Chester Zoo founder is an inspiration | Steve Canavan

It was a treat for her third birthday, though just how it was a treat I’m not sure as my wife, Mrs C, has a season ticket for Blackpool Zoo and seems to take Mary there every other day.

I’ll be hard at work, earning a living, when my mobile phone will sound. Mrs C’s name will come up on screen. Like any man when his better half is ringing, I ignore the call but you can only do this about seven times before you feel guilty and suddenly wonder if there’s an emergency.

So eventually I answer, ‘Hi, is everything okay, is one of the kids ill?’

‘No. They’re fine,’ she’ll say, sounding puzzled as to why I asked. ‘Why did you think they were ill?’ ‘Because you’ve phoned seven times despite knowing the fact I’m at work,’ I’ll reply, testily.

‘Guess where we are?’ She’ll say. ‘Where?’ I sigh. ‘The zoo!’

Anyway, I didn’t realise how big Chester Zoo is – voted best in the UK by TripAdvisor and third best in the world with 35,000 animals over 128 acres. I also love the story behind it.

In 1903, a lad called George Mottershead, from Manchester, was taken to Belle Vue Zoological Gardens as a treat, to celebrate the end of the Boer War.

Instead of enjoying the experience, he was horrified by seeing all the animals confined in tiny cages and vowed – despite only being nine years old at the time – to one day create a zoo without bars. It was a bit of a bold idea.

I’m not sure I’d be keen on going to see some tigers without something to keep them from tearing my limbs off.

But George sounds an interesting fella. He retained his interest in animals throughout his youth, building an aviary for birds. (I’m not sure the words ‘for birds’ was necessary there; I mean you don’t build an aviary for cows do you?). He kept lizards and snakes, which must have delighted his neighbours.

He got married while on leave from fighting in the Great War in 1916, then returned to the trenches for the Battle of the Somme, only to be shot through the neck.

It left him paralysed but despite doctors saying he’d never recover, after three years in a wheelchair – during which time both his brothers were killed in the war – he astounded the medics by learning how to walk again.

Apparently he had ‘a bit of a limp’, though given the initial prognosis I’m sure he wasn’t too concerned about that.

Then, just to complete this uplifting little story, he earned some money from selling pet birds at a market, bought some land near Chester, began acquiring animals including two Himalayan black bears, monkeys, chimpanzees … and the rest is history.

George died in 1978 at the age of 83 but Chester Zoo continues to go from strength to strength. I’ve got to admit from our birthday visit with Mary it is indeed a rather marvellous place.

There’s so much to see, which was just as well because a day out there for a family isn’t cheap, it must be said.

Indeed, I noted with interest as I was booking our tickets online that you can even get what’s called Platinum Lifetime Membership, for the bargain price of £1,250.

How much?

For that price I would expect not only life membership of the zoo, but a semi-detached house on site and a complimentary two-hour swim with the penguins each week.

Anyway, Mary seemed happy with her day out, though on the downside now wants a pet snake.

We’re hoping she forgets that idea very soon – the lounge just isn’t big enough for an anaconda – though with the amount Mrs C takes her to the zoo, there’s every chance she won’t.