Memoirs of a Cotswold Vet

by Ivor Smith

  The next morning I jumped into the Austin and drove to Taff’s house. After a tedious hour spent in his kitchen listening to what seemed idle telephone chat to all and sundry he took me to his office and introduced me to his secretary/book keeper Mrs Edwards, a local middle-aged lady who welcomed me to the practice. The office was actually an ancient holiday caravan sited at the front of the house.

  Taff clearly enjoyed farming. Between the caravan and the lane was a group of young cattle in one side of an enclosure, and a number of sows with their litters on the other. Several young pigs were wandering around. I was surprised to see that the animals were covered in mud and most of the calves were more than ankle-deep in mire. It had been a wet summer and it was boggy ground, but I did not feel it was my business to question the husbandry further.

  I asked about a calf that was alone in one of the pens.

  ‘Oh that one’s been lame for a day or so, Ivor. You might like to have a look at him when we get back later?’ It wasn’t until the following day that I had an opportunity to examine this calf. A day later I was treating it for a limb fracture. How the calf suffered a broken leg we shall never know.

  My first morning, and most of that week, I spent being chauffeured by my boss from farm to farm and being introduced to clients. An often-stuttering Taff explained that I was the veterinary replacement for John, who would be leaving the practice shortly. John was highly thought of by the farmers and I became accustomed to watching their faces drop at the news and suffering the comment, ‘He’ll be a hard act to follow’, or similar sentiments. It tested my confidence to the limit and I began to wonder if I should ever have accepted the job.

  We arrived back at the office for a lunchtime break early in the afternoon. I knew Angela would be waiting at home eager to hear how I had enjoyed my first morning in practice, but I was surprised to find her waiting outside the back door of the house. She looked anxious.

  ‘Ive, I can’t go back into that house, there are mice everywhere!’

  I opened the back door and walked cautiously across the stone floor. She was not exaggerating; I met several in the first minute. There was not a room in the house they were not occupying. Clearly the warmth and smell of good cooking had been enough to entice them out, or in. We decided to skip lunch and made a beeline for the largest ironmonger in Cirencester.

  ‘Yes sir’, the shop assistant replied to my query, ‘we do have mousetraps. How many would you like?’

  ‘That’s great; I’ll take all of them!’ We left with twenty traps and without delay positioned them strategically around the house. The traps snapped at frequent intervals and were reset. We lay in bed that night listening to the sound of traps going off in distant rooms as the mice were caught.

  ‘God, I hope we don’t hear them go off in here’, Ange said as she buried her head under the sheets. At 6 o’clock the next morning I quietly slipped out of bed and crept downstairs carrying two traps from the bedroom that needed resetting.

  Later that morning I reported for duty at the caravan at 8.30 sharp. A plague of mice was not something Taff was particularly interested in, but already we had a further complaint. In some places the walls were drying out and in other places they were getting wetter, particularly at floor level.

  ‘Just a matter of time before it all dries out’, he remarked philosophically after a two-minute inspection and without applying much logic. At the end of the week I insisted on a further inspection as in some areas the plaster was so soggy it was in danger of falling off the walls. For the first time he looked a little concerned and agreed there might be a problem.

  ‘I’ll get my builder to have a look at it next week’, he said, reassuringly.

  Despite our roaring fires the walls deteriorated over the next few days. Eventually the builder arrived and pulled up the floor in the lounge. He must have thought he had found a lake. For some reason every drop of water from the bathroom discharged straight under the floorboards, and we were adding to the deluge by at least two bathfuls a day.

  At the end of my first week I could look back with some satisfaction. I had spent much time with John and gained a lot of practical experience. Angela and I quickly started to enjoy Crudwell life and began to appreciate the company of our neighbours. The farm closest to our house was run by Stanley Baldwin and his wife. They milked a small herd of about thirty cows and supplied us with milk, eggs and, more importantly, gossip. The couple were in their mid-fifties and struggled to adapt to the changes in lifestyle that the 1960s had brought about. The first time Angela collected milk from his little dairy, Stanley was delighted to demonstrate his recently installed lighting system in the cowshed. He seemed to believe it was almost a miracle that he could now switch off the lights from either end of the shed on his way out, no matter which end they had been switched on.

