7 Wonders Swindon: The Elgin Llamas (postcard)

The so-called 'Elgin Llamas' were a late addition to the seven wonders and undeniably my favourite. The original 7th wonder was the 'Low Bridge' (see here to view) and as I was driving out of town having been on a last minute photo-shoot the area of Elgin caught my eye and the 'Elgin Llamas', a short story I wrote yonks ago and now lost, popped into my head. Of course! It's simple! A form of Urban Camelid stolen from Peru by Lord Elgin and still living in Swindon! (For anyone who has missed the gag, check out the whole Elgin marbles/Greece/return of plundered antiquities saga on Google) The problem was, where to find a llama or two at such short notice?

The answer was, I couldn't. These are alpacas, a member of the same family that the llama and vicuna belong to, and they happen to live on a farm not far from us, so I sent Mari off to take as many pictures as she could. Thus armed I returned to Swindon and went to the Elgin area and shot lots of grassy areas, keeping in mind Mari's pictures to get the perspective right.

For more about the llamas, go to the Elgin llamas section of the '7 Wonders' website.

Caption on the back reads: "Looted from Peru to England in 1841 by Thomas Bruce, the Seventh Earl of Elgin, this extremely rare species of urban llama can often be seen grazing in the Elgin district, now named in its honour. ."

Colour postcard, unnumbered, given out on UK, US, Pacific & Canadian tours for Something Rotten July - October 2004. 500 editions.