It seems odd to us now but when I was a kid I lived through one of the coldest winters on record in the UK — December/January 1981 to 82, when blizzards swept across the country and heavy snow isolated us on the farm, cutting us off. That winter is well remembered — but East Anglia was to see snow laying on the Breck again in December of ’82 and January ’83. Why do I remember this fairly insignificant snowfall? Hymn by Ultravox was in the charts – a track I liked as a young lad, and that became associated with the events in my mind, dating it for me.
It is also because of the West Stow panther. My sister Ingrid lived at Flempton (a small village close to West Stow) with her husband Richard Middleton; he and his twin brother Robert used to walk down to West Stow for a drink when not having beers in The Greyhound; maybe it was while walking back Richard thought he glimpsed a panther! Ingrid had a magnificent German Shepherd dog called I believe Sheba, and it was while walking that Richard reported finding strange footprints – the brothers set out with a camera and photographed them. Not hard to believe that area could be home to a big cat – there are large numbers of deer there.
A few years later my parents were drinking outside The White Horse at Icklingham a few miles away when they and the others present saw what looked like a large black panther stalking prey on the opposite side of the field. The gait was feline; the tail very long. They were all quite certain what they saw. A few years later I recorded both incidents in my 1992 book Spectral Suffolk, and promptly lost interest.
Even when I became Chair of the Association for Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena I did not pay much attention: we have our friends at the Centre for Fortean Zoology for such matters; I am no cryptozoologist, no feline ethologist and the only cats I contend with are on a smaller scale.

Besides I had developed a certain scepticism occasioned by the number of photographs I had seen of what looked like Labradors, slightly large moggies and even one apparent stuffed toy. 😉 As my own eyesight failed I began to realise that it’s not always easy to identify perfectly normal things in poor light. Furthermore the paucity of evidence struck me — where were the roadkill big cats? The CCTV footage? Police thermal cameras – it’s hard to hide from a helicopter? Where are the spoors, the cadavers, the mutilated and half eaten prey? To keep a population of hungry predators filled up is going to reduce livestock and prey? When an academic friend suggested I adopted a breeding pair of snow leopards I believe he mentioned needing a sheep every 4 or 5 days between them, or they might eat toddlers. They jump well as I recall too? Somehow this did not strike me as an ideal house pet given I lived in a flat on Great Norwood Street.
Also it is hard for humans to breed it seems even armed with Tinder and alcohol — how many big cats would have to have been released in 1976 to result in a stable breeding population? It just seemed unlikely to me; I was not ruling it out, and I knew all belief and testimony was for big cats prowling the British countryside but I was not personally convinced. Which given I frequently believe six impossible things before breakfast…
And then lockdown happened, and the story a week or so turned into a daily rash of sightings. Now we know that real creatures ended up wandering far into towns — a couple of deer were filmed at the end of my street in the middle of Cheltenham. Wildlife quickly reasserted itself; humanities retreat showed us just how quickly our cities would be reclaimed if humanity dies out. So if these are real big cats, well this is precisely what we would expect. Less people about means the few out and about are more likely to witness a bashful big cat.

