The 12 days when an escaped eagle entranced the nation

"Is it a bird? Is it a plane?!" "It's a bird, Rita. You know that perfectly well"

Twelve days in 1965 saw the general public gripped by the exploits of a fugitive bird, a golden eagle that had escaped from London Zoo in Regent's Park.

The bird, in an inevitable shorthand created by the press, was given the sobriquet "Goldie", as he became headline news.

He had managed to swoop from his cage when the keeper who cleaned out the enclosure was a little lax in ensuring he'd closed the door properly.

Goldie spent his freedom soaring above the park, with brief forays into other parts of the capital.

Drivers caused traffic jams as they slowly circled the park, gazing at the sky; reporters attempted to capture the bird with a variety of novel methods, the Royal Navy was consulted, firefighters and the Civil Defence Service were roped in to help.

The early days of 1965 were bitterly cold, with a low of -7.4C recorded in London at the beginning of March. There was heavy snowfall, occasional blizzards and a biting easterly wind.

In terms of what was going on, Winston Churchill died, Harold Wilson survived a vote of no confidence as prime minister and the Beeching Report into the railways was published.

The Kray twins were arrested and both the Righteous Brothers and Cilla Black were in the top 10 with You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.

Malcolm X was assassinated and US President Lyndon B Johnson widened his country's involvement in the Vietnam War.

Even a stern talking-to from a bowler-hatted gent failed to convince Goldie to leave his place in goal

Crowds, many with a newfound (self-proclaimed) expertise in ornithology, braved the wintry weather to gather with picnics to observe, and, less wholesomely, to throw snowballs at the eagle.

Thousands wrote letters to suggest ways of capturing Goldie, including "get a gun that shoots a net" and "use archers to fire drugged meat into the air".

One woman, it was reported, turned up with a giant telescope "handed down from Trafalgar by some nautical ancestor".

And a BBC news reporter grasped the rare opportunity to try to woo him from the skies by whistling a magic pipe.

Gamble responsibly, folks

Experts were largely unbothered by Goldie's continued refusal to return to the zoo, knowing he would come down "once he gets hungry".

A zoo-keeper explained: "The crowds are too big. He's just under observation today. We are keeping vigil."

The hordes of people going to the park were more trouble.

One park-keeper was heard to grumble it was "like a great big bank holiday scene".

Couples with "baskets of bottled beer and blankets", children wildly misidentifying pigeons and press photographers resignedly legging it around the grass in an attempt to get their shot all added to the chaos.

The Times described a "fashionable Sunday excursion" where the "crowd streamed from every gate of the park, and with upturned faces and loud voices had intimate discussions about Goldie's mating habits, his digestion, and his ferocity".

Goldie surveys the buffet

The bird-keepers from the zoo said if they could stop Goldie eating for another two or three days they might have a reasonable chance of luring him down when the park was less congested.

And this philosophy of letting Goldie stay where he was until he was hungry seemed to be a good one - until he started to show hitherto unsuspected initiative.

The giant bird - he had a wing span of six feet - first set his sights on a Cairn terrier.

The dog's owner, it was reported, managed to scare Goldie away by vigorously waving copies of the Times and the Express at him - although why she had two daily papers with her was never addressed.

The fierceness of the defence obviously stayed with Goldie - he later saw a poodle and hastily flew away.

Not so lucky, though, were the Muscovy ducks that graced the pond of the US ambassador's residence in Regent's Park, Winfield House.

Goldie's duck meal, however, was disturbed by a helpful reporter, who thought he would throw his coat over the eagle in an attempt to delay him on the ground and facilitate his capture.

Goldie just soared off into the snow-laden wind, leaving behind half a duck - and a jacket soiled with a bird's displeasure.

Sherlock Holmes searches for his earflaps

The coat-thrower was not the only news reporter hoping to become part of the story.

For the BBC, John Timpson - best known for presenting the Today programme - turned up with an instrument he had, with astonishing foresight, picked up while covering the Queen's recent trip to Ethiopia.

He described his "Ethiopian bird pipe" as having two mouthpieces, one of which would produce a sound that would make a bird raise one leg, and the other mouthpiece the other leg.

Blowing on both sides, he explained, should cause the golden eagle to fall from the skies in a sort of daze.

So he gave it a go.

A fairly reedy warble emerged, which Goldie ignored.

The methods used by exasperated zoo-keepers included trying to dazzle the bird with a fire brigade searchlight before nabbing him when he was distracted.

However, as reported by the Mirror: "The ploy failed when Goldie's eagle-eye spotted the turn-table... He seems to be having the time of his life."

Efforts to capture him were further hindered by members of the public, "shouting and flapping their winter coats" to warn Goldie - whom they assumed wanted to stay on the loose - when they thought a tamer was getting too close.

After 12 days of freedom in the park, the deputy head keeper of birds of prey at the zoo, Joe McCorry, lured the eagle with a dead rabbit tied to a rope near one of Goldie's favourite haunts, the wildfowl sanctuary.

An hour and a half later, Goldie swooped down for his last picnic as a free bird.

The keeper quietly walked up and caught him with his bare hands, secured his legs and took him back to the zoo.

It was subsequently reported Goldie's adventure - and associated publicity - led to a surge in visitor numbers.

"I was going to come down, but I'm not going anywhere near that man with the weird pipe"

The Times estimated about 5,000 people flocked to Regent's Park to have a look at Goldie.

In Parliament, the Minister of Public Building and Works, Charles Pannell, said he was concerned "not with the damage done by Goldie, but the damage done in the park by the many onlookers".

Goldie was also brought up in the House of Commons - in relation to game licences, and also in a question about pesticides: "Does the Hon Gentleman realise that Goldie was safer in Regent's Park than he was in the Highlands of Scotland, because there were no pesticides in Regent's Park?"

The mentions are fairly humdrum in themselves - but worth noting because every time Goldie was mentioned, MPs would cheer, whoop and whistle, in that special way that is peculiar to MPs in the Commons.

Mr MacKay turned up to escort Goldie to HMP Slade

Goldie would escape again, for five days in December 1965. Once again, he managed to nip out as the zoo-keeper left after cleaning his enclosure.

This time people were asked to stay away from Regent's Park.

Goldie's mate, Regina, had her own adventure when she was snatched the following February by student pranksters at Manchester University who sawed through a padlock to access the cage.

They had, it later transpired, thought they had taken Goldie.

Regina was found in a tea-chest punctured with airholes outside the student union before being taken back to London.

The jokers were described as "stupid, irresponsible clots".

Regina enjoyed a raw beef late-night snack and was back to share her travails with Goldie by breakfast time.

Goldie was eventually sent to a bird of prey centre in Newent, Gloucestershire, where he died in 1986.

An eagle-eyed eagle