Neddy

Photo courtesy of Les Quaintance

Neddy was originally made in the 1960s as part of Whittaker Brothers' cheerful line of Musical Animal rides, designed by Les Quaintance.  She wore a saddle, blanket and frilly molded harness around her neck.

Brucciani's Ice Cream Parlour, Morecambe, March 2019.  The Neddy seen in this video is one of the earliest ones manufactured and has been at Brucciani's since she was new.  Although her paint is obviously very worn, it is her original paintwork from almost 60 years ago!  In fact, she still had "6d a ride" written on her base, despite now costing 50p!  Sadly, she no longer has any sound (meaning she is technically no longer a "musical" animal really!) but it was still thrilling to be able to film one of these looking so close to how she would have done originally.

Neddy was one of the rides that Whittaker Brothers continued to produce after reinventing their animal rides range in 1974.  While the original version was usually coloured in brown or blue, the new Neddy was most often seen in a glossy tan with a blue saddle and harness.

Windsor Safari Park, 1973

It would appear that Whittaker Brothers also made a zebra ride using the same mould as Neddy, as seen in this video.  This ride does not seem to have been widely advertised however, so may have been a custom paint job for Windsor Safari Park.  I have also seen a photograph of this zebra, but am unsure if its the same unit as seen in the video.

To confuse things further, Leslie Quaintance went to work for Diamond Electronics in 1971, and designed a very similar donkey ride - named Shane - for them.  However, theirs had no harness and a different tail to the Whittaker Brothers donkey.