they the alternatives to-day?-being obliterated by atom bombs or sojourning with an alligator. If so. you'd better get your name down quickly on Peter's waiting list.)
She told me how, during the war years Service personnel came to visit and stroke the alligator for good luck and "Katrina" has heard of no-one who did so who failed to return.
There was, too, an occasion when a man kicked Peter viciously in the head and (said "Katrina") "Peter did not move, but gave that man a long, Indescribable look. Next day that man was killed."
"Katrina," dark, soft-volced and half-Egyptian, and used to the ways of reptiles set about training this African killer. Now she claims Peter to be tine tamest and cleverest alligator in Europe. She says, quite simply that Peter, (who, incidentally is a "she") has the most remarkable brain an animal ever had, and understands every word she utters. Peter eats from her hand, and she even cleans his teeth.
I've performed this last myself. Of course, I had to be persuaded just a little and I admit that my eyes were glued shut, and that "Katrina's" hand steadied mine, and that I started and finished on only one molar. But the size of those molars! (A well-known Brentford firm produce Peter's dentifrice. This is a tip-off for their publicity department to get cracking.)
Fussy about food
Peter is fussy about his food. He eats heatings, but turns up his snout at whiting. His best menu item is rooks sent by farmers. Shopkeepers also send along bits and pieces for him.
Perhaps you are inured to surprise by now. Perhaps you will only raise the eyebrows slightly when I tell you Peter wears on his "hand," an "engagement" ring, of which he is inordinately proud.
Who the lucky bride, (or should it be bridegroom?) is I did not discover.
Peter has a sense of humour too. At Christmas time a mince pie was offered to him. He screwed up his eyes, and laughed. And his laugh resembled the sound of twenty bulls.
It he has a vice it is jealousy. Ignore Peter, and speak. to Peggy first when you enter his room, and then hurriedly stand back to escape a drowning from Peter's flailing and lashing of water.
But lately he has been suffering from bad eyes, hence the wearing of bed socks, so that he won't scratch them. "Katrina" acts as medical officer.
There is no love lost between Peter and William, which is why they are kept in separate rooms. In. fact, William has even forgotten himself with "Katrina." Recently he nearly took off her thumb, and on another occasion left a nasty scar on her ankle. Peggy was the cause of the first accident.
She went too near William's tank, and he made a grab at her. In separating them "Katrina" got her thumb badly gashed by William.
William. from China, is twelve years old. He has not the food fads of Peter, and will eat anything. In fact, his delicacy la a "parson's nose."
Alligators as pets
WHY does "Katrina" keep these strange companions? Because she is a reptile entertainer who travels the country with her act. People told her she was crazy in attempting the task of taming crocodiles and alligators.
"But I have, and why not?" she says. "People seem to forget that all animals once were wild and I believe that one day alligators and crocodiles will have the standing dogs enjoy today."
("I won't be a moment, dear, I'm just seeing a man about an alligator.")
But, seriously. "Katrina" has got the trio to perform the most incredible things. Peter has
been taught to balance big. heavy lamps on his head, to climb ladders, and to wave his
"hands" at the audience. And he enjoys a tea-party.
But it is William who is the born actor: the temperamental star who loves and reacts to applause. "Katrina" is preparing a new act for him, She's quite confident he will soon be riding a baby's tricycle!
Peggy is most amenable to "Katrina's" persuasive powers. In fact she goes into a ten minute trance lying on her back under her mistress's hypnotic passes. Then William proceeds to place a lamp on her tummy.
The reptiles co-operate in the most friendly way whilst acting. but off-stage William has quickly to be separated from Peter, else there'd be a little blood shed.
"Katrina" has refused many offers to sell her pets which she is insuring for £5,000.
One confession from "Katrina." "My father and mother are just a little frightened of them."
As for me, Im seeking light relief and relaxation in the Chamber of Horrors.
That account is a fascinating mix of fact and pure show(wo)man hokum. The temple the Mississippi (American) Alligator came from moves to Madagascar in a later account. However, the tale does suggest that Peter came from a fellow performer and might give a clue to where the animals had come from soon after the start of the war; I explore that question below.
On the factual side it does suggest that 346 King Street was not divided into flats arranged by storey. The other residents must have had an interesting time.
There is no clue here or in other accounts as to where “Katrina” performed her reptile act. Later, in the mid-1950s, they all seem like charity events. I have searched the newspapers but can find nothing. Possibilities include music hall, private clubs, circus, side stalls in fairgrounds and the like and I do find it odd that nothing reached the news media of the day.
