An elephant made of fudge

Dorothy Searle reflects on the elephant in the room

by Dorothy Searle 26th October 2012

Recently, I inherited two elderly, black-lacquered, teak elephants, obviously intended to be bookends but used as doorstops in my parents’ home throughout my childhood. I don’t need either bookends or doorstops, but I felt I had to give these tuskless veterans a retirement home. One occupies a corner in my oddly shaped hall and the other stands on the floor in my study, where it sometimes wears my recharging mobile phone as a rather precarious ‘howdah’. Neither of these elephants is big enough to fill a room – except in a dolls’ house – but they set me thinking.