Memoirs of a Cotswold Vet

by Ivor Smith

  The years passed quickly, and no sooner had we taken O-levels than the A-level exams upon which so much depended had arrived. The veterinary schools were happy with my grades and soon it was time to leave. Looking back on my school career, I could not complain about the teaching staff. For me they had done their job. Discipline was rigid, but most of us had benefited as a result, although today some of the methods employed by masters to enforce it would definitely be frowned upon.

  For instance, Mr Morris, the woodwork master (who also taught maths) had his own way of ensuring your full concentration in class. Default and he would take you on a ‘bicycle ride’. This entailed him grasping your ‘sideboards’ and twiddling the hair between his fingers in opposite directions. It was uncomfortable but it worked. We quickly learnt to listen and concentrate.

  Our French master, Mr Tom Askew, employed his own methods too. At some stage during each lesson at least one boy would be asked, ‘Aimez-vous Marie-Anne?’ You quickly latched on that Marie-Anne was the big walloping stick our teacher carried. Get the question wrong and your hand was introduced to her personally. Today Mr Askew’s teaching methods would be ridiculed and no doubt we would be hearing about impending legal action. Mr Askew, like so many teachers at that time, was, I suppose, an eccentric, but to suggest he was sadistic would be laughable. He was there to teach, and every lad who was fortunate enough to be in his class certainly learnt some French. Fifty years on and I have yet to meet any of his pupils who do not look back if not with approval, then at least with a degree of fondness.

  Our Crypt School education was second to none. Every boy had achieved something. We joke today that our school had given us the social skills necessary for us to be welcomed anywhere in the world – at least on the first occasion. Vivat schola Cryptiensis!

  My fondest memories of school will always be those of athletics and rugby. I was blessed with the ability to run fast and I left the Crypt possessing the records for both the 100- and 220-yard sprints. This had little to do with training me to become a vet, but friends have frequently wisecracked that this skill must have allowed me to get to the field gate before the bull. On more than one occasion they would be right, and if it wasn’t the bull chasing me, it was something else (but, with hand on heart, I don’t think it was ever the animal’s owner!).

  Rugby may have started from reluctant beginnings but it quickly developed into a passion that has remained a part of my life – perhaps I should say our lives, because for better or for worse my wife has always been part of this rugby world.

  From the beginning of 1957, most Friday nights found me with a group of my classmates at the local youth club. These were the exciting days of Bill Haley, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. It hadn’t taken me long to spot a very attractive fourteen-year-old young lady with a fashionable long ponytail, and the teenage crush followed. Her name was Angela. There was a bonus attraction. I knew via a good school pal who happened to be going out with her elder sister that their family owned one of the biggest televisions in the village. So on a cold Friday night in February, after a couple of hours of rocking and bopping, and knowing that England were taking on France at Twickenham the following afternoon, I chatted my way into joining them in their lounge the next day to watch the game on their big black and white box. I reckon you could say it was a successful first date – England won 9 points to 3. We could never have guessed on that occasion that we would still be watching rugby games on television together fifty years later.

  During my final year at school I went for interviews at three veterinary schools in England. My third interview was at the University of Liverpool’s Faculty of Veterinary Science. At the head of the table was seated the Dean, John George Wright, an eminent professor of veterinary medicine and surgery. I was asked to sit, and faced him at the other end. Between us sat six professors and other veterinary academic icons. JG, as he was affectionately known throughout the profession, welcomed me, made several humorous comments relating to what he already knew about me, and immediately put me at ease. The next half-hour flashed by and I hoped I had said enough to impress. I had, it seemed, and after a few moments conferring with the academics, the head of the table offered me a place. In 1960 the places, as now, were like gold dust, and to this day I cannot believe what came next.

  ‘Thank you, sir’, I replied, ‘but I’d like to think about it.’

  It was a moment of madness and must have made me seem remarkably cocky. It wasn’t meant to sound as though I was playing hard to get, and I am sure I was simply thinking of the provisional place that one of the other schools had offered me. It took the entire group by surprise, myself included, and for a moment I wondered who would be the first to fall off his chair. It was my first real lesson that there are some things in life you just never say, and it could have meant the end of my veterinary career before it had even started. Perhaps the dignitaries were amused by my faux pas for, as promised, the treasured offer arrived in the post two days later. I only needed two minutes to consider the offer while I looked for my pen, then signed the acceptance form and ran to the nearest postbox.

  My university career began later that year, but first there was a long summer holiday to get through. It was not a holiday in the usual sense. The urgency was to get a job. Any old job would do. The next five years would be hard going on a meagre income. But help was at hand via a friend. The friend in this case was one Keith Russell, a school pal I had grown up with. His dad, Wally, was an ex-Army serviceman who continued the war fighting in the scrum for Gloucester’s Coney Hill Rugby Club. From Monday to Friday he was the general foreman of a well-known local building company. From time to time building things didn’t go to plan and in fact some things went disastrously wrong, but Wally was always there to sort the problems out. Why they arose in the first place he never explained but that’s another story, and it was all part of my education.

