If, to you, chocolate biscuits are still ‘special’ and roast chicken still a ‘treat’; if, when aeroplanes fly overhead at night, you keep your eyes fixed firmly upon the ground, then you were probably, like me, about seven when the War started. And at that age, becoming a country vet could hardly have been further from my mind.
The austerity that accompanied that conflict was not too great a hardship for the folks of Abergranog, for the community had never indulged in luxuries, due to a combination of hard times and a strong religious doctrine that anything enjoyable was bad for the soul.
It would be hypocritical to deny youngsters of today the pleasures they seem to take for granted, for in Abergranog in those days we had enough. The leavening of wartime restrictions did nothing more than prolong the status quo and keep us slim and eager and very much on our toes for any information as to the whereabouts of ‘specials’.
‘There’s bananas in Powell the Fruit!’ I remember the cry well, and that I ran all the way down to the shop … but I never saw any.
I did see the lemon that John Pope’s father brought back when he came on leave. We raffled it at school for the War Effort. I would have given my right arm to have won it that day.
The whole school was allowed to feel it.
‘Just feel it and don’t squeeze it,’ were the instructions. But some boys — Boxy Potter was one — squeezed it hard.
So did I. So it can’t have been much cop.
So much for ‘treats’ and ‘specials’. But it was Mr Talfyn Thomas who was responsible for the night flying tactics we were advised to adopt; in fact, he frightened the pants off our butties one day when he told us all about air raids.
Mr Talfyn Thomas was Chief Warden for Abergranog and came to talk to us at school in the Big Hall. He came in his Chapel suit, tie on as well, with the little cutty-back collar, a tin helmet, gas mask, arm band with ARP written on it and a bucket of sand which he placed beside him.
‘What does ARP stand for?’ he shouted, in the same voice he used in temperance classes, where we had to go to learn about drinking.
‘A Runty Pig!’ whispered Boxy Potter behind me, and we all laughed, but Talfyn was oblivious to that remark, for he was lost in his zeal to save Abergranog from the Germans.
He told us about the sirens and fire watching and what to do with the sand, and it all sounded most exciting. At last he came to the ‘blackout’ and the danger of showing lights at night. He narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice to a hiss, as he did when he talked about ‘The Devil’s Brew’.
‘At night, ’ew boys, at night if ’ew’m out an’ ’ew hears Jerry overhead, don’t look up! Don’t look up, for ’ewer eyes do shine like cats’ in the dark! An’ if ’e sees ’ew …’ He threw his arms in the air and shouted: ‘IT’S BOOM BOOM! GOODBYE, DAIO!’
I never forgot it.
But there was fun to be had, too, slipping newts into cardboard gasmask boxes, sticking window tape over girls’ spectacles or filling inkwells with sand. The summer was fine, with ripe whinberries thick on the Incline, apples to be scrumped and the hedgerows full of blackberries.
To add to all this, I had an unexpected bonus. In fact, it was Mr Talfyn Thomas who was instrumental in one of the major achievements of my boyhood days and, maybe, even beyond.
I was allowed legal access to Little Pant.
Little Pant was the farm at the back of our house. It was made up of three lumpy cow pastures in the shape of an ‘L’, with a small cow house and barn in the angle.
Five fat and happy cows lived off the uneven sward, tended by Arty Parry, who also delivered milk. The owners were the Misses Prowle, two sisters who were very proper and described by Mother as ‘a bit tetchy’.
It was easy to scramble over our back wall and make sorties into the fields. They were of the old-fashioned type, rare today, for they were permanent to a degree. Uneven, lush, tussocky grass with scattered coltsfoot and buttercup, and clutches of thistles growing in odd patches that were occasionally scythed wearily by Arty.
Throughout the pasture lay hidden, like some manurial minefield, cowpats in various stages of crusted maturity, that attracted hordes of buzzing brown flies, multicoloured beetles and small boys’ boots.
That was one of the reasons I was forbidden in the fields, the other being that the Misses Prowle didn’t like trespassers.
My passport to Little Pant came as a result of ‘Air Raid Dispersal’, as explained in the Big Hall by Mr Talfyn Thomas. In the event of an air raid during school time, all children living within half a mile would be allowed home. Those living beyond the ‘safe distance’ would have to go to a friend’s house within the limit.
Because I lived over a mile by road, I was allocated a place in Wendel Weekes’ house. His father was a bus driver with Western Welsh and bred wire-haired fox terriers. Wendel was a good friend of mine and I welcomed the choice … although I would have much preferred to go straight home.
It was Miss Webb, our teacher, who gave me the idea when she was telling us about maps, and how black lines were for rivers and stripes for railways, brown for high ground and green for low.
‘“As the crow flies”,’ she said in her sing-song voice, ‘means that if a crow was to fly, say, from school to Abergranog Park, it wouldn’t go round the road, it would go straight from here over the farm and into the park. Much quicker it would be, wouldn’t it?’
I lived on Bowen’s Pitch next to the park and I was on to it like a shot.