Nor is there any clue as to when Miss Roberts assumed the stagename Katrina and began working as an entertainer. We can assume the alligator act came after the start of the war but starting off in show business at the age of 50 does seem strange. Is it possible she did something else as a performer in the 1930s or even 1920s?
Also In 1947 Miss Roberts and Miss Davies left London for Chertsey in Surrey. That is when they were met by local authority officialdom and that must be why they were reluctant to appear in Ray Densham’s film Strange Cargo in 1952.
Crocodile Trouble
Chertsey Council are engaged in an interesting correspondence with Hammer-smith Council : subject, crocodiles and alligators.
What Chertsey wants to know is-do such things constitute a nuisance under the Public Health Act when kept in a small terrace cottage?
The cottage is in London-street, Chertsey; occupants, the Misses Thelma Roberts and Enid Davis, keep William, a 5ft. 6in. Chinese alligator, in a galvanised bath in their sitting room, which also houses Peggy, 5ft. crocodile, ın a glass tank. In the kitchen (10ft. square) is another large tank containing Peter, a 7 ft. alligator from the Mississippi.
Five in a Flat
Miss Davis just can't under-stand why the local council should be so concerned; after all, she points out, William, Peggy, and Peter lived quite happily with her and Miss Roberts in a flat in King-street, Hammersmith, with never a complaint from the local council.
Chertsey Council, having thumbed the records in vain, seeking a precedent for alligators in the sitting room, are therefore asking Hammersmith for confirmation.
The Bayswater Chronicle of 5 December explained how the council in Hammersmith even knew about the crocodilians in the flat in King Street. With very tight controls on the supply of materials during the war, Miss Roberts enquired at the Town Hall about a licence to obtain metal (galvanised steel by the look of it) for tanks to house the animals.
Other newspapers, far and wide, provided further information. In Canada the Edmonton Journal of 16 December informed its readers:
…Chertsey’s public health authorities suggested to the two ladies that these reptiles were a nuisance within the meaning of the act when kept in a small terrace cottage. "Nonsense," retorted the ladies. "We kept them for years in a small apartment in Hammersmith and nobody ever complained."
The article in Picture Post with some brilliant photographs by Slim Hewitt. that was syndicated throughout the world put the ‘Alligator Ladies’ of Chertsey in the public spotlight. I have covered this material with their appearance in Ray Densham’s film, in the article written in 2022.
Later in the 1950s
The Surrey Advertiser and County Times of 24 March 1957 provided news of a move for the ‘alligator ladies’ and confirmed what I had suspected earlier: the crocodilians were being trained and used for film and television work. Also, from the time of this move I can find no further use of ‘Thelma’ and she is reported as Guinevere or Flora Roberts or Matheson—or by her stage name, ’Katrina’:
Worplesdon’s New Residents
A house which burglars would do well to avoid is the house at Stringers Common, Worplesdon, to which Miss K. Roberts and her five alligators have recently moved.
On Tuesday a "Surrey Advertiser" reporter and photographer visited the house and Miss Roberts introduced us to its unusual occupants.
In a tank in the back of the house we were introduced to the Illustrious Daisy, 27-year-old six-foot long star of "An Alligator named Daisy." who has also played in several other films. Our awe increased when we were told that Daisy is worth about £3,000 and is herself quite a "lady of means." having about £100 in the bank.
"Rooks, plucked and cleaned, are her favourite food." Miss Roberts told us. "Daisy wouldn't hurt a fly. When I travel about and show her small children quite often climb on her back and she has never shown any bad temper at all."
Miss Roberts and the "Surrey Advertiser" reporter lifted the uncomplaining Daisy half out of her tank so that she could have her 70-odd teeth brushed.
We then went into a room next door, where our entry was greeted with the fierce hiss which is the alligator's growl. Protruding over the top of a tank in the corner was the vicious snout of William, the seven-foot long Chinese alligator which acts as the house's watch dog.
*I let Willlam out of his tank every evening and he is free to wander about the house all night," Miss Roberts said. "Of course I take every precaution to see that he does not escape from the house."
Another lady brooding sleepily in her tank was 23-year-old Nellie. a crocodile from the Upper Nile, who also does quite a lot of film work.
"My alligators don't actually hibernate during the winter, but they aren't nearly as active as in the summer and they go off their feed." When asked about the difficulties in feeding them, Miss Roberts said that alligators eat surprisingly little.