  For the next three months I became a Gloucester navvy, digging, shovelling, mixing and wheelbarrowing. My partners in crime were literally that. They were three local lads who had served time for burglary and freely admitted it. One morning, while we sat on old boxes and bags of cement enjoying our ten-minute tea break, one of my new mates pulled out some crumpled old cuttings from his wallet. They had been taken from the Gloucester Citizen and were reports with pictures of various ‘jobs’ that they could personally relate to. My initial reaction was one of disbelief but the situation became almost comical as they started to criticise the paper’s crime reporter for getting his facts wrong! Ironically, we were working at the time in Gloucester’s historic Westgate Street, refurbishing and rebuilding the Court Houses and Rooms. Naively, I thought it strange that they were on such familiar terms with the local uniformed police, and they were happy to introduce me to the plain-clothed detectives to whom they chatted informally. It took me a while to realise that they were established customers of the force.

  Work on the building site was physically demanding, and we had targets to meet. We were a team and in some way the challenge had a bonding effect. It is interesting to note that, twenty-five years later, one of our gang was to become a regular sheep-farming client of my practice, for whom I have high regard.

  October soon arrived and at last I was in Liverpool ready to begin the veterinary adventure. It took just a short while to adjust to the big city and northern life. I quickly made new friends and the Faculty of Veterinary Science just as quickly made it clear that the course we had embarked on was going to be increasingly demanding. We attended formal lectures five-and-a-half days a week interspersed with practical work. The twenty-nine lads and six female students in our year were split into groups of three for the practical sessions. For most of the time I was in the company of Roger Salmon and Nigel Sladen. We are still close friends today, having survived what seemed an eternal veterinary course together. Until their recent retirement, both Roger and Nigel spent their veterinary careers in Lancashire practices, though not the same one. Perhaps they should have, for
during our years of studying veterinary anatomy, one had dissected the left side of a horse, the other the right. We concluded that eventually, to be fair to the client, they should go into practice together, so that when asked to visit an ailing horse, the practice receptionist could ask, ‘Which side of the horse seems to be the problem?’

  There was of course some time for us to do the things that students have always done. We put the world to rights in the Students’ Union bar, ate egg and chips for lunch there most days, and lunched at one of Liverpool’s 250 Chinese restaurants on a Friday. At our favourite venue a three-course meal with coffee was on offer for just 2s 1d. You could select very different-sounding dishes from the menu which, strangely, all tasted much the same, but was filling nonetheless.

  The students organised the faculty Saturday night dance by rota. The disco had not yet been invented in the early 1960s and the live band was the order of the day. There was no shortage of them. How such a huge array of talented groups arose in the Liverpool area at that time will remain a mystery. The going rate to hire a band was around £20 and you could take your pick from Gerry and the Pacemakers to The Hollies; and yes, if you wanted them, The Beatles too.

  Naturally I managed to fit in more than the odd game of rugby between my studies. The jump from the schoolboy game to the senior one was another culture shock. The gallantry seemed to have been left on the school playing fields and I soon realised getting tackled without the ball was part and parcel of this new version of the game. The excitement of university rugby was immense. The fixture list was impressive and included local club Sale! But this was the day of the amateur player and although a handful of Liverpool students had played for what are now Premiership sides, these teams at the time were rather different from the professional international outfits that entertain us today.

  Nevertheless, it was an opportunity to play with some of the outstanding players of the day. One remarkable player was our outside half, Tom Brophy. Tom wasn’t a big fellow but he was fast and everyone agreed ‘he can turn on a sixpence’. The art of playing with him was to try and figure out in which direction he was going to go. He did not score a lot of tries himself, but he was a three-quarter’s delight. When the defence was completely mesmerised and out of position he would simply part with the ball and let one of the other backs cross the line. I last saw Tom on a black and white television taking part in an international game in the 1960s. He was playing for England.

  I made time for courting during my first year at university. At one point I had not seen Angela, my now long-term girlfriend, for six weeks when she agreed to come up to Liverpool for the weekend. The intention was that she would be entertained by me during the day in Derby Hall, the male students’ residence, and at night sneaked into nearby Dale Hall, the ladies’ hall of residence, courtesy of a couple of our year’s daring female vet students.

  I met Angela on the Saturday morning as she stepped on to the platform of Lime Street Station from the Gloucester express train. Ever understanding, she agreed that I should play for my rugby XV that afternoon. I played, and my game lasted just twenty minutes. I was knocked unconscious, suffered a cracked jaw, and spent the rest of our romantic weekend in Sefton General Hospital.

  If you cannot stand or understand rugby and believe it is a game that could well be played without a ball – and there I agree you may have a point – I promise not to mention it again (not on a personal level anyway). After my university days were over I was no longer able to play the game seriously, as most of my weekends were taken up in the company of our four-legged friends. Getting shoved around by hefty cattle in a confined space was, I suppose you could say, just an extended part of the game, but from now on it would be without the intervention of a referee.