I bit my pen handle hard with excitement, waiting for class to end so that I could tell Miss Webb of my scheme.
‘“As the crow flies”,’ I told her confidently, ‘I could be home very quickly if I went through Little Pant. Mother would be very pleased if I could, because she gets worried if I’m in school an’ there are Germans about.’
She listened to my explanation and said she would have to talk to Mr Talfyn Thomas.
To my surprise and delight, it worked. Subject to certain conditions, I would be allowed to go through Little Pant in order to get home during an air raid.
The conditions were, firstly, that the Misses Prowle should give permission and, secondly, that Miss Webb should come with me on a trial trip to ensure it was all right.
The Misses Prowle agreed, for both Mr Talfyn Thomas and they were big Chapel people and, subject to Miss Webb sanctioning the route, I had made it.
The day she came with me it had been raining and she walked with high, stilty steps to try and keep her shoes dry.
The cows were in the second field, and when we started across I felt her hand grip mine so tightly that my fingers stuck together.
‘You’re not afraid of cows, Hugh?’ she asked, in a shrill voice.
‘No, Miss Webb,’ I replied, manfully. And neither was I, for I had been across the field many times, illegally of course, and they had taken not the slightest bit of notice.
She quickened her step, forgetting the wet grass as we skirted the grazing bunch.
‘Have they got names?’ she asked, breathing rather fast.
‘Yes, Miss Webb. And I know them all.’ To have Miss Webb all to myself and to teach her about the cows was making my day.
‘The big grey is Old Blod and the little grey is Young Blod,’ I explained. ‘Because she’s her daughter. The red cow looking at us is called Lewis, because she came from Mr Lewis, Ty-Canol. The little brown one is very special because she is pedigree. Her name is Cystrema Golden Platter, but we call her Cis.’
‘And the big black one?’ she asked, nervously.
I savoured the moment. It had had to come and I wondered whether she would react as the Misses Prowle had done when they called one day and Mother proudly asked me to name the cows.
‘The black one,’ I said, looking up into her face, ‘is called Old Thundertits!’
Miss Webb did react, though not quite as obviously as the Misses Prowle. I don’t need to explain, of course, that Arty had let the name slip and that she was really called Blackie.
I suppose it was a wicked thing to long for an air raid, but I did, and I had to wait three weeks for the siren to blow in school time.
It came one Wednesday, just after dinner time, and, with instructions to go speedily home, class was abandoned. I set off down the road for the gate to Little Pant. Once inside the first field I slackened pace and scuffed delightedly through the long grass.
I was halfway across the second field, which I thought was empty, when I saw her, Old Thundertits, lying on her side, all by herself.
She seemed such an odd shape, her stomach blown up like a drum, and she was grunting great squirts of steam from her nose. I stood and watched for some minutes before I plucked up courage to draw closer.
Her one horn was covered in fresh soil where it had been digging in the ground and her eyes were stary and unblinking. It was only when I was very close that I noticed the lump beneath her tail. It was large and balloon-like and shimmered in the afternoon sun.
Every time she grunted it grew bigger and, when it suddenly moved, I held my breath.
I stood transfixed as the lump elongated, wriggled and writhed behind the old cow. Suddenly I was conscious of a droning in the air above, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the swelling behind the straining legs. Old Thundertits was gasping, then the shape grew suddenly much bigger and the droning sound louder. For a fleeting second a great shadow covered us both, then there was a ‘pop’, the balloon burst and amid a rush of brown water I saw two small feet and a head appear. It was a baby calf.
Although I’d never seen anything like it in my life before, I didn’t feel frightened or ill — just mesmerised. Then the feet moved up and down as if waving at me and the mouth partly opened to give out a watery bawling sound. Still moving its feet, it bawled again, then pushed out a short pink tongue that curled up to its nose.
I was in no doubt that the little creature was asking for help, so I squatted down and took hold of one of the legs with both hands.
I shall never, ever forget the sensation. Warm and tacky it was, but it was the wonderful feeling of life, even though it was just a leg, that thrilled the whole of my tingling body.
The leg plucked back a shade, but I didn’t let go. Then it came forward about six inches; I re-adjusted my squat and pulled gently, and the little creature came forward even more. Both legs were now clear to the shoulders and the head was quite free. Suddenly, Old Thundertits gave one mighty heave and the calf shot halfway out, accompanied by a great flood that ran all around my boots. I stood up a little, and as I did there was another heave and out it came — all of it — wet and still bawling and its big brown eyes blinking in the light.
I stayed and watched the old lady get up and lick her newborn. It was unbelievable how quickly it tried to stand. I made a move to help but Old Thundertits moaned at me, so I left it alone.
It was only when All-Clear sounded that I remembered about the air raid and, running through the cow pats, I sped home to tell Mother.
It was all the talk of Abergranog the following day. Quite a lot of folk had seen the stray Heinkel He III, with the black cross and swastika on its tail, sail up the valley.
‘I saw the German pilot,’ said Boxy Potter. ‘Clear as anything. Come right over our garden, just as I got home.’