However there is an alternative hypothesis – the Psychosocial Hypothesis. At times of societal tension these sightings might be expected to rise. With waves of people dying across the country, an uncertain future and government imposed house arrest and effective curfews we might expect there to be an explosion in paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. The late Robert Moore, David Sivier and myself all hold to variants of the Psychosocial Hypothesis and it equally explains the reported phenomena…
Except — I saw no equivalent increase in UFO reports, ghost cases or even poltergeist occurrences. Not only at ASSAP, but in the other organisations I spoke to there seemed to be little hard evidence of an increase in people having weird experiences. Perversely there was a whole rash of news stories especially in the science journalism press saying that people were turning to psychics and seeing Ghosts and UFOs everywhere — I was asked to comment on a couple but they did not use my thoughts — but if anything the reverse was true. Its hard to tell – I can never tell you numbers for a given phenomenon, only *reports* of said phenomenon.
So why did big cat sightings increase? It makes sense if they are real animals, and I’m not convinced psychosocial explanations hold up. I asked ASSAP investigator Bobbi Allen to head up an initiative to record reports from the media and set up a database, and Project ABC began. After the pandemic cat sightings have declined again, but now they are all over the headlines once more.
A new documentary named Panthera Britannia has apparently resulted in evidence that when DNA tested showed that big cats roam through the UK. Oddly the press coverage was pretty consistently vague not telling us anything about the circumstances or the findings. I think this documentary was in last years awesome Fortean Film Festival but I could be wrong — I did not see it anyway. It is easy to find online or available from your favourite streaming service. I bought a copy for the purpose of this review which cost me about six quid but you can find it free I believe with adverts?
Now I was ready to slam this, and in fact the titles were a bit full on and my natural suspicion that a bit of hair testing positive is not the same as real big cats roaming Britain made me expect it to be a scam. In fact its not- made by believers it is an intelligent, interesting and entertaining look at the big cat phenomenon that despite my scepticism convinced me yes its possibly true.
The documentary covers the history well being both educational and entertaining- who would have suspected Cobbett’s Rural Rides (1870) includes a big cat sighting? Not me and I’ve read chunks of it at uni. It cracks along at a fair old pace, and rapidly discards the notion of relict animals that have survived through history.
One thing the film doesn’t address is supernatural or psychosocial explanations — the CFZ is admirably Fortean but here the emphasis is on “are real physical big cats out there?”. There is discussion of the infamous aftermath of the 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act and one chap who admits on camera to releasing a couple of big cats. I’m sceptical about this producing a breeding population that would have lasted into this century because you’d have a big Founder Effect genetic flaws would be enhanced and you’d probably lack the numbers. Also you’d have to have the same species released, or at least ones capable of interbreeding.

The film argues this has happened and Britain may contain a tiny population of big cats, here identified as probably leopards, the Panthera pardus. These are it is suggested melanistic black panthers (not Huey Newton and the boys) and hybrids, closest to the leopards of Malaya and Indonesia.
The film is great at covering the many experts in the field and briefly shows the CFZ and Gloucestershire’s Frank Tuttle. Just like ghosthunters a lot of Big Cat researchers get into it after a clear sighting of their own. There is a classic description of how NOT to take a witness statement – I’m hoping just to make a point not the chap’s real methodology – and a number of people who like Bobbi, Jackie Tonks, Richard Freeman and others have spent years on the issue.

Some of the questions I raised earlier are answered, but essentially the case is made by not all the eyewitness statements but rather by the physical evidence – analysis of chewed sheep bones at the Royal Ag, some footage from trail cams (is that a badger or a bear?) and some inventive analysis of footage to scale it. (A big domestic cat is still a domestic cat guys; 10% variation not exceptional).
Yes there are moments when I want to shout at the TV but it is generally far less idiotic than most of the Paranormal TV nonsense and the community of researchers seem sincere and intelligent (I bet the politics is just as awful though :D).
The documentary builds nicely to some researchers with trail cams (surprisingly cheap) and thermal gear out in the field and then at the end almost as an afterthought we are given the DNA evidence. It’s a bit underwhelming — I was expecting something interesting from environmental DNA but its just “a hair that had already tested positive as leopard was submitted to a university and was a leopard hair.”

Todd Disotell bane of Bigfoot researchers for shooting down every supposed bit of DNA evidence in other documentaries appears and says “yes it’s leopard”. The only problem is of course we have to accept the hair was found on that barbed wire fence in Gloucestershire not planted there and is in fact from a native animal not taken from say a zoo. We all know cat hair gets everywhere! However it does seem that there are multiple sources for DNA of leopards in the UK. [ EDIT – I’m now learned that DNA was not analysed in time for this film and is covered in the sequel Panthera Britannia Declassified which I’m now looking forward to.]

