The second wall picture shows three dogs that I had earlier than Tess (s.p.b.). In fact the little dog swimming bottom right in Boughton pond was my family’s dog when I was a child. Called Pat, this photo must have been taken in the early 1960s. One week I was taken to spend a few days with the son of a Methodist preacher on their rented farm in the Fens. When I came back and asked where was Pat I was told she had died and been buried, I was so shocked and sad. I was later told that my father had shot her, this not as terrible as it seems as she had become very ill and at that time vets were for farmers not farm workers. I am now sure that he hated to do it, but it was necessary. We never got another dog. As far as I remember all the village dogs were mongrels, a normal term then, and it wasn’t unusual for a dog to live to high teens years. It seems dreadful that now we have a thousand and one breeds but a domestic dog rarely lives beyond the age of 13. Pat’s main food was dinner leftovers, now it’s frowned on to feed the dogs ‘people food’.
The dog top right was a lovely little dog which had come from a rescue centre and I had for many years. Once when I had only recently got her she ran off into Barton cemetery on her morning walk and I couldn’t find her anywhere, and I cannot now remember exactly where I did find her, this made me very late for work but I made-up a story about why I was late, something about helping an old lady knocked over by a car. ‘Old ladies’ were acceptable, dogs not. She never ran off again even though she was usually not on a lead, she had come to realise that she was well cared for.
The other two pictures are of the next dog I had, Also from a rescue centre and much bigger she was a gentle natured dog but already quite old and eventually she had to be put down at Barton vets because she suffered from very violent fits which got more and more frequent. The picture showing her on the cliff-top was taken at Easington beside the North Sea gas terminal when walking a section of the Holderness coast. She had a particular interest in industrial sites! Her death greatly saddened me and I went a year before getting another dog.