The rest of the class listened in awe as Boxy described the sight. Even Miss Webb let him have full rein, and he made the most of it.
‘You must have seen it!’ He looked over to my desk with a superior sneer on his spotty face. ‘It come right over Little Pant as ’ew was goin’ home.’
The eyes of Class Two fell upon me.
‘Did ’ew see it?’ asked Wendel.
‘No. I didn’t,’ I replied.
‘Hidin’ ’ewer eyes, was ’ew?’ Boxy chimed in sarcastically.
The whole class laughed and waited for my reaction.
‘I was watching a calf bein’ born,’ I said nonchalantly.
There were gasps of surprise and admiration. Boxy sat down and I knew I had stolen his glory.
‘Was this at Little Pant, Hugh?’ Miss Webb took up the management of the class again.
‘Yes, Miss.’
‘Which cow was the mother?’
‘Old … Blackie, Miss.’ Miss Webb gave a short gasp, then smiled.
‘Now that was interesting. Come up to the front and tell us all about it.’
So up to the front I went and told them.
I described the experience with such graphic detail that, when I came to the part where all the skin and brown jelly came oozing out, Boxy Potter had to leave the room.
That pleased me no end.
When I had finished I went back to my seat feeling pretty good.
* * *
If that experience did anything to guide me into the veterinary profession I certainly wasn’t aware of it at the time. But no doubt, subconsciously, it started me on a trail that otherwise I might never have known.
The valley environment, while not conducive to veterinary practice, was not completely devoid of rural atmosphere as were some of the mining villages. There were of course the slag heaps, mine shafts and fiery furnaces, but we did have Little Pant and on the west slope was the Trevethin Wood. Rising steeply to three hundred feet, it harboured a variety of trees in straggling abundance rarely seen today, now that shaded green armies of spruce and fir stand rigidly aligned on every hill.
There were boughs to swing upon, trunks to scale, nuts to eat and huts to build. In the undergrowth there were rabbits to be tracked, nests to discover and secret hiding places. To the village kids it was paradise, a natural garden with bees and butterflies, shade and sunshine and, if one wanted, peace and isolation.
But in stark contrast, as if to emphasise the divide between good and evil, between it and the village ran the Avon Llwyd, the Grey River.
Born fresh and free at the valley head, in its travels it absorbed the trappings of the community’s rejection as displayed by bottles and tins, lumpy sacks tightly secured, assorted garments, dead sheep, old tyres and slimy, unidentifiable objects that floated along on a cushion of grey-black scum.
There was no life in the Grey River in those days.
Any natural movement, other than the turgid swirling of its pockmarked, evil surface, was confined to the large grey rats that scurried over its black shores, happy in the knowledge that their environment was of such a filthy nature that there was no competition for the right of possession.
And yet, this Stygian watercourse, like Little Pant, also played a part in moulding my ambitions towards a veterinary life.
To cross the river there was a bridge at Cwm Frwdd Halt and another, about a mile or so downstream, at the Foundry. It made a pleasant walk after Chapel to cross into the wood at one bridge and out at the other, returning via the road.
But to the boys of the village there was only one way to the Trevethin Wood: across the Boggy Pipe.
Where it came from, where it went and what its purpose was I didn’t know — even to this day I’m not too sure — but it was black, fifty feet long, three feet in diameter and it traversed the river. On each bank, two brick pillars eight feet high, topped with smooth concrete, stabilised either end of the pipe and supported the black iron girder that ran beneath it right across the murky divide.
At two-foot intervals, raised iron hoops clamped the girth of the pipe to the girder.
In the unlikely event of anyone being foolish enough to try to climb upon the pillars, rows of razor-sharp, multicoloured fragments of broken bottles had been embedded in the concrete to foil the attempt.
As if this wasn’t sufficient to deter such a maniacal act, barbed wire had been wound in profusion around the front of the pillar and the first three feet of the pipe, to make the passage from pillar to pipe an act beyond the comprehension of any rational mind.
It was this pipe that the village boys regularly traversed in order to get to the Trevethin Wood.
To the accomplished it presented no problem. To others it was a void in the happiness of youthful experience and a barrier to full involvement and participation in the joys of the Trevethin Wood. When gangs crossed the pipe, the weak had to run up-or downstream to the bridges. Breathlessly we would stumble through the trees to the other side, eager to join up with the mob. But by the time contact had been made, nuts had been devoured, blackberries consumed, trees booked and friendships struck.
If you didn’t go across the Boggy Pipe it was useless. You missed out on everything.
There were two reasons why I had never attempted to cross the Boggy Pipe. One was that Mother had forbidden it, and the other, that I was very, very scared.
Many was the night I had attempted to cross it in my mind as I lay in bed. But even in the secure and friendly confines of my room, I could not bring myself mentally to finish the course. I saw myself isolated for ever, clinging to the middle, the waters of the Avon Llwyd sucking at my feet, while dead sheep, multicoloured rats, green glass bottles and slimy things spun in a devil’s merry-go-round beneath.
