AS promised, more on that colourful character Prince Monolulu. Our previous references to the tipster have drawn more responses from people who remember him resplendent in ostrich feathers and pantaloons shouting "I gotta horse!" at York Races.

"My mum put him up," reports June Johnson, of Dringhouses. "We lived near Knavesmire and my mum and dad used to go to the races."

The prince would wander around The Mount in full regalia (can you have half regalia?). "He used to walk up our terrace and throw threepenny bits to the children.

"He did look Indian, with a big headdress and feathers down his back. He was quite a well-set gentleman."

She said this would have been about 1958.

Tom Ryder, of Huntington, says "horses were very much my line", and tells the Diary that in the 1930s he got to know one of the many sons of Ras Prince Monolulu, to give him his full title.

Tom kindly sent us a magazine article he wrote about "the Abyssinian Prince".

"Although he always insisted that he had been born in Abyssinia, Prince Monolulu's early history is lost in the mists of time," he wrote.

"According to his own story, he had run away from home before he was 12 in order to see the world."

But "all that is known with any certainty is that he arrived in England from America in a cattle boat in 1902."

For the next ten years he worked in travelling circuses or selling quack medicine, and he spent the First World War in a German prison camp.

The prince started his career as a tipster in about 1920 and was known to many of the leading figures in racing.

"Besides having an eye for good racehorses, Prince Monolulu fancied himself as something of a lady killer. He was married several times and fathered a few children."

AT a slight tangent, this is a picture called Prince Monolulu Takes Another Bath, by Rosemary Morison. It belongs to colleague John Wheatcroft, who wrote to Rosemary, based in Southport, to find out a bit more about both her and Prince Monolulu.

"Prince Monolulu is a character who fascinated me as a child, you may be familiar with him - a racing tipster who dressed as a Zulu warrior," she wrote back.

"He was in fact from Birmingham I'm told."

YORKSHIRE Water has apologised for not fixing a burst main in Heworth, York, which has seen gallons of the clear stuff gurgle down the drain these last few days.

But has the company missed a trick? In London, artist Mark McGowan caused outrage with his latest work, a tap which will be left running for a year.

If Yorkshire Water declared the Heworth leak a work of art, they would save themselves the repair costs - and might even attract a Lottery grant.

Updated: 08:56 Wednesday, July 13, 2005