“Who’d like to hold her?” asked the Animal Man, cradling a brightly coloured milk snake, “I promise she won’t bite.”  

Various students attempted to push themselves further back into their seats as the snake, tongue flickering, eyed them up. From the back of the room a brave Year 11 rose to his feet and approached the slithery snake. Carefully the Animal man uncoiled the serpent from around his wrist and placed her into the palms of the black robed volunteer.  

“Urgh, it feels weird,” uttered our hero, but he held his nerve, as the snake began to wind itself around his arm and make its way into the front pocket of his hoodie. 

The Dinosaur Wildlife and Education Centre had been invited to come to Oswestry and the other TMBSS centres, to explain about the lives of numerous exotic animals and give the students the opportunity to handle them for themselves. It’s an award-winning educational company, based in Worcester, with the aim of encouraging and promoting fascination with all types of life, from dinosaurs to meerkats. Sadly, for Oswestry, a dinosaur wasn’t available. 

What were on show were snakes, including an enormous albino python; a hedgehog; a family (or mob) of meerkats; a genet (a relative of the mongoose and a native of Africa); a family of Kookaburras; a baby raven; a barn owl and a mother and daughter tarantula. 

Each of the animals was handled carefully by the Animal Man, who explained how they had come to be in his care and what their normal life in the wild would be like. Some of it was quite gruesome but Nature can be “red in tooth and claw,” and it wasn’t his intention to sugar-coat the truth. Some of the facts about hedgehogs were really disgusting and the reproductive anatomy of snakes astounding.  

An hour and a half flew by and everyone who had wanted to, had had the opportunity to stroke or handle the animals. We had all learnt some fascinating facts and realised that meerkats, although looking cute, actually stink.