How I envied the Boggy Crossers. How I watched, spellbound with admiration, as a First-Timer clambered down the far pillar onto the foreign bank amid the whoops and cheers of his pals.
There was no doubt that in Abergranog village in those days the supreme embodiment of all that was brave and bold, daring and defiant, adventurous in one’s character; the act that separated men from boys; the finite achievement that put the valiant beyond the mundane flow of daily events — was to cross the Boggy Pipe!
That’s how I saw it, anyway, when I was in Class Three at Abergranog Council School. And I knew I would have to do it some time.
There was more than one method of crossing. The Pipe could be Ridden, Sided or — and this was the ultimate — it could be Walked.
In every case the method of access was similar.
Footholds had been created in the brickwork by the Boggy Crossers and the glassware had been levelled in small patches at the top to allow careful placement of knees for the two-foot shuffle through the barbed wire and onto the pipe.
Periodically, the Council would send someone to tighten up the wire barricades, but a little work by the older Boggy Crossers soon widened the strands so that it was fairly easy to crawl through.
As the pipe was about one foot below the top of the pillars, it was necessary to ease one’s legs down the side and then drop onto the top of it, steadying the balance as one landed. This was the most difficult part.
And all the time the stinking waters ran beneath.
From then on, the choice of position depended upon the method adopted. Riding was a series of jerks astride the pipe, easing over the raised securing hoops as they were reached. As the pipe was about fifty feet long, it took over one hundred movements, plus ten lifts over the hoops. From the point of safety, that was the best method, but physically it was extremely punishing, bringing tears to the eyes and bruises and swellings in little private places.
It was therefore well worth graduating to Siding, which was far less damaging to the anatomy. This entailed shuffling alongside the body of the pipe with both feet on the the lip of the girder below and with arms and chest over the top. One had to be tall enough to reach over to balance safely, but it was much quicker and about twenty movements got you there.
But of all the Boggy Crossers, the supremos were the Walkers. They were of exceptional flair and undeniably brave, for they not only walked across the top of the pipe but even returned from halfway; some could stand on one leg, and Felix Pugh, so rumour had it, had actually done a hand stand, although I had never seen it.
The spur to my attempt came one morning at school when Wendel Weekes announced: ‘Saturday morning I’m goin’ to cross the Boggy!’
I was staggered.
Wendel was two months my junior, smaller and in my opinion far more timid than I. At once Wendel surpassed me in the attention he attracted from several others who overheard. Cries of admiration at his intended feat came from around and, although I added my support, I felt sick at the thought of his possible achievement.
My time had come. I had to cross the Boggy before him.
It was difficult to concentrate on the sex life of the butterfly that afternoon, and I twice got the thick end of Miss Webb’s tongue for not paying attention. But at five to four, the bell rang and, like a pack of Pavlov’s dogs, a response was immediate with a shuffling of feet, closing of books, banging of desks and murmurs of relief sweeping the class. It was hometime — but not for me.
Down the tiled stairway, into the cloakroom to grab my cap, out through the playground, the gates, the road.
‘Where you goin’?’ shouted Wendel. ‘Wait for me.’
But I was away, running fast. Down the Incline, past the Rising Sun, the Railway Gulley, across Hubbard’s Patch and on.
On to the Boggy Pipe.
I was drained of mental and physical energy as I approached the river bank. Exhausted, I fell to my knees.
Could Scyrion have felt more humble as he viewed the Mount of Zenat? Or Peachley, from his small canoe, have prayed harder as he drew towards the mighty Falls of Wardour? Did those brave boyhood heroes blink at fate and, biting on their lips, drive forward to their doom … or stand and shiver in the thinning air, knees weak and schoolboy cap in hand?
I couldn’t let my champions down.
The pillars were easy, mainly because the footholds were well worn and my mental rehearsals of previous nights had been so thorough. In seconds I had scaled the wall, negotiated the broken glass with only minor abrasions and was soon astride the stony prominence that overlooked the insert of the pipe.
Now came the most difficult part. Dropping onto the pipe.
The principle was to ease the body downwards, taking the weight on the palms of the hands.
The launch was the worst moment. Below, the black forbidding tube that seemed to stretch away into the distance, never ending. Beneath, the swirling, stinking waters of the Avon Llwyd.
Even little boys, within the confines of their inexperience, can be great heroes. Small may be the feats. Pointless in comparison. Silly. Futile. Little games. But all the physiology of gland and muscle, all the nervous energy that swims along the stream from brain to tissue, vies with the surge of any athlete’s exertion or the steel of courage in the field.
If my grasp hadn’t slipped, I would probably have gone home at that moment. But it did — and I fell sharply onto the Boggy Pipe.
As if connected to an electrical impulse, I started to go through the humpy, jerky, crutch-savaging motions that I had seen the proven Boggy Crossers do. And, to my surprise, it wasn’t so difficult and I found I was making good progress. Even the first ring was no problem and I was actually beginning to enjoy Riding the Boggy. It was so wide that the wicked waters were obscured from direct view. The far pillar was still quite distant, but straight ahead. I was on my way.