"As an example, Daisy will be quite satisfied with two mackerel three times a week."
The next alligator, six-year-old George, from Missourl, grew very excited when we went to have a look at him, but he soon quietened down when Miss Roberts took him out of his tank and he even condescended to smoke a cigarette in a holder while wearing a hat. He certainly looked considerably more at his ease
Miss Roberts explained that George was learning to understudy William, who was famed for the cigarette stunt.
Finally we met the baby. Max, a Gold Coast alligator, who was only 15in. long. Miss Roberts said she was looking forward to training him.
"To begin with they are very wild and you nave to watch out for bites," she said, "but they learn quickly and once trained are remarkably docile. In all my experience with them I have been the only one who has been bitten and that was when I was training them." We were also shown the alligators' travelling boxes, which resembled coffins on wheels and which make movement from one place to another relatively easy.
Miss Roberts has been training alligators for nearly 20 years and has shown them on films and television. as well as at numerous charitable occasions.
I do not doubt the veracity of the story that Guinevere had Daisy. In a local television interview recorded in 1971 (no longer available to view on the British Film Institute website) she claimed to have bought her for £2 from Koringa, a famous circus artiste who had been hired as animal wrangler for the filming of the the 1955 box-office hit An Alligator Named Daisy. However, it seems that there was a simpler explanation and that was provided by the The Cornwall Bird. In adding reminiscences from the family of the local vet who tended the reptilian charges of Guinevere after the move to Cornwall in the 1960s, the son, Donal Stuart, wrote:
Daisy was originally called Peter, but then laid an egg so had a name change to Daisy. Daisy stared in 8 films.
Peter according to the Picture Post article of 1948 was known to be a female and I expect the screenwriter decided on Daisy as a suitable name.
Peter, as described above, was the alligator used to promote war savings 16 years earlier.
Some background on Koringa is useful and here I found myself in a small-world moment for the man who started the National Fairground and Circus Archive in the University of Sheffield’s Library was my room-mate in digs in Sheffield in 1962-63, Peter Carnell (1940-1996) a brilliant classicist then in the process of becoming a librarian.
Koringa had been a star of Bertram Mills circus since 1937. She had an act in which she portrayed an exotically clad fakir performing feats with crocodilians and live snakes. She was Renée Bernard (1913-1976) who was born in Bordeaux. The act involved five crocodilians in a tanks. She ‘hypnotised’ them and walked across their tank on the heads of the long-suffering crocs while wearing a necklace of live snakes. Her make-up, designed to evoke the supernatural added to the effect. She is also said to have been on secret missions in France during the war.
The latter indication of some role for Koringa in the war leads me to wonder if some of the animals, including Peter (Daisy), had belonged to her and then acquired by Guinevere soon after war was declared? However, Koringa continued to appear in theatres in Britain throughout the war, even though five of her animals died in what were described as mysterious circumstances in January 1943; they were found dead in their tank. However, she must have had others available large enough for her act because her shows continued. She also had an uncredited role (including reptiles) in the film, Bees in Paradise, which was made in 1943. She was bitten on the leg by a crocodilian. Arthur Askey, one of the stars of what was described as a risqué farce, ‘though little of his chances of escaping unscathed.
Anther alligator, Nelson, appeared in An Alligator Named Daisy and in handling that one Koringa was badly and again bitten. The animal clamped its jaws firmly on her wrist to the shock of the human stars Donald Sinden and Diana Dors.
The last reference to Koringa with Daisy I have found is a report of her taking Daisy (with photograph) along with another three alligators and five pythons by ship to Canada on 22 August 1955 to do a show in Montreal. Then in March 1956, came the news of Daisy’s move to—possibly more accurately back to—Guinevere.
Daisy was a star and it is not surprising that pet and zoo alligators in Britain acquired—and are still given—the name. However, it does seem that the real one was being put to work by Guinevere. Nottingham’s famous Goose Fair, held every year in October, in its promotional publicity stated that she, ‘the ugliest film star in the world’, would be there, performing with ‘Salome The Jungle Slave Girl and her Live Python Snakes’ who had appeared in a BBC television programme from Blackpool. A reporter for the Daily Express of 4 August found Salome to be ‘a beautiful Oriental girl who wriggles her hips alluringly and shakes her poor poisonous snakes a little unkindly. I asked her something in Arabic, put she took no notice. Later I heard her remark to an attendant-looking a boa constrictor deeply in the eye—“Joe, the keys must be in the other cupboard”’. The accent was Cockney. In the Nottingham Guardian Journal (a newspaper read every day by my grandfather) of 4 October 1956 a photograph captioned as Salome with Daisy shows an animal bearing no resemblance to the Daisy being conveyed to Canada by Koringa a year earlier. The animal was being held by an elderly woman who might possibly have been Miss Davies.