And that’s pretty much it. The documentary tries to make it a huge deal but unless you breed sheep on Dartmoor it probably isn’t. There are much scarier things in the Forest of Dean than panthers – I mean Zodiac Mindwarp, what’s left of EMF and wild boars and that’s before you get to Cinderford on a Friday night! 😀 Living with wild cats in the UK strikes me as much like living with wild tortoises — I know they are out there but they avoid me and I never see them. I suspect I’m more likely to die by an eagle dropping a tortoise on my head than be eaten by a wild panther, or maybe by tripping over one. I don’t worry about wild tortoises every time I head into the British countryside.
Still Panthera Britannia is a great documentary; and yes the illegal trade in exotic animals probably continues and some escape or are released in to the wild. It’s rather sweet (if you are not a deer or sheep) to think they might find their own kind their and live long and happy lives. I’m still a little hesitant to say I’m convinced but I will say it sounds better than my werewolf explanation! 😀
Review: Heavy Metal (1981) film; music, sexism and gaming culture.
I’m notorious for never watching TV or movies but I’m currently reading Designers & Dragons Shannon Appelcline’s wonderful history of the rpg industry and immersed in 1970s and 1980s culture. While doing so I chanced upon the cover of White Dwarf issue 77 (I’m guessing 1985 or ’86) and the striking image…
Now this is from a very different era: even when I first met Becky almost twenty years later she referred to my rpg books and mags as “soft porn”. Given the sexploitation imagery that was prevalent on them, I can see why – they are closer to the days of Benny Hill than modern sensibilities. More on this later…
It struck me that I recognised the image, and started me musing that I had seen the image elsewhere – and then I found it was the Chris Achilléos poster for a cult animated 1981 Canadian movie called Heavy Metal.
The story of how the film was made is an odd one; Heavy Metal magazine was the direct source and the soundtrack is filled with Cheap Trick, Grand Funk Railroad, Nazareth and er, Stevie Nicks! I have put the OST on as I type this and it’s pretty mellow music actually predating most thrash/speed/black metal – more Wishbone Ash than what was to come. It is very North American: the New Wave of British Heavy Metal isn’t much reflected. Devo is!
The movie is five short stories, an anthology linked by an evil space alien that takes the form of a glowing green sphere. They are incredibly uneven in quality, though there is a certain dry wit in some, and persistent adolescent humour throughout. It is fun cheesy sexploitation fantasy violence – adolescent male fantasies of big breasted naked women pining for fast sex and lots of broadswords and ludicrously named villains and green skinned minions who die in droves. It reminded me that Heavy Metal culture embraced Tolkein hard, and D&D culture embraced Heavy Metal. I think the links between the Metal scene and rpg culture with their mutual love of fantasy landscapes casual sexism and occult practices need proper investigation; adolescent landscapes of imagination and wish fulfillment.
So is the film any good? Objectively no: it’s pretty awful from a plot perspective. Is it enjoyable? Yes, maybe. This is going to be a cult film: I was never impressed by The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Withnail & IÂ so I probably have terrible taste.
Another thing I’ve noticed rewatching some movies like This is Spinal Tap, The Full Monty and Hot Fuzz is that I go from loving a film to watching it again and not liking it much to adoring it as my life changes. So it’s really contextual if I like a film: it says nothing about the quality.
I watched this film in bits and finished it out of a sense of duty. The better segments are the first half — some have halfway decent plots — but by the end I was entertained and it is beautifully animated. Five separate studios and one non-animated explosion at the end, Ivan Reitman producing and a number of famous actors on voices — yeah if you were born in the 60s or 70s you should watch this. If you were born after 2000 you might be sickened and confused though.
The colours strongly suggest you should smoke weed drink cheap beer and watch this in your bedroom. It is a mind blowing artefact from another time and culture more alien in some ways to us now than the planet Den travels to in the most famous sequence.
So why watch it? Well one of the finest South Park episodes is an extended tribute to/parody of it — Series 12 episode 3 Major Boobage in which Gerald and Kenny take up cheesing, huffing cat urine to get high – and enter the world of the movie. The parody is spot on, and unfortunately the South Park episode is far cleverer and raises far more significant issues than the original film which is more akin to Beavis & Butthead see Boobies in its unrelenting adolescent glory. I found a sequence from the South Park episode on YouTube here: it is not as graphic as the original film, South Park displaying taste, decorum and censorship in comparison! Do watch it before you rent the 1981 movie.
So yes you should watch the film just so you can appreciate the South Park episode better: but it’s not going to make it in to the Canon when you next attend a literary salon and need to impress the intelligentsia.
So overall it was quite the experience; you can rent or buy the download online, and you might enjoy it. It did make me think a bit about all that gratuitous display of female nudity. A few comments — there is a lot of nudity but all of the women who do appear have personalities, agendas and a definite stake in the stories. Sex is commonly depicted in a manner that was shocking and titillating in 1981 – but our culture celebrates sex, sex work and sexuality in a way that in 1981 would have been a lot more shocking. I saw a Benny Hill sequence the other day and wondered what was really sexist about a dirty old man being chased by a group of angry women? If we accept Internet porn and Only Fans and Naked Attraction as a society, it is hard to see why the childlike but strangely innocent sexism of 1981’s Heavy Metal is shocking at all?
Anyway I watched a film: it seemed worth mentioning that fact!
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