Memoirs of a Cotswold Vet

by Ivor Smith

  We happened to be concentrating on the chicken, having already spent some of the best days of our lives learning the anatomical differences of every creature on board Noah’s Ark. Well, at the very least the horse, cow, sheep, pig, goat, dog and the cat. Roger was already boiling the kettle when we joined him in the kitchen. He was about to make one of the most momentous pronouncements of his life.

  ‘Do you know chaps’, he proclaimed, with an authority that only he could muster, ‘the chicken does not have an interparietal bone in its skull?’

  We doubted whether any veterinary surgeon in the country knew of this earth-shaking fact. We split our sides laughing, wondering how, armed with this knowledge, we would change the world of poultry medicine. It was an opportunity to relieve the strain of studying the apparent absurdity of the details we were being asked to learn by having an hysterical five minutes. There were scores of these daft but important tension-relieving moments during our last year living together.

  The third year of the course quickly came and went. Angela and I had planned to get married at this time, and we duly were, at St Philip and St James’s Church, Hucclecote, in 1963. Angela moved up to Liverpool - the hitch-hiking had been fun but time-consuming, and it was time that could be put to more valuable use. Perhaps today we would simply have moved in together, but at that time to do so would have been considered outrageously socially unacceptable. There were also benefits in the veterinary world of being a ‘married man’.

  Our final year was spent out of Liverpool at a rural field station on the beautiful Cheshire Wirral peninsula. Here the Vet School staff did their best to lick us into shape before letting us loose on an unsuspecting public. There was no let-up in the number of daily lectures and there seemed no end to the quantity of medical facts you were expected to remember. Theory was interspersed with demonstrations and practical work in the cobbled yards, paddocks and classrooms of the old country house that we fondly knew as Leahurst. Now it was hands-on time, though no doubt a few of the animals probably wished we’d kept our hands to ourselves. The classic image of the farm vet is one of spending his day standing at the rear of a cow with one arm somewhere inside her. For those who have never dared ask why we actually do this, it is the basic examination for pregnancy. A competent vet will carry out this procedure quickly with the minimum of discomfort to the patient, but even the most experienced has to start somewhere, and it may well have been in a paddock at Leahurst.

  This usually quick procedure, when first attempted, tends to be a more protracted affair and the student’s first impression on inserting his or her arm is to encounter only a handful of slurry-like substance. Eventually the hand detects an enlargement of the cow’s uterus, indicating pregnancy, and the student cries ‘Eureka!’ before it’s the turn of the next in line. Needless to say, by the time the last of the six students in the group has attempted to detect signs of pregnancy, the poor cow is wishing we would all go home and give her some rest.

  At the end of a taxing week, an amusing hour on Friday afternoon was often spent around a horse presented to us with no health history. For the purpose of the exercise students were not told if the animal was at Leahurst for an in-depth investigation for a serious complaint or just happened to be a healthy horse borrowed from a local riding school. It was amazing how our enquiring minds ran riot and by the end of the session we had suggested the early stages of just about every known disease of the horse. More often than not we were told that we had been examining a fit and healthy animal for the last hour. But these sessions were never a waste of time. After all, the amused staff argued, ‘If you cannot recognise a healthy animal, how on earth will you recognise a sick one?’ At the end of every tutorial we were always told to remember one thing; ‘You won’t always know the answer, but you can always use your common sense.’

  Soon I would have those magical letters after my name, BVSc MRCVS, and I would be looking for a job. We started to look seriously at the job adverts in the vets’ weekly journal, the Veterinary Record. It is difficult to believe now that so many job advertisers stated that a married man was preferred. This discrimination would certainly be frowned on today. Anyway, luckily for me I was one of them. Au revoir Liverpool. Look out Cotswolds, here we come! We’re on our way back, to stay this time …

  CHAPTER TWO

  A VET ON ROUTE 66

  In the summer of 1966, can you believe that anything could be more important than watching England winning the World Cup? In my case something could. The euphoria of being a newly-qualified vet was still burning and it was time to look for that job I had dreamed of for years. I scanned the back pages and the vacancy columns of the Veterinary Record each week. Most of the advertisements were still looking for that ‘married man’, which at that time was accepted as a normal preference, so at least I did not have to worry about getting wed in a hurry.

  Actually, the advertiser was usually as interested in the spouse as the actual vet, for honourable reasons. Without mobile phones, somebody had to look after the practice phone, take out-of-hours calls, give reassuring advice to clients, and pass messages on to the farm where the husband was out calving the cow. Now who would be prepared to do that job for nothing? Right first time – the vet’s wife, of course.

  On a dreary wet August evening, Angela and I trundled along the road from Gloucester to Cirencester in our little grey Austin A30. For most of the journey the swishing windscreen wipers were working overtime. We loved this car. A couple of years previously it had belonged to a Liverpool solicitor. It wasn’t a car you usually associated with solicitors, but when he advertised it in the Liverpool Echo, one hoped he was on the brink of promotion and not desperation. He drove it to our Liverpool flat in Brookdale Road one misty November evening, and my pre-sales inspection was carried out with a torch under the light of a street lamp. I do appreciate that the RAC would have suggested a more cautious time and place. But it did belong to a solicitor and, fortunately, he was an honest one.

