About the Author

June Mottershead was born in June 1926 and from the age of 4 lived with the rest of her family at Chester Zoo started by her father in 1930. After working as a Land Girl in the latter stages of WW2 she returned to the zoo to become keeper of the aquarium. In 1949 she married Fred Williams who arrived as bear keeper in 1947. Apart from a break of five years in the fifties which they spent in Australia, June and her husband lived and worked at the zoo where they brought up their three children. A widow since 2012, June continues to live within a short walk of her childhood home.