Hump. Jerk. Hump. Jerk.
I was well into the second half, when I saw its head appear above the concrete prominence facing me. It rose slowly and uncertainly, ears pricked, eyes shining, and, as I sat perfectly still, it came into full view. Then, standing erect, silhouetted against the sky, just a ginger and white handful of fluff, it opened its jaws and gave vent to a weak: ‘Miaow!’
My passage blocked, I stared in anguish at the little bundle as it perched on the pillar edge. Then, to my horror, it gave another squeaky ‘Miaow’, jumped onto the pipe and started to walk towards me.
‘Go back, little cat!’ I cried. ‘Out the way!’
But the little cat just squeaked again, its tail a-quiver as, pad by pad, on it came.
Unsteadily I raised my right hand, waved it in short jerks and hissed through my teeth:
‘SSSssss! Shoo! Back, cat! Go home!’
At this it stopped, just out of my reach, sat down, cocked its head on one side and sort of smiled and started to clean its paws.
‘Little cat,’ I pleaded, ‘go back! Please! You’re tiny, I’m big. You turn round an’ go back, there’s a good puss.’
I raised my eyebrows expectantly and the beads of cold sweat ran sideways down my forehead. It was then that I knew I was frightened and I started to panic.
The kitten seemed to sense my fear and stood up, squeaking an acknowledgement of my request, its tiny pink tongue brushing its damp nose.
It was moving, it was going to turn.
To my relief, round it went to face the far pillar.
‘Good boy, cat!’ I shouted.
At that, it turned round again and came towards me. It seemed bigger and more purposeful, it was striding at me.
‘Go back!’ I screamed. ‘I’m frightened!’
I took off my cap and waved it forward.
I never pushed it … honest! I never even meant to touch it, but the movement momentarily unbalanced it. The fluffy little body twisted unevenly, thin claws scrabbing at the black-tarred surface. Still its tail quivered, but it was too far over. Pink tongue showing, it opened its mouth, but no sound came and, like a leaf dropping, it seemed to float gently downwards and was suddenly lost in the foaming black bubbles of the river below.
I made no sound either, no breath or movement of any sort, and my mind became blank as, numbed with shock, I sat upon the Boggy Pipe.
A slight giddiness came over me and I lengthened my gaze from the spot where the little body had disappeared to further downstream.
A small muddy peninsula jutted into the murky waters about twenty yards below the bridge, trapping a conglomeration of branches, tin cans and mouldy sacking beneath a decaying tree. At first I thought it was a rat moving, but rats had long leathery tails, not little spiky ones that stuck up. Wet it was and squeaking as it clambered into the partly submerged branches.
The little cat was alive.
All feelings of shock and guilt fled from me. Adrenalin filled my blood and I humped and jerked for the far pillar, shouting:
‘Wait, little cat! I’m coming!’
I don’t remember scaling the far pillar, or the broken glass, or the barbed wire. In no time at all I was there, within a yard of the little cat.
But it was a vital yard across that black frothy divide.
I lay on my belly and reached. I tried my foot but couldn’t touch bottom. I sat and stretched with my legs until they were both in the filthy water and soaking wet. I searched frantically for a stick, pole, rope, hook — anything.
Anything … but there was nothing to help.
The little cat was still clambering about amid the loose branches. If only I could have reached it, I could have pulled it inshore.
I searched the area again — and then I found it: a piece of barbed wire, cut off at some time from the pillar. Just the thing. I straightened it out and raced back to the scene.
It was long enough to reach the floating branches and its barbs hooked into the wood. Slowly I drew the mass toward me.
‘Just you hold on tight, boyo,’ I called, ‘an’ ’ew’ll be safe.’
And as if it knew, the little cat stopped moving and squeaked in reply.
The drag was getting heavier and I felt myself being drawn forward with the weight.
I must have been just a foot away and on the point of grabbing the nearest twigs with my right hand, when the wire lost its grip and the whole lot swished back like a spring, catapulting the little mite into midstream.
Tears of frustration and grief welled into my eyes; I watched, helplessly, as it was washed away. It bobbed and spun in the choppy water for about five yards. Then suddenly, a rolling eddy sucked it backwards and deposited it on a flat stone only inches from the opposite bank.
There was no decision, question or hesitation in my action. Scyrion and Peachley both, would surely have applauded, for I was back across the Boggy Pipe and down river to that flat stone, scooping the little cat into my arms and sobbing with relief and joy. I cuddled the sodden, stinking little thing under my jersey and turned for home.
The parting glance I gave the Boggy Pipe just registered the line of wet footprints along its top, but their significance escaped me until later.
I had saved the little cat. That was enough for now.
I told Mother everything — I always did — never could keep anything from her. She didn’t go mad, and when I brought the little cat from under my jersey, I thought she was going to cry.
‘You naughty boy,’ she said, but without any scolding in her voice, as she took the shivering little body from me. ‘You could have drowned yourself.’