  His reassurances regarding the car, care and reliability were backed up by bundles of garage service bills. We shook hands and I happily parted with £100 of my hard-earned cash. We knew it was money well spent and the next few days were spent polishing, lubricating and adding every affordable additive to the water coolant, the oil and fuel.

  The regard was reciprocal. In the worst of weathers, even on those occasions when the car was partly buried in snow, the little banger always fired first time when you turned the key. But enough about cars! Angela and I were on our way to our second interview.

  The first one had been held in the picturesque Cotswold village of Winchcombe, where the local community have had pride in their Sudeley Castle, steeped in royal history, for centuries. It was a popular holiday home for Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, where he enjoyed the hunting in the area and the hospitality that Sudeley offered. In recent times, for better or for worse, the village has become famous as a centre of nuptial activities for rich actresses and their pop star entourage. I don’t suppose Henry would have been too concerned about pre-nuptial agreements. He seemed to have his own ideas on how marriage problems should be settled.

  That particular interview had gone quite well, but it had gone on for a long time. Angela was at one stage left with the principal’s better half while he and I made off to his surgery, which was in a delightful position in the main village square. By strange coincidence it happened to be the start of surgery consulting time and the first customers of the day were waiting at the door. The patient was a small Dachshund that had been under treatment for a few weeks. I was introduced to the owner and Mr White, the vet, suggested to his client that it was an ideal opportunity for Mr Smith to take a look at Jasper, the apprehensive-looking dog. I had never heard of an interview where the applicant actually got involved in ongoing cases, but it was, I supposed, a chance to demonstrate what I knew. I was conscious of Mr White taking notes on a clipboard he had brought with him from the house.

  With an attempt at some sort o
f bedside manner I gave Jasper a quick once-over before pushing a thermometer into his rear end. It was 102.5°F, a neither here nor there temperature, though perhaps my insertion technique had been enough to raise his temperature a little. The recent history of any case in diagnosis is critically important, but in this instance everything I asked seemed to be answered reluctantly. It quickly became clear that all my questions had been asked before, perhaps many times over. Jasper’s submandibular lymph glands were enlarged, as were the prescapular glands, and there was evidence of a much more widespread lymphatic system involvement.

  Even as a newly qualified vet I knew this was likely to be a very serious problem. What on earth was I supposed to tell the client? What was I doing on this side of the consulting table at an interview anyway? Was I supposed to be demonstrating to Mr White and Jasper’s owner that I had been trained to examine an animal competently? Or was the principal looking for a second opinion, or just anybody’s opinion?

  Eventually we returned to Mr White’s house, the clipboard tucked firmly under his arm. After five hours, with Mr White still making notes on us, we excused ourselves. We dived into our trusty little A30 and headed back to Hucclecote as fast as the Austin would take us. A few days later I received a kind letter and the offer of a job in Winchcombe. With every respect and consideration, I declined it.

  This particular evening our destination was Crudwell. This village, between Cirencester and Malmesbury, is probably better known today than it was in the 1960s, both as a tourist attraction and now a dormitory for Cirencester and beyond. The population has doubled, and the village has grown in size, but it still has the old-world charm that we enjoyed when we were younger. The box number in the advertisement to which I had replied described the practice as being on the Wiltshire/Gloucestershire border, and it was looking for a young vet with a minimum of one year’s experience. ‘Good working conditions’ were offered, and ‘salary commensurate with experience’. I had no experience whatsoever to offer, but as I philosophically (though slightly nervously) uttered to Angela en route,‘Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained’.

  We sped out of Cirencester on the road to Tetbury and quite soon turned sharp left, hoping that our intention had been made clear to all other road users in the vicinity by the flick of the dashboard switch and the lifting of a short amber arm from somewhere on the nearside body of the car. The little ‘signal trafficator’ was not always obvious to other drivers and the basic manoeuvre of turning left or right frequently led to some hairy moments and the blaring of horns from all directions. It was only a short time before flashing light indicators were mandatory on all cars – fortunately before road rage had evolved.

  We knew that our left turn would soon bring us to Crudwell, which we could see on our tattered road atlas was somewhere between Kemble and Malmesbury. The rain had stopped by the time we reached the semi-detached farmhouse where ex-Army Major Hubert Leslie Evans lived. We walked up the muddy path to the small green door, which opened before we had time to knock on it. I should say here that few people referred to Mr Evans as Hubert. Some of his friends called him Hugh, but most of the clients, and just about everyone else, called him Taff. Hugh held out a large chubby hand and invited us into his front room. He appeared to be a charming, well-built jovial Welshman in his mid-forties who asked us to be seated and offered us a cup of tea. We chatted mainly about my recent college history and Mr Evans told us about his practice – which was mainly agricultural – his ambitions and the reason for the vacancy. He let us know that he had already interviewed many candidates for the job but had not considered any of them suitable. I wondered what he must be thinking of me and my lack of experience, but we seemed to get on well. At times he became a little excited, particularly when I asked a technical question or something resembling one, and he began to stammer and stutter. He gave the impression of being a lonely bachelor and there appeared to be no end to his generosity. After an hour or so, Taff exclaimed he would be delighted if we joined his practice.