  I remained as courtly as I could for three years, which necessitated frequent short weekend visits to Gloucester to visit Angela. The train fare was ridiculously expensive and I only did it the once. The second choice, a comfortable economical bus ride for 7s 6d, complete with an on-board coffee service and toilet facilities, seemed to accomplish a tour of England before finally reaching Gloucester. It was just too slow. By the time I reached my destination I felt it must be time to head back to Liverpool. There had to be a better way, and there was – I decided to thumb a lift. This was many students’ preferred method of travel at the time and I rapidly developed hitch-hiking into a fine art. To be honest I enjoyed the challenge and the heady leap into the unknown.

  In the 1960s, for all practical purposes, Liverpool seemed a lot further away than it is today. A good run in your car from Gloucestershire would take a minimum of five hours. Heading north from Gloucester the familiar route rolled off the tongue like poetry. You took the A38 towards Tewkesbury, then on to Worcester, Kidderminster, Bridgnorth, Wellington, Whitchurch and on to the Chester bypass. At this point the sights, sounds and even the smells were changing rapidly. The strong scent of Lever Brothers’ soap and detergent factories at Port Sunlight signalled that you had reached Ellesmere Port, quaint Rock Ferry and mighty Birkenhead. Through the Mersey Tunnel tollgates, sudden darkness and hey presto: you were in Liverpool. It would be many weeks before I could once again enjoy the clean air and rural smells of farms, fresh hay and cattle in Gloucestershire.

  It was more than good fortune that one of my year hailed from the Cainscross area of Stroud. Graham Hall had been educated at Stroud’s Marling School, which just happened to be my school’s arch-rival, but despite that we quickly became good pals. He also owned a car that he had inherited from his grandfather, who had purchased it in 1939; a sturdy and very reliable Morris 10. For the first three years of our course the terms began and ended with his car pulling up at the front door of my parents’ Longlevens home. There was just the faintest odour of motor fuel and oil, which was more than outweighed by the welcoming scent of real leather seats.

  Graham had been blessed with at least two exceptional qualities. One was the Wisdom of Solomon and the other the Patience of Job. Today I look back with embarrassment as I recall his arriving with a tidy car, empty except for his briefcase and a few books. He must have cringed as all available vacant space was taken up by my briefcase, text books, rugby kit, Dansette radio-record player combined, stack of vinyl records, guitar and a 120lb set of Spur barbel weight-training gear, not to mention my full-size horse skeleton. Fortunately the hefty clutter had little effect on the sturdy Morris.

  A few miles out of Gloucester we passed the church tower at Norton. It seemed to be a point of special reference, for, once past it, our mutual sadness at leaving family and friends behind began to ebb. We started to chat and joke and began to anticipate the enjoyment of meeting our vet pals congregating once more in Liverpool. Every year we remarked on the changes to the scenery that had taken place in the space of a few weeks; the bare trees we had passed in March now greeted us with new green shoots and leaves of spring as we journeyed north a month later. The journey south was, of course, always more special. We were returning home; the end of the Christmas term was extra-special. The sight of Norton Church emerging from the dusk on a late December afternoon, with snow beginning to fall, was intoxicating.

  I made the homeward journey from Liverpool to Gloucester on several occasions during the ten-week term. The hitch-hiking resulted in many adventures and at the same time offered the opportunity to meet some interesting people. One that springs to mind was a lorry driver who drove in all weather with his cabin windows wound down. One of the unwritten rules of getting a lift was to provide companionship to the driver on your journey together. It was considered the height of bad manners to nod off, but that would have been impossible with this particular chap. The cold draughts from the open windows whizzed past my ears and the driver apologised for my discomfort. He explained that he had been a rear gunner on a Lancaster bomber on air raids over Germany and his experiences had left him severely claustrophobic. I shivered, not from the cold, but from the thought of being cocooned in that Perspex shell for so many long
hours, picked out and blinded by enemy searchlights and shot at from below with no means of escape.

  It was indeed an opportunity to meet folk from all walks of life, and mostly I enjoyed the journeys. One thing I had in common with the majority of strangers who stopped to pick me up was a love of food. Some lorry drivers may well enjoy their legendary Yorkie bar, but one thing is certain, they all loved their traditional roadside breakfast. The transport café hardly needed signposting. I am certain the welcoming odour of bacon cooking on a hot grill wafted for miles, and it was hard not to drool as the lorry rolled on to the lorry park. Ten minutes later I would be at a table with the driver eating rashers of hot greasy bacon protruding from thick rounds of buttered white bread. Ketchup or HP Sauce was optional, but a mug of strong hot tea was definitely part of the early morning feast. Perhaps it was from years of practice, but the drivers seemed to have stomachs of iron as they tipped the almost scalding brew down their necks before lighting up their Woodbine. Then it was back on the road.

  Time goes quickly when you are busy and the first three years of the course were over surprisingly fast. For the first two years I had lived in Derby Hall, and the third in a house off the famous Penny Lane, which I shared with my fellow navy-blue-donkey-jacket-clad students, Nigel and Roger. We continued to enjoy our extra-curricular activities, but found ourselves with increasingly less time in which to do it. Most nights were spent studying veterinary anatomy, biochemistry and physiology. At about 9 o’clock each night we would take a break together and have a cup of coffee and Marmite on toast. We talked about anything other than anatomy. Except on one memorable occasion, when we did.