‘Can we keep him?’ I asked, eagerly, the trials of the afternoon now far behind.
‘It might belong to someone,’ she said, stroking its wet coat.
‘If no one says, can we?’ I pleaded.
‘Well, if no one says, I suppose so,’ she replied.
And I knew no one would, for in Abergranog, even in those hard times, there were two commodities that were ever plentiful. One was rhubarb — and the other, kittens.
* * *
Now-a-days, the modern terminology for a pet is a companion animal, and if ever there was a companion, that little cat was one to me.
Boggy I called him — after all, what else could he have been?
The ginger tom never left my side, except when I was at school. Then, he would wait at the bottom of the lane and, seeing me approach, would stand up, stretch luxuriously, then spring up the wall and delicately pick his way towards me, flourishing his fluffy tail and purring like a motor boat. When alongside, I would stop, he would climb onto my shoulders and home we would go.
At week-ends we went across the Boggy Pipe – it held no fears any more, for I could walk it as good as the rest and even put my hands in my pockets. Boggy would follow closely behind.
We would go a little downstream from the pipe, just below where I had fished him out. He would sit like a terrier on the edge of the black mud while I beat the bank with a stick. With any luck a rat would come scurrying out of the long grass and Boggy, who was now developing into a fine, agile creature, would dive at it like a tiger. He was mustard when it came to rats and never lost a contest.
Sometimes we would climb up into the wood and I would lie upon my back and watch the clouds scudding over the top of the hill, as if glad to be free of our grubby patch. Boggy would sit, patiently staring into a clump of undergrowth. Suddenly he would pounce and, after a bit of commotion, emerge with a shrew, which he would proudly lay at my feet.
One summer afternoon, while I lay deep in inconsequential meditation, a scream of earsplitting pitch seared the air. I sat up gasping. It was a desperate childlike cry, urgent yet pitiful. I looked down the path in front of me to see Boggy approaching, proudly carrying a young rabbit in his mouth.
Rats and shrews brought no remorse to my heart, but the cry of the rabbit was so uncannily human that I shouted:
‘Let him go. Let him go, Boggy.’
But Boggy stood firm and growled in a most aggressive manner. I leaped forward and grabbed at the rabbit. Boggy reluctantly released it, then backed off a few paces, eyes flashing angrily — I had never known him show such hostility towards me before. Still growling, he wove from side to side, flicking the tip of his tail and never taking his eyes off me. For a moment I thought he was going to spring, then he turned about and walked slowly away.
The young rabbit had stopped squealing and lay shivering in my hands. It didn’t appear to have any serious injuries, so I waded into the undergrowth and let it go. When I got back to the path, Boggy was waiting for me. I picked him up and stroked his soft ginger coat and he started to purr deeply. Then we went home and I carried him all the way.
That night I lay awake thinking about the incident. I could still see the aggression in Boggy’s eyes and knew that at that moment there had been no companionship — I had been his enemy. I think that taught me to respect animals and appreciate their natural instincts, although, to me, Boggy was still a grand cat and quite entitled to his opinion.
On Sundays, when we went to Chapel, I would lock Boggy in the shed. I had done this ever since the fateful morning he turned up during the service.
Our chapel was the standard Baptist design, with bottom-aching, oakstained pews on the ground floor and the deacon’s seats and pulpit at the head. Upstairs was the gallery, railed off by a wrought iron screen, with choir seats behind and, at the front, a green and gold pipe organ. The younger Miss Prowle performed upon the ancient instrument, hidden from view by a red woollen curtain that hung from big brass rings on a long rail. She took the whole thing very seriously.
I remember the event as clearly as if it were yesterday.
The Reverend Deri Jones was praying, everyone was bowed and I was looking down, busily counting the knot holes in the wooden floor. The Reverend Deri was a most impressive figure with a shock of white hair, wing collar, frock coat and pince-nez. For me, these glasses provided the highlight of the service, for the Reverend Deri never removed them by hand; when he had finished reading or singing he would just tweak his nose and they would fall towards the floor, happily saved by a black cord that attached them to his lapel.
When the great man prayed he would close his eyes tightly and turn his face to the ceiling. He would pray for everything and anything in a deep monotone, and sometimes it lasted for half an hour. The effect was quite soporific for most adults, but I found it rather boring.
That morning he had been going for about ten minutes and was as far as the missionaries in Borneo, when a high-pitched scream came from behind the organ curtain. The fabric moved violently and suddenly the younger Miss Prowle shot out from behind it, hatless and dishevelled. Everyone looked up, but the Reverend Deri kept on going.
Then, I noticed the fringe of the curtain rise up in one corner and a small head appeared — a small ginger head. It was Boggy. And that wasn’t all: in his mouth he held a bunch of short feathers, the same colour as the younger Miss Prowle’s hat.
Slowly he emerged from beneath the curtain, then hopped over the empty seats and sprang onto the gallery rail whence he eyed the congregation suspiciously — and all the time the Reverend Deri kept on praying.
My father, who was sitting alongside, gave me a rather bewildered look, then he covered his face with his hand and bowed his head reverently — but I think he was hiding a smile.
