THE STATIONMASTER'S DAUGHTER

Chapter 9

After the kittens had settled in, the next things to arrive were chickens. They turned up in a cardboard box with holes poked in the top so they could breathe. My father had already built a small hut with a heater in to keep them warm. They were just tiny bundles of yellow fluff running around and cheeping, then huddling under the heater. I couldn't leave them alone, I kept picking them up and cuddling them. They grew rapidly and soon moved into a large chicken run at the bottom of the garden, where they lived quite happily scratching around in the grass and the dirt for food. We also fed them on scraps from the table and they provided us with plenty of eggs. It was one of my jobs to collect them.
 
The sad part of keeping the chickens was that every so often my father would decide on a treat for Sunday dinner - one of the chickens! He would kill it by ringing its neck and then he would hang it up in a shed on the platform near our garden. He thought it would be out of the way of us kids until he could pluck it and remove its insides. Did you know that chickens can still squawk after they are dead? It is an automatic response from their voice box, but to a young child like myself I was convinced it was hanging by its neck still alive. I tried to avoid being anywhere near the shed on those days and when we finally had chicken for Sunday dinner I would pretend that my mother had bought it, it wasn't really one of ours.
 
Some food rationing was still in place at this time, e.g. cheese, meat and butter so the chickens augmented our diet, also tea and sugar.
 
Dad had a very large vegetable patch, where he grew potatoes, carrots, peas, runner beans, broad beans, cabbage and sprouts. It was fascinating to know that little seeds dropped into the ground would turn into lovely vegetables. Dad decided to give me a small vegetable patch of my own. I was thrilled. Separating the different sections of veg were rows of blackcurrants and gooseberries. By the summer of the following year, veg picked straight from the garden augmented my hedgerow diet. Nothing tastes better than peas straight from the pod, or eating pod as well. All the veg tasted better in those days, or is just my memory playing tricks with me!
 
I grew to enjoy the walks to and from school. We were a happy little bunch of kids, walking quickly in the mornings so we wouldn't be late and endure the wrath of Miss Jasper, but we took our time strolling home. The autumn was the best, when we would forage for blackberries, raspberries and crab apples. Sorrel was another favourite and safe to pick from the sides of the road in those days - no traffic to pollute it! We ate other berries too, not knowing what they were, but no one ever got sick. I remember one day being dared to eat a particular berry. No problem I thought, sticking one in my mouth. The saliva immediately dried up, I couldn't speak, my mouth felt like a sand pit, I had bitten into a sloe berry. Of course, everyone else fell about laughing. In the winter, when there was snow and ice, the only building we passed on the way to school would have huge icicles hanging off the gutters. We would break them off and munch away on the freezing ice.
 
The strangest sights we ever came across were in the height of summer, when adders, who had attempted to slither across the road were run over either by the odd lorry or tractor or had just died from the heat from both the sun and the tarmac and were just lying stretched out across the road. They would be there for days and days until birds ate them or someone came along and scraped them off.
 
The worst sights were seeing dead or dying rabbits from the myxomatosis epidemic, which had begun the year before in 1952. They would be lying on the side of the road or on the grass verges, blind and disfigured by this awful disease. It had a devastating effect on the rabbit population.
 
Shopping was always a problem, or rather my mother made it so. She was used to popping down to the local shops in Cirencester, but at Otterham Station, there were no shops. Our nearest shop was the Post Office in Marshgate.
 
Mum knew that she would have to travel into Launceston for some items, but all the basics were delivered by van. There was the grocery/fruit/veg van, the butcher's van and the milkman, all travelling about the countryside supplying the remote houses, with no access to shops. Trips into Launceston were usually made on a Saturday morning, so that I could go with mum and help with Neil's pushchair and the shopping. Launceston was a nice little town, with its own castle, but it was built on a hill. There were two routes up into the town, one a long winding main road and the other a short, but really steep lane. We always took the steep route. Neil and his pushchair were so heavy to push up the hill and coming back down was a nightmare. As soon as I was considered old enough to go to Launceston on my own, (when I was 10 years old) I had to do the shopping, so mum could stay at home with Neil. There was always something she wanted from the shops, and there was always something else she had to do, which prevented her from going. Suddenly it was convenient for her to look after Neil. It usually fell to me to keep him entertained and cart him about with me in his pushchair. My friends and their parents hardly ever went to Launceston, so why we had to go so much I could never work out.
 
1954
 
The next pet to arrive in September 1954 was Priscilla of Kingsend, a Golden Cocker Spaniel puppy that my father had set his heart on. She was a pedigree dog and Priscilla was her Kennel Club official name. Our family friends who lived in Gloucester were buying a puppy and told us about them. They bought Prudence and shortened her name to Pru, but Dad didn't like the name Priscilla, so he said I could choose another name for her. I chose to call her Beauty. She really was a beautiful dog.
 
When Beauty was old enough, Dad would take her with him when he went out on his bicycle to go rabbiting. Off they would go, him on his bike with his shotgun over his shoulder and Beauty running along side. They would be gone for hours, and not always come back with a rabbit. Rabbits were more creatures he didn't mind skinning and removing the insides. My Dad was such a gentle quiet man, I could never equate this side of him with the man who could shoot, kill and do all those horrible things. I suppose in those days, when there was still rationing, people ate what they could get hold of and it must have been easier in the countryside. We probably ate better than our city counterparts.
 
