TO ANNA HEMMINGS and the staff at RSPCA Lockwood, and to Helen Brodie, Yvonne Phennah and other members of the British Mule Society.
My thanks to Annis Sokol for her helpful advice in advance of the journey.
To those who offered hospitality and pasture to Jethro and to us as we made our way across country, including my sister Katie Tait and her husband Alex, Catherine Ducker, Charles Hunter and Jocasta Shakespeare, Catherine Bell, Harry and Susan Wilmot, Jeff and Fiona Ford, Peter and Joanne Bland, Jason Gathorne-Hardy, Melanie Fisher, Hugo Hildyard and Florencia Clifford, John and Jude Haslam, Elizabeth Kirk and Margaret Barton. To Graham Rogers for our discussions about Swaledale.
My particular thanks to Jasper Winn for his kindness and generosity in joining me on the journey. For of course, it’s not really One Man and a Mule, as the keen-eyed reader will have spotted; Jasper was with me for much of the time, although not for the entire trip across country. The full title should have been One Man and a Mule and a Friend Some of the Time and a Dodge Van. But for some reason, the publishers objected.
Jason Gathorne-Hardy did buy the horse van, although part of the purchase price was made up of paintings, so I ended up with some fine bird drawings of his – bringing the nature of our original meeting to a satisfying full circle. He painted the Dodge in royal red and green racing colours before driving it around Westmorland to paint from, often in the rain.
The RSPCA were delighted to see the new slimline Jethro back in such fine fettle after our journey across England. The publicity he received from his ‘Jethro the Mule’ Facebook page was enough to find him a more permanent home. He has been adopted by Greta, who works at a vets’ practice, so he is by definition well cared for. He shares an ‘en-suite paddock’ with a couple of geldings and has attracted interest from the vicar for the local Nativity play; it seems there is considerable debate in biblical circles as to whether Mary arrived at the stables on a donkey or a mule, depending on how you translate the Hebrew. Whether Jethro will be well behaved on stage is yet to be seen. Greta and her husband Nick describe him as being ‘very opinionated’ and ‘impossible to catch’, so not much has changed there.
I’ve been able to visit Jethro while writing this book. He always looks at me in the way the English do on such occasions – with a friendly if slightly quizzical expression that leaves the changes in both our circumstances unspoken. And he is too tactful to mention that his Facebook page still attracts more interest than mine; although he prefers to keep his current location a secret, in order to keep paparazzi away.
I am grateful to my agent Georgina Capel, the editorial team of Trevor Dolby and Lizzy Gaisford at Preface, and all those at Penguin Random House who helped with the production of the book; to Rachael Beale for her considerable editorial help in preparing the manuscript, to John Gilkes for the fine map and to Bryan Ledgard for his portraits at the Whitby Goth Festival.
And special thanks as ever to Irena and all my very supportive family.