It was the day one of the world’s most dangerous animals —on paper at least — went for a pub lunch in a Dundee housing estate.
Hercules the grizzly bear tucked into roast beef and sipped from a pint pot at the Powrie Bar in Fintry before retiring to his custom-made bus to meet his fans.
Tom Lees, who wrestled under the name of Lee Thomas, had taken over the popular watering hole and thought of his old wrestling partner Andy Robin when he was looking for special guests to reopen it following an extensive refurbishment.
Andy and his wrestling bear Hercules agreed to officially reopen the pub 30 years ago on July 18 1988 and the people of Fintry turned out in their hundreds to see the well-known grizzly.
Dundee North East Labour councillor Brian Gordon said Hercules would be the most famous face to drink in the pub – but perhaps not the toughest.
He said: “I moved to Fintry in 1952 and the pub opened not long after I arrived. It has become part of the fabric of the scheme.
“It has served the Fintry community for a long time and through the years many people who grew up in the community actually ended up running the pub.
“The pub is still a great place today and it’s just undergone another refurbishment as it continues to keep up to date with modern decor.
“Hercules would definitely be the pub’s most famous visitor but was he the toughest?
“I’m sure some of the pub’s great ‘characters’ of yesteryear might have been a match for him.”
Andy and Maggie Robin paid £50 for Hercules in 1976 and he quickly became an international sensation.
Andy, who was a British Commonwealth wrestling champion, had performed a wrestling bout in Canada with an eight-foot black bear called Terrible Ted which sparked an obsession in him to have a bear of his own.
The couple heard about three cubs which had been born at Kincraig Wildlife park – Hercules and his brothers, Samson and Atlas — and acquired their own big softy as a nine-month-old.
Eighteen months of rigorous training followed and Andy and Maggie allowed the grizzly, who grew to 9ft and 70 stone, to share every inch of their lives, from the house they lived in to the food they ate.
Hercules became the stuff of international folklore when he went missing for 24 days on the island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides in 1980 during filming for an advert for Kleenex.
After he had been missing for more than a week the police called off the search, presuming he had drowned.
The devastated couple returned home but Andy knew in his heart that “his big man was still out there” and returned to search the island by helicopter.
Hercules was finally spotted at the side of a loch and recaptured.
The life and times of Hercules
He was featured on the cover of Time magazine and helped to promote the Miss World contest.
Hercules caddied for comedian Bob Hope at Gleneagles and was named “Personality of the Year” by the Scottish Tourist Board and received a telegram from American President Ronald Reagan.
He would go on to secure higher profile roles in films such as the James Bond movie Octopussy in 1983 in which he shared the screen with the legendary Sir Roger Moore, and also appeared in a documentary for the Disney company.
Before entering hibernation, Hercules died of old age on February 4 2001, aged 25, which is around the natural lifespan of a grizzly.
The Robins and Hercules lived for many years on a ranch at Sheriffmuir, near Dunblane.
They built a new home at Glendevon, Perthshire, in 1986 to meet the bear’s needs, and, when Hercules died, he was buried there.
However, when the couple decided to move into Auchterarder, the emotional decision was taken to rebury him where he once roamed free.
They wanted Hercules to be laid to rest near a life-sized statue of him that had been erected by the community in North Uist, looking down to the sea.
A memorial stone over Hercules’s resting place reads: “Hercules the Bear lies sleeping here, watching over his beloved islands, resting in peace.”
