The ELEPHANT in the room

As Tracy Spiers visits Royal Leamington Spa, she finds a town full of positivity, pedals, parks, prestige and pachyderms, with no time to dwell on that other ‘p’ word

- Tracy Spiers

Eighty years ago, a German bomb moved Queen Victoria off her plinth outside Royal Leamington Spa’s impressive town hall by an inch. She was shifted but she didn’t fall. The year 2020 will go down in history as a year when COVID19 caused a shift in society on all levels. Whilst we continue to fight the war against this deadly virus, and life is not quite as it was, the social and economic health of this Warwickshire spa town is strong. And yes, it may take a while for this community to adjust to this shift but, like its prominent statue, it will recover from the shock.

Like many towns, the election of Royal Leamington Spa’s mayor had to take place virtually. There were no formal celebrations, no social gatherings and no key festivals or events to open. But as lockdown lifted, I had the privilege of meeting with Leamington’s new mayor Susan Rasmussen face to face – well at a safe distance. For more than two hours she kindly took me on a tour of her town so I could meet some of the independent businesses and find out how they were doing.

Needing a change from Stroud, my husband and four of our daughters decided to join me so, before I met Susan, I took them to Jephson Gardens. This is a beautiful formal Victorian park full of colourful flowerbeds and interesting sculptures named after Dr Henry Jephson, a famous doctor who promoted the town as a spa. As we walked past a number of elephant sculptures, I told them all about England’s first elephant trainer, Sam Lockhart, born to a circus family in Leamington in 1850. He brought three elephants back from Ceylon, taught them tricks and bathed them in the River Leam near the main Post Office. His elephant wash can still be seen.