  It was customary at the time for most practices to provide rented accommodation for the assistants, usually a flat for the single vet or a house for that married man. To make us feel ‘really comfortable and at home’ Taff had promised to go a step further and buy land from his farmer neighbour and build a bungalow for us, which he hoped would encourage us to have a long association with the practice. While he was organising all of this he wondered if we wouldn’t mind living in the farmhouse he had recently bought across the fields. It was aptly named Odd Farm. This was to be the site of his dream. This was where he would build his veterinary hospital, complete with decorative hanging baskets. It seemed a little odd to us that these should be an item of priority at this stage. As we were shown around the musty old house my wife frequently glanced at me apprehensively.

  ‘Bet she wishes she was back in our Liverpool flat’, I muttered to myself as Taff rambled on. He would not have noticed; he was too anxious to tell us how convenient and sensible it would be having a vet living next door to the hospital.

  ‘It is a bit damp in this house, Mr Evans’, I remarked as politely as possible, looking at the wallpaper peeling off the walls in strips.

  ‘Oh, that’s nothing to worry about’, he replied in his prominent Welsh accent. ‘Just where there’s been nobody living here for a few months. It will soon dry out.’

  We were not really convinced by his reassuring words. He must have been desperate for me to take the job. He sensed our reservations and before we left him that evening he had agreed to sell all the property in the back of beyond and buy another that he had his eye on in the village which would be just as suitable for his hospital. In the meantime he would look for a smaller, warmer, drier place for us to live, just until our bungalow was built of course. We drove home feeling that we had truly fallen on our feet. It would not be long before we discovered that the reality was a little different from the rosy picture painted at the time of our meeting.

  We arranged to take up the post two weeks later. Taff hinted at one stage that it would be quite in order to leave it for a couple of months before making a start, and perhaps we should take a holiday first. The reason for this thoughtful gesture was not so much that time was required to organise the new assistant’s accommodation, but rather to organise his assistants. I had made it clear that with hardly two halfpennies to rub together I needed to start work without delay. This caused a dilemma.

  The present assistant, John Bourne, was leaving the practice to take up a teaching post at the School of Veterinary Science at Bristol University. He was a very accomplished vet on whom Taff had come to rely for the last six years, particularly with regard to surgical cases and difficult clients. In other words, and to be more precise, the practice revolved around his able assistant. When John gave in his notice and explained what his intentions were, Taff hit the roof, panic probably being high on his list of emotions.

  ‘If you are going to Bristol, it’s up to the university to find me a replacement’, he demanded, ‘and I want six months’ notice at least.’

  That was asking a lot even in the 1960s.

  It would be ungracious to suggest that as a result of our interview he went cap in hand to John, but despite all that had been said, Taff did meekly ask if he would consider leaving at the end of the month. A compromise was reached and for a month or so the practice had two assistants. In hindsight, for a new graduate with no experience, things worked out very well. John was a natural teacher and for my first few weeks in practice I had my own personal tutor, who frequently reminded me that ‘the day you qualify is the day you start to learn’. I must have repeated those words on innumerable occasions to students and newly qualified vets over the years.

  The two weeks that followed the interview went quickly. Each day we waited in vain for a note in the post telling us that Mr Evans had found one dry place for us to live in Crudwell village. With just a few days to go before the starting date I telephoned him for a progress report. I left t
he smoky red telephone box feeling rather down. Clearly he had not done anything at all about our accomodation, and I would have to pass on the disappointing news to Angela.

  ‘Would we mind moving into Odd Farm just for a short time?’ he had pleaded.

  We dreaded the thought of it, but at this late stage our options were limited. We could with good reason let him know that we had changed our minds about taking up the position, or we could grin and bear it and move into the dilapidated farmhouse. We desperately needed work and so we chose the latter.

  Angela made a few rooms look homely during our first weekend. Although it was early autumn we lit fires to reduce the level of humidity in the place. She put up kitchen, bedroom and lounge curtains even though it was difficult to imagine anyone looking in when you are in the middle of nowhere. We put light bulbs in every room. Whoever was last out had taken all the bulbs with them.

  On our first Sunday evening we were pleased to spot some car headlights approaching across the fields and wondered who our visitor might be. Taff alighted from his Cortina Estate and we naturally assumed the principal of the practice was paying us a courtesy visit to wish us good luck at the start of a successful career. In the twenty minutes he spent with us it became clear that thoughts of our success and good fortune was clearly not on his mind. By now we were no longer surprised that he failed to mention an early move to somewhere a little more comfortable. Instead he had come with an astonishing suggestion.

  ‘I think it would be a good idea you know, Ivor, if you were on duty every night for the first month so that you can get to know where the farms are.’

  ‘In the dark?’ I thought to myself. Grudgingly I acknowledged his request, knowing that it was probably not wise to get on the wrong side of the boss at this stage.