Kevin's Watch

lorin wrote:I brought my leftover [garden-grown!! -Ed] tomatoes and peppers from my garden to a group...
Nobody wanted them. If it had been chips or cup cakes they would have been snatched up before they hit the table.

I don't usually say things like this out loud, but:
I am sorry people are so dumb.

also, love your "wait for it..."

Can I record this for posterity just in case anyone is watching [I have a feeling I'm gonna need all the help I can get].

In the course of my duties within the veterinary practice where I worked for twenty years, I got to know Winston Churchill's ex 'Special Branch' minder [or bodyguard - whatever you call it]. He had retired to South-West England and lived with his wife and pyrenean mountain dog, in a cottage on a rural lane along which I drove home every day after work. I used to see the old man walking his huge white dog in the lanes almost daily, and it was a sad day when I attended his home to euthanase the dog, who through age had become moribund and unable to walk. For two weeks as I drove home, I saw the man walking alone, the same route he had previously taken with his dog.

As providence would have it, we had another client of the practice who was in the habbit of taking on animals, becoming bored with them and unloading them without much thought. Now he also had a white pyrenean mountain dog indistiguishable from the old mans, which in fairness he had kept for six years since it was a puppy. True to his usual form, the man turned up at the surgery with the dog one day and said, "I want this dog put to sleep - he's six years old now and they never live beyond seven or eight. I want to save him suffering." Now the man had every legal right to do this, but we, however were not bound to agree to perform the task. I should have sent him away to another vets who were willing to carry out his request - but I didn't. Instead I took a gamble and agreed to take the dog in. I took £50 in payment and then said "I'll take it from here - you don't want to stay around for this do you?" "No", he said and without so much as a backward glance left the building. Ten minutes later I loaded the dog into my Land Rover drove it to the old mans cottage and pushed the lead into his hand. "I've never seen this dog before, and I certainly didn't give it to you," I said. The dumbfounded old man just nodded, then looked at the dog and I drove away. Four years later the man died and the dog remained with his wife for a year or so after that, before it too passed on. During that time each evening I felt a small sense of achievement as I drove past the old man once again out walking his dog.

Lovely story. Could be right out of Herriot's All Things Wise and Wonderful.

Thanks Lorin

lorin wrote:Lovely story. Could be right out of Herriot's All Things Wise and Wonderful.

In case anybody gets the idea that I'm setting myself up here as a 'plaster saint', I say here and now that isn't the case. I have done many things in my life not to be proud of and few that I can. If required I will tell a story of the first kind for each of the latter - but I had much rather not. With this clearly understood, here's a little tale of events that occured also while I was involved in the family veterinary practice, what, some twenty or so years ago.

We had a german veterinary student come to the practice for a six month work experience stint, and during this time we became firm friends. She was of east german origin and was a very sensitive person, highly intellegent and about 21 years old. She completed her period with us and then returned to Germany to carry on with her studies,during which time we kept in regular contact.
The following summer she found herself a placement in Dublin and went there with the same enthusiasm she had come to us the previous year. Alas, she found the 'feel' of her new placement difficult to adjust to and I recieved a few tearfull telephone calls saying she was struggling with both the people and the surgery placement itself.
One night at 3.00 am I recieved a call to find her hysterical on the phone. She had been drinking heavily in a Dublin bar, had fetched up with some other youngsters and had got into a car and been driven, she knew not where, to a party. Something had occured and she had fled from the party out into the night. She had no idea where she was exept that it was a village somewhere outside Dublin, she was drunk, upset and frightened.

I spoke to her as soothingly as possible and made her read out the telephone number of the box she was calling from. "Now - I'm going to call you back straight away. You put this phone down and if it doesn't ring in two minutes you phone me back again." Luckily she had got the number correct so when I called she answered the phone straight away. "Next job - don't hang up the phone, but put it down, go outside and find the nearest street corner to the phone box and find out the name of the street you are in." This she was able to do. Now I knew she was in a phone box in such and such a street smowhere just outside Dublin. "Now you put the phone down and wait in the box and I'll phone back in five minutes."

I phoned directory inquieries, got the number of the main police station in Dublin, phoned them and told them the name of the street and that it had a phone box in it. "Sure enough, thats in the town of '.......' twenty miles uotside Dublin," the man said. Thanking him I asked for the number of five taxi services that opperated in the town for which he was able to vouch. Armed with these numbers I began to call. First one - no reply; second - not working at weekends; third one - bingo!. "Can you go to the telephone box in '...street' where you will find a girl. She will give you an adress in Dublin - will you take her there for me. It's a veterinary practice and they will stand her the money if she has none." Now I phoned the girl back and said "Let's talk for a while." We did so and five minutes later a taxi arrived at the phone box and took her safetly home.

You are quite the gentleman, peter. Kudos to you.

Thanks Ali. I try, I do try.