I was at Goose Fair in 1956—a convenient walk from the trolleybus on the way back from school. Salome though escaped my notice.
Daisy made another appearance in Nottingham a few weeks after Goose Fair. On 2nd November she appeared with other animals and alongside George Cansdale at a Toy Fair and Menagerie at the large Nottingham Co-Op department store on Upper Parliament Street. Admission for children—with a present from Santa 2/6d; adults 3d.
These are the only accounts of what we must reckon to be Guinevere’s Daisy appearing outside Surrey and surrounding areas. Guinevere was also referred to as ‘Katrina’, ‘well-known up and down the country…as the alligator and snake trainer’. Those reports add credence to my interpretation that Daisy/Peter had been owned by Guinevere long before An Alligator Named Daisy was made in that she had been owned by ‘Katrina’ for nigh on 20 years.
The level of zoological knowledge on show was not high; the hokum continued. Daisy the alligator was said to be ‘from the muddy waters of the Zambezi’. Other examples from the 1950s, like the alligator having lived in a Madagascan temple, gave me the impression of the world of fairground shows and the circus.
Three of Guinevere’s animals appeared gratis at a charity event for the Guildford Borough Tuberculosis After Care Committee at the end of December 1956 and the report was published in the Surrey Advertiser of 2 January 1957.
A large medieval pageant was held in Shalford Park, Guildford, in June 1957. Christopher Ede, the leading pageant master in Britain, wrote the script and stage the production..Seven hundred players took part. And so did ‘Mrs Guinevere (“Katrina”) Roberts’ with Daisy. After that, In September, Daisy was at another charity event in aid of a church hall. Then with other members of the Pageant cast she was at an agricultural show. A few similar events followed in 1958 1959 and 1960 where the act was sometimes called ‘Katrina of the Crocodiles’, but after that nothing can be found in the Surrey or indeed any other newspapers.
Miss Davies
This seems an appropriate point to identify Miss Enid Davis, as her name was given in the Picture Post article of 1948. Variously identified as Winifred J and Winifred Margaret Davies or Davis in censuses and electoral registers for 346 King Street, Hammersmith, I now know with later records taken into account that she was Winifred Margaret Davies, born on 6 October 1889 at 8 Clarence Street, Openshaw, a suburb of Manchester. She was the daughter of George Davies, a postman. Her mother’s maiden name, Annie Roberts, shows the possibility that Guinevere Roberts was a relation. It would seem that before marrying George Davies she had been married to a man with the surname Edwards but that Annie’s maiden name was Roberts. All I can say at this stage is they could not have been first cousins but the possibility of a more distant relationship still exists. In Cornwall in the 1960s and 70s they were often referred to the Roberts sisters. The pattern of using a different name continued. The National Health Service used the 1939 Register and noted changes in name in green ink. A green ink note added to the 1939 Register on 26 April 1974, possibly when changing to a different GP practice, showed Winifred Margaret Davies’s new name to be Emily.
1960s-70s Cornwall
Guinevere reached the age of 70 in 1960. All the key information I have after 1960 is that gathered by The Cornish Bird. The Alligator Ladies had settled on the Lizard Peninsula of Cornwall. The local vet, Noel Stuart (1930-2021) treated their animals and took his three children to see them. He published three books on his life and work and in the one I have just bought, the last to be published in 2015, his autobiography, Memoirs of the Cow Mechanic, Guinevere and Peter/Daisy certainly get a few pages:
Soon after I arrived [in October 1968], however, I was introduced to Daisy'. I was greeted by Stuart one morning with the comment that we must go and visit 'Daisy. "Great!" I replied, "Is she a dog or one of a milking herd?"
He answered me with a slow Cornish smile. "Not 'xactly, Daisy is an eight-foot alligator who lives in the kitchen, and we regularly have to force feed her when the weather is cold.”
Now the Cornish have a delightful sense of humour. I had learned to be wary in replying. "Tell me a bit more Stuart. Is this a big leg-pull?" He looked deeply hurt and said “No! David and I used to go out to see old Mrs Roberts regularly to sort out the problem. Ask Carna! He said defensively. "Daisy won't eat you. You're a bit old and tough."
