There could be a slither of truth behind the urban legend, which persists to this day on social media
Why do some still believe the Bristol Zoo parking attendant myth?
You would have done well to have grown up in Bristol without hearing a rehashing of the city’s famed Bristol Zoo parking attendant, who collected £1 for every car parked for 20-plus years before vanishing into thin air with his loot.
This once loyal worker made off with potentially millions after failing to arrive for work one morning, and when Bristol Zoo called Bristol City Council about their missing employee, it became apparent both parties had been swindled.
The zoo and the council both assumed the man, who was very polite and punctual, had worked for the other organisation, when in fact he had worked for neither and instead preyed upon a decades-old admin error.
A city-wide fable that filled many young Bristolians, myself included, with pride at the thought of having our very own D.B. Cooper, if you replace the daring aeroplane hijacking with turning up to an admin job for 20-odd years.
But, of course, it’s a fake, thought to be nothing more than an urban legend perpetuated through early internet forums, email chains and has been amended around the world to fit which city or job role needed on social media — or is it?
Banksy’s latest work has been the subject of misinformation on social media recently.(Image: Banksy/Instagram)
Plenty on social media claim to remember paying the attendant, despite Bristol Zoo insisting on multiple occasions the urban legend is not true, before closing in 2022, and there are even a few wandering around Bristol who will contest the same.
Unfortunately, we are currently living in the golden age of misinformation, with even a recent piece of art from the thought-to-be Bristol-born Banksy at the Royal Courts of Justice in London depicting a judge beating up a protester falling victim to the same social media swindling, with some adding a St George’s cross to the protester’s originally blank placard.
AI has only worsened the matter, and you still see the ‘insert-your-city Zoo parking attendant’ myth floating around online in 2025.
However, for the sake of clarity, there could be a sliver of truth behind the Bristol tale after a breakthrough in 2021 saw campaign group, Downs for People, at the time protesting against parking on the Downs, make a surprise discovery when researching the Bristol Archives.
Historical evidence, from the 1920s to the 1980s, loosely resembles the myth, highlighting how parking around the zoo was managed in a chaotic, informal way, which could have resulted in such an emboldened act.
Volunteers, often without uniforms, collected “voluntary donations” from motorists pulling up onto the Downs to visit the zoo, without much knowledge of where this money was going.
“We made a surprise discovery when doing research in the Bristol Archives for our current court case: There is truth behind the myth of Bristol’s phantom zoo parking attendant,” the group’s spokesperson, Susan Carter, told Bristol Live back in 2021.
“For almost thirty years, from 1958 until the mid-1980s, and quite likely for 30 years before that, people were able to make their living as parking attendants, collecting ‘voluntary’ donations from motorists parking on rough ground outside the zoo.
“It is unlikely that anyone made a fortune, and from 1958 onwards, attendants were authorised either by the Downs Committee or, from 1983, the zoo (probably – that is when confusion may have arisen).”