My Mum's favourite dogs were Boxer dogs and as Beauty was my Dad's dog, they decided to buy a Boxer. This was in April 1956. For some reason, the one they found was part of a litter in Hull, so that poor little puppy had to travel right across country to reach us!
 
Great excitement for me though. I could go with Dad to fetch her. We travelled up to Waterloo by train. This was my first ever visit to London and because we had hours to spare before picking up the puppy, my dad took me sightseeing. It was dark and very late and I can remember standing in Piccadilly Circus, gazing up at all the lights and advertisements. We went back into the station and because Dad was a railway man, we were allowed to sleep in one of the carriages in a siding. Mum had packed us a flask of homemade soup, so we drank the soup and then settled down for a few hours sleep. The puppy was travelling down from Hull overnight and we would collect her off her train the following morning and catch our train home again.
 
I don't think I got much sleep, I was too excited and it wasn't the quietest place to sleep anyway, with carriages being shunted about all night. Luckily, ours wasn't moved, or we could have found ourselves on a train travelling in completely the wrong direction! Finally, morning came and we were waiting on the platform for the Hull train to arrive and the puppy in her box was lifted out of the guard's van at the rear. We opened up the box to see this dear little dog with a squashed up face and huge paws, sitting trembling and gazing up at us. She was in a bit of a mess, being shut in a box for hours, so we took her into the waiting room and cleaned her up. We had brought stuff with us, and a big basket to put her in, so she had a nice clean bed for the rest of the journey. We caught our train and travelling from Waterloo, via Exeter again, we arrived home in the afternoon. I was so tired, but happy too, especially when the puppy could get out of the basket and run around the garden. After being cooped up for so long, the puppy went crazy, rushing around the garden. Beauty wasn't too impressed at first, being knocked about by this boisterous creature, but they soon settled down. Beauty was top dog, there was no doubt about that and the puppy instinctively realised.
 
Wolsdene Maureen was the Boxer's Kennel Club pedigree name but again Maureen didn't seem appropriate for a little puppy, so this time Mum chose the name, she called her Renie, a shortened version of Maureen. Renie grew rapidly, racing about the garden charging into the back of my knees sending me sprawling. She would catch frogs in the hedge and run about with the frog's legs sticking out of her mouth. How I loved those two dogs, they became my best friends.
 
Beauty had one really naughty habit. She would get into the hens' run and chase them. She never killed any of them, but the squawking was unbelievable and feathers flew everywhere. The first time she did it, my dad gave her such a good hiding, but it was after the event, so she didn't know what she was getting smacked for. Mum and I were both so upset to see Beauty punished that on subsequent times when she got in to the hen run, we would drag her out, gather up as many feathers as we could, give the hens some extra food to calm them down and hope Dad wouldn't notice anything when he came in from work. He must have known she was still getting in, because he would see the recent damage to the fencing. He would say, 'Has that dog been chasing the hens again?' and we would innocently say, 'No, she hasn't been near them, we've watched her all day.' I'm quite sure he didn't believe us, but we kept Beauty out of trouble.
 
Beauty was a smart dog. One day my brother was riding his tricycle around the table in the kitchen, when he accidentally (I hope!) ran over one of Beauty's paws as she lay sleeping. She gave out a loud yelp and of course, Neil was told to be more careful and not run over the dogs. The very next time he rode his tricycle round the table, she deliberately lay down and stretched her paws out in front of her, so that he couldn't get past without running over her again. She would do this every time he tried to ride his tricycle round the table. And, she never forgave him for hurting her either! She never liked him from then on and developed an aversion to all little boys.
 
Renie was a funny dog. If she was told off for anything, she would go and sit in a corner of the room, with her back to us and sulk, then keep peeking over her shoulder to see if we were looking at her. She would 'sing' if any of us played the mouthorgan, and she suffered very badly with the wind! So noisy sometimes that she frightened herself! Must have been all that horsemeat!
 
Both dogs had one litter of puppies each. Beauty's pups came first in 1956 and she had a litter of six. As the father was also a golden cocker, all the puppies were a beautiful golden colour. They were gorgeous, all soft and cuddly. I would play with them for hours, and wanted to keep them. We had our own special names for each one and of course, we all had our favourites; mine was Blondie. All good things must come to an end and the puppies were advertised and sold. As soon as they were old enough to leave their mum, one by one, people would come and collect them or they would be put in boxes, just as Renie had been and sent off by train. I cried every time one left.
 
Renie had her pups the following year in 1957 and she had eight puppies. Their father was a Brindle, so half the puppies were golden brown like Renie and the others were brindle like their father. I loved them of course, but they weren't as soft and cuddly as the spaniels had been and they had sharper teeth. I can remember having my photograph taken with them and crying because they were nipping me so hard. Once again, we had our favourites and I called mine Puggy, she was the runt of the litter and had a tiny squashed up nose. Just like Beauty's pups, they all sold and we sent them off to their new homes, tears streaming down our faces. I think the decision was taken that although, we had made a bit of money from breeding, none of us could bear to sell any more. So no more puppies.
 
The dogs were fed on horsemeat. I have no idea where my father got it from, but these large joints of meat, similar to beef would appear at regular intervals and would be boiled and chopped up for the dogs. The smell of it cooking was revolting. My mother would never go near it, so if my father was away at all, it would fall to me to cook it and feed it to the dogs. They loved it. I hated it. Both Beauty and Renie lived good long lives and were still around when I eventually married and left home. They were wonderful dogs and the three of us spent many hours together right through my childhood and into my teenage years.