"An Audience with an Elephant, and other encounters on the eccentric side" by Byron Rogers

I've enjoyed reading this book - an idea book to dip into, reading an article at a time.  "Ghost Train to Stalybridge" is a masterpiece!

The topics are wide-ranging and unexpected - they include:  a tortoise brought home from World War 1; catching a nine foot long royal sturgeon; The lost children - Gwenllian or Wencilian of Sempringham, Lincolnshire - daughter of Llywelyn, Prince of Wales; Epynt, the site of an army base in Wales; R.S. Thomas; speechwiter to the Prince of Wales; Brixworth church; Patrick Barnes, the octogenarian trathlete; the Hanbury explosion; a bunker for sale in Edgbaston; Waltham Abbey bomb factory; the Communist party of Thame; the Duchess of Argyll; Bernard Pettifer, thr government Butler; Alliance of Literary Societies; Joymead, the Secret Garden of Farthingstone; Syd Dernley, the last executioner, the "Gallows Humorist".

I bought my copy secondhand, on the Greek island of Naxos - a copy withdrawn from Monash Public Library Service, Victoria, Australia. Now I bet that that book would have an interesting story to tell of its life as a library book in Australia, how it ended up on naxos, and its soo-to-be trip back to England!