The Monkey Dirigible

The LOVELY! Tone News Inert-gas Photographic Airship (or Dirigible) was commissioned for the correct and exact recording (by means of the action of light on suitably prepared silver-nitrate film) of the annual Great Colonial Heavier-Than-Air Pancake Tossing Race For Ladies, held in conjunction with Shrove Tuesday, an International Pancake Celebration Day.

 The clockwork-powered airship is piloted by an elderly, semi-retired monkey trained in the art of aerial photographic reconnaissance, having spent some fruitful years in the employ of the late colonial balloonist and photographer Townsend Durreaux, celebrated for his panoramic views of the battlefields of the First World War.

The airship is the last remaining example of a type once common and has been extensively remodelled from original plans. The jet-assisted take-off device, obvious under the pod of the main basket, is a relatively recent addition made necessary after a near-fatal attack by a rhinoceros whilst the airship (and its occupant) were on duty in Tanganyika.

A point of mild historic interest is the large cane-woven basket which passes for a cockpit ... some have speculated that it is no more than a common laundry basket ... which in fact it is, except that it was especially woven by a coven of blind nuns involved in the relief of Paris during the Great Siege of 1886.

With the aid of a giant ancient projector Peter Von enlarged the graphics of The Dogs, The Granny, The Tossing Lady and of course the LOVELY! Lady and then hand- painted dozens of sheets of medium-density fibreboard to create enormous cut-outs in sections.

There are some people who don’t this story, but they are rumoured not to be very amusing people at all.

 Peter Von:

 I had been thinking about creating an enormous airship to float up in the huge open space and did all the calculations and drawings, even sourcing some marvellous yellow fabric to cover the aluminium frame from the US. On advice from the Fire Department, the shopping centre canned the whole idea as a fire risk. This was the one and only unresolved project in my time.

So I went on with the dirigible, featuring a life-size monkey in a flying suit piloting a smallish rope trimmed airship in yellow rip-stop sailcloth. This was powered by a ‘best boys’ clockwork motor and driven by an ancient riveted copper airscrew. My idea was to create a Hail a Pancake Airship that was a complete pancake cooking set-up, even incorporating a gorgeous ornate old clothes mangle in miniature ... just in case a customer would rather have a crepe!

I found a really large laundry basket at the Salvo’s op shop and a giant cast-iron fry pan in the army disposals store. I bought a beautifully crafted 1930s ship wheel, all brass and mahogany, by chance at a garage sale. The whole creation was mounted high up on the most elegant cast-iron light pole, complete with a “Hail A Pancake” scrolled sign, all in bright warm colours.

The giant key on the wind up clockwork motor slowly turned as the copper propeller spun. The monkey sported an enormously long scarf printed with LOVELY! Lady motifs. Lots of customers, always men, pointed out that the propeller was turning the wrong way; I just told them it always should when it’s idling.

The clockwork-powered airship is piloted by an elderly, semi-retired Chimpanzee trained in the art of aerial photographic reconnaisance, having spent some fruitful years in the employ of the late colonial balloonist and photographer Townsend Durreaux, celebrated for his panoramic views of the battlefields of The First World War.

The airship is the last remaining example of a type once common and has been extensively remodelled from original plans. The jet-assisted take-off device, obvious under the pod of the main basket, is a relatively recent addition made necessary after a near-fatal attack by a rhinocerous whilst the airship (and it's occupant) were on duty in Tanganyika.

A point of mild historic interest is the large cane-woven basket which passes for a cockpit... some have speculated that it is no more than a common laundry basket... which in fact it is, except that it was especially woven by a coven of blind nuns involved in the relief of Paris during the Great Seige of 1886.

With the aid of a giant ancient projector Peter Von enlarged the graphics of ‘The Dogs’, ‘The Granny’, ‘The Tossing Lady’ and of course the ‘Lovely! Lady’ and then hand- painted dozens of sheets of medium density fibreboard to create enormous cut-outs in sections.

Retired from piloting the Dirigible atop the old Northland Pancake Parlour, the brave monkey was given a new lease of life as cameraman and director for LOVELY! Tone News, on duty filming the Pancake Tossing Race for Ladies emblazoned across the far wall.

It was at the new Northland location in 1997, the spring of his Boys Best Clockwork motor was tightened and a distinctive movie camera fashioned from a large aluminium kettle from a country sheep station kitchen fitted. The old cooking apparatus was dumped, and a complicated light show inside the original but improved yellow dirigible in place with yellow fancy skids fitted. It was all substantially upgraded with a shiny post-modern aluminium-and-brass module containing computer gear slung underneath.

Tilly then constructed an ingenious and totally original track device in the specially strengthened ceiling to take the whole dirigible up and above the customers. This enabled it to move across the ceiling in tandem with the regular activating of The Pancake Tossing Race Ladies, who were now racing (and tossing) in their own individual dirigibles, each one different and unique on the far wall. Tilly had even produced sound for the monkey so that he ‘talks’ to the customers.