Colin Crosby Heritage Tours

Molly Badham

Molly Badham has died.

Molly was the founder of the famous Twycross Zoo, and was loved and respected by naturalists and zoo enthusiasts the world over.

Together with her friend Nathalie Evans, she set up the zoo in 1963. Both ladies had been working in different pet shops in Sutton Coldfield, and Molly had already started to look after unwanted chimpanzees.

Very early in the zoo's life, it became famous for the PG Tips advertisements, featuring chimpanzees trained by Molly and filmed at Twycross.

The zoo, as well as being great fun, is also known as the World Primate Centre, having an important collection of monkeys and apes. These include the gentle but little known bonobos, similar in looks to the aggresive chimpanzees.

Twycross Zoo is one of the major tourist attractions of Leicestershire (not Warwickshire - that's just the postal address).

Molly Badham, who received the MBE in 2002, died last week aged 93.