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A Victorian Childhood | Beatrix Potter's Holidays | Beatrix Potter's Pets | A Secret Diary
Mr and Mrs Potter were overprotective parents and discouraged friendships with other children, but Beatrix and Bertram had each other for company and together they collected a menagerie of pets which they kept in the schoolroom. At one time, they had a green frog, two lizards, some water newts, a ring-snake, a tortoise and a rabbit, all of which were carefully studied by the children. Beatrix covered pages with sketches of them and almost all of her famous characters are based on the pets that she used to keep.
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| Benjamin Bouncer |
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Benjamin Bouncer was Beatrix's first pet rabbit. She
bought him secretly from a London bird shop and sneaked him into the
nursery in a paper bag. 'Bounce' became the model for many of Beatrix's
rabbit drawings. On the back of a photograph of him, Beatrix wrote
"This is the original 'Benjamin Bunny'. Benjamin was extremely fond
of hot buttered toast, he used to hurry into the drawing room when
he heard the tea-bell!"
(Photograph: Courtesy of National Trust.) |
| Peter Piper |
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Peter Piper was a Belgian buck rabbit 'bought at a very tender age'. Beatrix wrote in a letter to a child, "Peter used to lie before the fire on the hearth rug like a cat. He was clever at learning tricks, he used to jump through a hoop, and ring a bell, and play the tambourine. I saw him once trying to play the tambourine on a straw hat!
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| Mrs. Tiggy-winkle |
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| Beatrix wrote about her pet hedgehog in a picture letter to Winifred Warne: "Mrs. Tiggy-winkle is a great traveller. I don't know how many journeys she hasn't done. She enjoys going by train, she is always very hungry when she is on a journey . . . I think you must ask Mrs. Tiggy-winkle to tea, she will drink milk like anything out of a doll's tea-cup!" |
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| Spot |
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Spot the spaniel was the Potter's adored family dog.
Beatrix described him as 'a philosophical traveller' because he loved
to ride in carriages, and could hardly be stopped from jumping in
when any member of the family wished to go out in one. Beatrix admitted
that she found dogs difficult to draw and though she kept a succession
of sheepdogs in later life, she wrote, 'I respect dogs to a certain
extent but I do not think they are moral characters.'
(Photograph:Beatrix Potter, aged 15 with Spot the spaniel. Courtesy of V&A.) |
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| Xarifa |
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| When Beatrix was a child, she had a favourite dormouse who was 'a sleepy little animal'. When Beatrix recorded Xarifa's death, she wrote, 'Poor little thing, I thought at one time she would last as long as myself. I believe she was a great age. I wonder if ever another dormouse had so many acquaintances . . . I think she was in many respects the sweetest little animal I ever knew.' When Beatrix wrote The Fairy Caravan, one of the characters she wrote about was a little sleepy dormouse named Xarifa. |
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| Pig-Wig |
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| Pig-Wig was a little black Berkshire pig that Beatrix bought from a pedigree pig farmer. She wanted to put it with the other pigs at Hill Top Farm, but the farm manager refused to have it near the litter. So Beatrix put the little pig in a basket beside her bed, and bottle-fed it night and day, until it became her devoted pet and followed her everywhere, indoors and out. |
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