"Let's go! What gear do I need ? Ropes and bull holders"
"Not really. You might consider that the power of prayer is useful in some cases," he responded with a quiet smile. "Let's head for Tregarne Mill where the full fairy story will unfold."
We headed off to St Keverne and followed the road to Tregarne Mill which lay down in a deep valley, surrounded by trees. Stuart jumped out of the car and pulled on his thigh boots. Did we have to enter a swamp to greet the patient?
As we entered the front door I was greeted by Mrs Roberts who emerged from the slate flagged kitchen. She was old and bent, wearing a time-worn floral pinafore, and moving with the aid of a stick. "Hello Mr Stuart, we're glad you could come as Daisy has not eaten for days and I should hate her to starve. I'm glad that Stuart Williams has come as he knows Daisy well."
She led us into the kitchen where I saw Daisy, in a six-foot galvanised tank. She was feeling rather disgruntled at having her mobility ramp removed and water emptied away. Daisy, eight feet of alligator, dark green and black with shiny teeth protruding each side of her jaws and slit eyes looking through me, was summing me up as a culinary delicacy. I, of course, was quietly conversing with my Maker putting my future into His hands asking for strength and the agility of a deer.
Help was at hand as Ma Roberts handed me a broomstick with a cloth padded end, saying, "Don't worry Mr Stuart! I always feed her either calf's heart or boned chicken to stop any bones puncturing her tummy. Stuart kneels astride Daisy and holds her head steady. I hold her jaws open and you throw in her food to the back of the throat and push it down her gullet."
With the air of a conjuror, I was handed a piece of chicken whilst she bent down to Daisy muttering and prising her jaws open, "Come along my darling. Take your nice dickie bird!" I threw the chicken in and pushed it gently down her throat before standing back to admire my handy work. "Thanks God! We did a good job there." Stuart stood up and we went off to wash our hands in a rather basic and grubby sink.
Mrs Roberts gratefully said, "Thank you! We'll see you in three days as she always goes off food in cool weather." Then it occurred to me that of course, being a reptile she is poikilothermic and would slip into a state of torpor in cold conditions. I called back in three days and could see a busy time ahead.
I had to visit Daisy regularly over a period of months, which opened my eyes to her checkered past. Daisy had appeared in five films including "In the Dog House" [1961] and "An alligator called Daisy". For the first five years she was called "Peter" - until she laid an egg.
Like Pen Densham in the early 1950s, the young Stuarts had an alligator ride. The training over decades by Guinevere was on show when the children visited. The alligator responded to commands like open your mouth or paddle your left leg, the latter resulting in water being splashed all over the kitchen. A metal tank in the kitchen housed the now 8 foot-long Daisy/Peter. From there was a ramp down into a yard. After basking in the sun (sometimes with as pillow under her head she would clamber back to the tank on command. The house also had many cats and many kittens. Those wandering along the edge of the tank ‘came to a sticky end’.
At that time there were two other crocodilians in the house, about 6 foot long. ‘They were very aggressive and dangerous.’ One, Moses, lacked a leg; it had been bitten off by the other. The house also had ‘a huge boa constrictor’.
The house was Tregarne Mill near Porthallow. A follow-up to the story by The Cornish Bird on a local Facebook page recorded that the alligators were well known in the area and that the house was known as ‘Croc House’ to the children of the neighbourhood. In comments to the blog post others recalled the animals appearing at events in the village hall of St Keverne in the mid-1960s. Guinevere (now abbreviated to Gwen) appeared on a local television interview in 1971. The film is held by the British Film Institute but at the time of writing is unavailable for viewing. The Cornish Bird reported that it included the information that the other alligator was called Andy Pandy, for the uninitiated a puppet from BBC children’s television.
And just to keep up to date with changes in name, human and crocodilian, Guinevere had a green ink note added to the 1939 Register on 16 May 1967: her name had been changed (presumably registering with a new medical practice) to Guinevere Flora Roberts-Matheson.
Alison Stuart, the vet’s daughter, also provided the interesting information that Daisy/Peter outlived the two ladies and ended up in a zoo which she thought could have been Newquay. Accounts vary, as after reading this account one might expect, as to the age of the alligators and crocodiles kept by Guinevere. For Peter/Daisy taking the average of ages mentioned in different newspaper accounts in various years would make the alligator at least 50 in 1978.