Up until then, nobody knew whose cat it was, but then Boggy spied me and all was up.
He leaped from the gallery rail onto the pulpit and walked across in front of the Reverend Deri, still with the feathers in his mouth. Then down the steps he came, on up the aisle and turned in to our pew where he dropped his trophy at my feet.
‘It’s Boggy,’ I whispered to my father. But he didn’t answer, just nodded and kept his face covered.
I scooped up my cat and, with head down, made for the door. As I reached it the Reverend Deri was uttering his final ‘Aaa-men’; due to his communion with the Almighty, he had remained oblivious of the whole commotion.
The repercussions were milder than I had expected. My Auntie Min, who was a dressmaker and had two cats of her own, offered to repair the younger Miss Prowle’s hat for nothing, on condition that Boggy was confined to the shed on Sundays. Dad said it must never happen again, but I did detect a twinkle in his eye when he told me.
For two years Boggy and I were great pals, then one day he went missing.
A feeling of uneasiness came over me when he wasn’t on the wall after school. I ran home and searched and called. I asked all about and missed my tea. When it grew dark I became very worried.
‘Perhaps he’s gone off on a jaunt,’ said Dad. ‘Tom cats often do.’
But I couldn’t believe it of Boggy.
I didn’t sleep much that night, my mind constantly working over all his haunts and habits. Then a thought struck me — perhaps he was in the Trevethin Wood. I knew he went there sometimes when I was in school because Tom Ellis, the woodman, had told me.
At first light I went down to Mr Ellis’ cottage. He was shaving in the back yard and stood, great hairy shaving brush in hand, as I approached.
‘Have you seen Boggy, Mr Ellis?’ I asked, urgently.
The old man blew the lather from his lips.
‘My cat. He’s ginger and white — you’ve seen him before.’
‘Oh. That cat.’ He tickled up the lather with his brush and ducked his head to glance into a piece of cracked mirror glass upon the wall. In fact, there were all types of oddments on Mr Ellis’ wall. Everything from tools to tyres, horseshoes to hurricane lamps and metal pieces, with ratchets and coils of fine wire.
The woodman shook his head and reached for his cut-throat razor, opening it expertly with one hand and holding it up so that its blade flashed coldly in the early morning sun.
‘Haven’t seen him for a long time,’ he said.
‘Do you think he might be in the wood?’
‘Might be,’ he replied, turning away, and with a deft sweep of his hand started to strip the lather from his face with the razor.
I still had time before school to make a quick search, so out across Hubbard’s Patch I sped and on to the Boggy Pipe.
I was half way across when I saw him. Not walking towards me as he did when we first met, but lying motionless at the foot of the far pillar.
When I got to him his eyes were open and he weakly parted his lips, but made no sound, neither did he move. Then I noticed the piece of wood just behind him; it had been cut from a tree and pointed with a knife. Running from it was a short cord joined to a thin piece of wire similar to the coils seen hanging on Mr Ellis’ wall. The wire disappeared into Boggy’s coat and when I picked him up, the stick and cord came as well.
He was so limp and lifeless, he just hung in my arms, and as the tears welled up I held him tightly to my chest. Boggy was breathing, but only very gently, and cradling him in front of me I carried him back along the pipe.
When I got to Mr Ellis’ cottage he was at his gate, as if he was expecting me.
‘I’ve found him, but he’s hurt,’ I sobbed. ‘Look at him.’
Mr Ellis took Boggy from me, carried him into his tiny kitchen and, pushing aside the cups and plates, laid him on the table. Then he went to a drawer and came back with a pair of pliers. Parting Boggy’s ginger fur, he snipped through the wire.
‘What is it, Mr Ellis?’ I asked, as he unwound the thing from the limp form and threw it in a corner.
‘For rabbits,’ he said, ‘not cats. But he got caught in it.’
I didn’t understand the implication as I do now as a country vet. For to live in the countryside is to accept country ways and to understand that the balance of nature is maintained, often in cruel mode. The childlike screams of the rabbit, the lethal dive of the hawk, the fluttering panic in the hen coop when the fox appears. But when your cat drags itself home with a wire snare cutting into its skin and its hind limbs paralysed, it becomes unacceptable.
A snare is a braided wire running noose. The noose is spread in a rabbit track, usually in a gap in hedge or undergrowth, and pegged securely and unobtrusively alongside the natural run. There is no distinction between its victims. Silently, it awaits rabbit, fox or cat on the scent.
Designed to garrotte — that is the easy way out — the wretched animal can also be trapped around the belly, as was Boggy. Or by the hind limbs or just one leg, and the agony is unimaginable. It has been known for a fox to bite off a portion of its own limb in an attempt to escape, leaving but a vestige of a trophy for the hunter.
I was fortunate that I didn’t fully comprehend the significance at that time.
‘Will he get better, Mr Ellis?’ I asked.
The old man’s newly shaven, craggy face softened and he looked down at the little cat; with his large rough hands he gently stroked the ginger coat and shook his head.
