book reviews , different studio guests each week. Join us every Thursday between 12 and 1pm on Radio Scilly 107.9fm or log on to radioscilly.com.

Missed any programmes? See below for list of guests, books and other details discussed.

Sunday 22 July 2012

Harry Goodridge - A Seal Called André

review by Ro Bennett live on show 19th July 2012
I saw the DVD of A Seal Called Andre whilst dog sitting for a friend and it led me to buy and read the book. Both were excellent and based on a true story. The book relates the relationship between author Harry Goodridge who was a tree surgeon and the Harbour Master in Rockport, Maine in the USA and a harbour seal which adopted him and his family when it was just a nineteen pound homeless pup, abandoned by his mother in 1961.

Although Andre spent much of his younger years in a floating enclosure, the pen was always left open so the seal could come and go as he pleased. This enclosure helped keep Andre safe from boat traffic.

Harbour seals spend summers in the waters off Eastern Canada and the Gulf of Maine, gorging on herring and other coastal fish. Each winter they migrate to southern New England and Long Island. Andre would leave the Goodridges in the autumn and travel to Connecticut. The following spring he would make the 150 mile swim back to Rockport.

Andre became a celebrity with many people coming to Rockport to watch him perform the tricks Harry taught him. However it was not all carefree love and harmony - at one time the local fisherman were not so enamoured with Andre as they claimed he was eating their fish and affecting their incomes so they threatened to shoot him if they caught him breaking their nets.

Also his habit of approaching people for food and sunbathing on boats and marina docks didn’t go down too well. Apparently Andre had a knack for sinking small dinghies when he tried to climb up on them. Not only did he enjoy lolling on boats and gear, but he nibbled at oars, upset a canoe, and had a habit of scaring the daylights out of novice scuba divers. However he was also trained to bring in mooring lines and retrieve objects.

In later years Andre spent the winters at the New England Aquarium in Boston or in Mystic, Connecticut. Each spring, local media in Boston or Mystic would gather for the annual release ritual, where Andre would be shipped to the shoreline and coaxed into the water. A few weeks later he would appear at the Goodridges' back door in Maine, with excited viewings of Andre punctuating the 200 mile journey.

In the first trip that Andre made from the aquarium to Maine, Harry was told about a blob on Andre's back. When Harry saw it he took it off and took a sample to send to the lab. He called the aquarium and asked about it. The staff said a little boy had taken a wad of gum and stuck it on Andre so they would know it was Andre when he arrived home.

In 1986, Andre was found dead on a deserted beach covered in bruises and lacerations typical of an intraspecies fight.The account of Harry’s solitary journey to bring him home and bury him behind the Goodridges’ house is very touching. Andre was twenty six at the time of his death.
Harry Goodridge died four years later in 1990 at the age of 74

There is a life-sized statue of Andre that still stands in the harbour at Rockport.

I enjoyed the book very much, it’s full of interesting and touching anecdotes and was heartwarming reading.

I even found Andre the seal on Facebook but only 14 people have pressed Like and no information has been provided to date.

1 comment:

Boat docks said...

I want to get a big rock and fasten it to my cement pool deck as a dive rock, I'm looking for the best cement to use. I'm Trying to avoid drilling for re-bar and using other rocks to counter balance it.. Boat docks