The crocodilians
I have found mention of eight crocodilians kept by the Alligator Ladies: three crocodiles (probably Nile)(Peggy, Nellie, Maxie), four Mississippi or American Alligators (Peter/Daisy, Georgie, Moses, Andy Pandy) and one Chinese Alligator (William). The ages given for Maxie suggest that is the crocodile given by Ray Densham as an inducement to appear in his film in 1952 at a time the local council in Chertsey were concerned about the keeping of crocodilians at home.
A final move?
In 1971 when interviewed by Westward Television, Guinevere would have been 80 and Winifred 81. Thirteen years before, Noel Stuart noted that she was old and bent, and walked with the aid of a stick. My guess—for reasons that will be apparent below—is that the two women left Tregarne Mill and moved to Bruggan, also on the Lizard Peninsula, some time in the early to mid-1970s.
Flora Guinevere Matheson (the order of her forenames given on her birth certificate) died on 30 January 1978 at Manor Nursing Home, Lelant, St Ives, Cornwall. She was 87. The cause of death was ‘cardio vascular and general senile degeneration, after post-mortem'. The informant of her death was Herbert Russell Claude Kennedy. Since his qualification was stated to be ‘causing the body to be buried’ (which indicates he was not related nor the undertaker) my guess is that he was her executor and neighbour. In the 1939 Register Herbert Kennedy is shown as a county lecturer in agriculture. Both Guinevere’s usual address and his are given as Bruggan, Ruan Minor, Helston, Cornwall. Bruggan is a hamlet in Ruan Minor. I see also that there is a house there called Bruggan. Herbert Kennedy who died at Bruggan Cottage in 1981, clearly did not know, when he informed the registrar, the first name of her late husband, Finlay Matheson; she is simply recorded as ‘Widow of - - - - Matheson’.
Probate records show Guinevere left an estate of £27,445—about £150,000 in 2026. The aliases used by Guinevere throughout her life (except the stage name ‘Katrina’) were revealed :
MATHESON, Flora Guinevere otherwise Guinevere Flora Elizabeth otherwise Thelma or ROBERTS, Flora Guinevere otherwise Guinevere Flora Elizabeth otherwise Guinevere Flora of Bruggan Ruan Minor Helston Cornwall died on 30 January 1978…
Winifred Margaret Davies died on 18 October 1978 at Perran Bay Hotel, Perranporth, Cornwall of left ventricular failure and myocardial infarction. She was 89 and recorded as ‘housekeeper, retired’. Perran Bay Hotel was and still is a care home. Glennys Jean Brabant, the informant of Winifred’s death was, according to a history of the place, the ‘matron’. She left £1,000.
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With the story complete, at least for now, the reader of all three posts will have realised that the photograph used as the front cover of Pen Densham’s book that can be seen in bookshops around the world, Riding the Alligator, Strategies for a Career in Screenplay Writing (And Not Getting Eaten), is a photograph of four-year old Pen doing just that. Pen was taken to Chertsey by his parents Ray (who was making the film Strange Cargo) and Edna. There Pen met William the Chinese and Peter the Mississippi alligators. The photographs show that he was riding Peter—who we now know was the film star Daisy. Perhaps the alligatorian star dust had a profound effect since Pen would go on meet many more film and television stars as an Oscar-nominated, Hollywood-based producer, director and screenwriter.
I have pursued this story because it covers an area of human-animal interaction not often covered by those involved in science or in the world of zoos. Shown and kept for entertainment in fairgrounds, music hall/variety acts and circuses these were the only wild animals seen by many members of the British public in earlier centuries. Although referred to in shocked tones these days, the keeping, training and showing of animals must have had a effect in stimulating interest in the natural world, even if the presentation of information was often lurid and completely wrong. Guinevere’s reptile act which involved painstaking and pain-taking training of her animals must have been an early demonstration that crocodilians are bright enough to learn words of command and to perform tricks to order. There has been a long battle to get researchers in the field of cognition to recognise the fact that reptiles being ‘cold-blooded’ are not as thick as two short planks. How brains work when subjected to changes in body temperature—a question that has wriggled round my brain since the 1960s—has only in recent years received the attention it deserves. In other words this social history in providing a glimpse into the world of animals in show business and their use in film roles has wider implications.
Finally, I have provided considerable detail on the lives of the ‘Alligator Ladies’. I have done so in the hope that it will jog more memories and comments that I can add to this account.
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