I couldn’t believe it — I wouldn’t believe it.
‘’Is back is broke,’ he said. ‘’E’ll never walk again.’
I tried to be brave. I tried hard for a good minute. Then I couldn’t hold it and sobbed uncontrollably.
Eventually, I calmed down and Mr Ellis put his hand on my shoulder.
‘You go home,’ he said. ‘I’ll see to Boggy.’
‘What are you going to do, Mr Ellis?’ I asked, through my tears.
‘Take his pain away,’ said the old man. ‘It’s the best thing.’
He saw me to his gate and, as I closed it, I turned towards him. There was one question I had to ask:
‘Was it your wire, Mr Ellis?’
‘Go home, son,’ said the old man gently, without answering my question. ‘I’ll come and see your father tonight.’
He did come and see Father, and three weeks later he turned up again with a little grey kitten which he gave to me and which I called Pip. Since those days I’ve had a lot of cats: there was Smoky, Max, Crispin and Tarquin, to name but a few. But they never did and never will mean the same to me as Boggy. I think it’s mainly because through him I learned to respect animals, know what company they can be and understand now-a-days how my clients feel when their cat has to be put down.
And it’s also because of Boggy that I’ve hated snares ever since.
* * *
If there was any other part of Abergranog village that contributed to my feelings for animals it was the Park.
The Park had been a small estate, left to the mining community by a local benefactor. A green oasis set amid the drab stonework of the village, it was surrounded for the most part by a high wall and was about four acres in all. A red ash path had been laid through the centre, circling a large clock on an iron stand that was a memorial to a local doctor and told a different time on each of its four sides. The entrances, of which there were two, were guarded by large iron gates, one at the Factory Lane end and the other leading onto Bowen’s Pitch. Just off the path at the Factory Lane was the Shelter, a small openfronted building with lavatories at either side.
The big house had long been demolished, but the lawns and rose gardens remained intact, as did the African Hut. This mysterious structure was actually the summer house belonging to the old residence and took its nickname from the fact that it was a black wooden construction with a conical straw roof, situated beneath a large willow at the end of the garden. Adding to the tribal atmosphere was the fact that the old men of the village spent most of the daytime inside, festooned in acrid smoke from the shag and twist of the day.
The fug was fresh air to their shrunken, pneumoconiotic lungs and stimulated wheezing laughter, crawing, spitting and much stamping of sticks.
The smoke was often so intense that it could be seen easing its way through the straw, as if the place was on fire, for the only ventilation — and light for that matter — came through a small doorway at the front.
It was all in the care of Parky, Ernie Brewer, a mousy little man who manicured the shrubs and roses and wrestled with the great clattering mower that swathed the lawns in shaded lines. Ernie’s new-mown grass was as nectar. In those days the smell of Park grass and 4711 Eau-de-Cologne, which my mother used, were my favourite aromas.
Park sounds, too, I remember. Creaking swings, flushing lavatories, the old mower and kids shouting. But the one more abiding memory of mystery, intrigue, sound, smell and even colour, was that of the Co-op Slaughterhouse which was next to the children’s playground.
If you swung high enough, you got regular fleeting glimpses through the gaps in the shutters. Always the floor was wet; sometimes red wet, sometimes brown, sometimes green. Wellington boots you could see and the bottom of red rubber aprons. Once I saw a little calf lying on its side, very still.
But only once.
Sweeping, sweeping, the sound of someone constantly sweeping; whoever worked the bass broom in the Co-op Slaughterhouse worked hard. Whistling and singing I remember, bleating and lowing, the clang of metal chains and sharp cracks, like fireworks exploding.
In summer it smelt terrible: rich, sickly sweet and throat retching; but still we watched, swatting the big blue flies that sunned themselves on the brick wall. In the narrow gully by the side of the roundabout they kept the offal: great, glistening cow stomachs, mounds of partly digested fodder and animal guts in a thousand convolutions.
From the road between the buildings, when the wooden sliding door was open, you could see them killing sheep.
The word would spread about the Park and we kids would crowd, with morbid fascination, compelled to watch, hypnotised by the spectacle.
Two men with caps on worked side by side, one of them Parky’s brother. Periodically they disappeared into the gloom of the building, to return, carrying a struggling woolly bundle which they dumped in a trough and plunged at with a knife.
The legs would thrash wildly as the victim’s life gurgled away, and in no time at all, with an iron hook between its jaws, it was a lump of meat suspended on a rail, alongside its unfortunate fellows.
* * *
I often wonder how much the experiences of my youthful days in Abergranog guided me into my present way of life.
Was it Old Thundertits and that day at Little Pant, and the unforgettable feeling of newborn life in her offspring’s foot? Was it the joy and sadness of having a pet like Boggy? Or was it pity for those poor dead sheep hanging on the rail and that little calf lying on its side, ever so still?
Perhaps it was a mix of all of this, and even the smell of Ernie Brewer’s new mown grass, that made me leave Abergranog to settle eventually in Herefordshire as a country vet.