  Stanley’s driving was best suited to deserted country lanes. Motorways were a new experience and he clearly had difficulty coming to terms with a new set of rules of the road. He generously offered to take Angela and his wife on a trip to look at the recently constructed Severn Road Bridge. Having completed the mission Stanley felt that it was rather a waste of time and petrol to continue along the motorway, but unable to spot a turning he commenced to manoeuvre to the outside lane in order to do a U-turn. Angela’s yells from the rear made him realise he might perhaps be doing something wrong. After tactfully bringing him up to date with the new rules, he grudgingly continued in the same direction.

  Stanley was a chap you could not be cross with for long. He just seemed to be someone who was unaware that rules applied in life, even when they were unwritten. I am sure it never occurred to him that sometimes his veterinary neighbour might not be on duty and would really appreciate some sleep, especially at 5 o’clock in the morning. One chilly November morning we were woken by the unusual sound of objects hitting our bedroom window and muffled noises coming from below. We recognised Stanley’s voice calling out, ‘Mr Smith, Mr Smith’. I opened the window as he prepared to chuck his next handful of gravel in my direction. I suspect that he often communicated in this manner, but perhaps only in times of necessity. Needless to say, Stanley had yet to delve into the advantages of being on the telephone.

  ‘Can you come and see my cow? I’ve just found her down on the ground and I think she’s got a touch of milk fever.’

  ‘Certainly’, I answered, trying to sound cheerful and disguise the ‘first thing in the morning’ look my wife insists that I have.

  ‘Be with you in a few minutes’, I shouted down, as I fumbled for my jeans.

  Half an hour later, Stanley’s freshly calved cow had been given a large intravenous dose of calcium and was back on her feet. Hypocalcaemia, or milk fever, is a potentially life-threatening illness, and was, and still is, a very simple and satisfying problem to treat. He was grateful for my promptness, and in return I was grateful to him for including Angela in their weekly shopping trip to Cirencester.

  The shopping ritual began early each Friday morning when Stanley and his wife were picked up by Mr and Mrs Keen – Ivy and Percy – in their immaculate Jaguar. Friday was really the only time this beautiful car saw the light of day. Behind the powerful engine lay a spacious leather interior. Anything smaller and Ivy would have been unable to get in. She was a rotund lady, but kind and always jovial. Each week Angela squeezed in with the ladies and caught up on the village gossip. We were always intrigued to hear what Taff had been up to in recent days that we had not heard about, and not surprisingly Taff was the centre of the conversation within minutes. There never was a dull moment with Taff.

  It was the Keens’ misfortune to be living in the other half of the semi-detached farmhouse to Taff. I do not know how this arrangement came about but we knew from experience how persuasive he could be.

  We began to wonder what had become of the person we had met at our interview. This one certainly had a short fuse and, living next door, Mrs Keen saw the worst of his temper all too often. One morning, from her
window, she watched Taff enter his caravan office to speak to a farmer client on the phone. As he left and stepped down the few steps, the telephone rang again. For some reason he showed his irritation by slamming the caravan door hard enough for it to break the hinges. Mrs Keen watched in amazement as the pantomime was repeated, but when the telephone rang on the next occasion, the slamming of the door caused it to part company with the caravan and it fell to the ground.

  On their way to Cirencester one Friday, Angela and the farmers’ wives as usual swapped stories of their week’s events, but it was of Mr Evans’ tale that the majority in the car awaited news.

  ‘You’ll never guess what he did this week’, Ivy began. All knew that anything was possible.

  ‘Well, he was going out to feed his pigs with a bucket of meal in both his hands when the phone went. Mrs Edwards called from the caravan to say a farmer wanted to speak to him, and that it was urgent.’ Ivy chuckled as everyone in the car waited to hear what was coming next.

  ‘I can’t come now. Can’t you see I’m busy?’ he shouted back.

  ‘But he says it’s very urgent and he must speak to you now’, replied an anxious Mrs Edwards, wondering what the reaction would be. Taff’s response was maniacal. The air turned blue as, among other things, he ranted about always being at the farmers’ beck and call.

  ‘I’d never heard words like it before’, Ivy declared piously, ‘so I told him to go and wash his mouth out with soap and water.’ Mrs Keen must have rubbed salt into the wound, for Taff responded by throwing the buckets of pig food into the air. He was standing under a large apple tree.

  ‘All the apples came down on his head!’ roared Mrs Keen, her sides almost splitting.

  The days and weeks went quickly, for me anyway. For most of the day Angela was home alone apart from the odd mouse for company. It was a lonely existence, which she frequently relieved by walking to one of the neighbouring farms for a chat.

  We had another unusual neighbour. Across the fields, farmer Stanley’s grounds adjoined RAF Kemble, which at this time was the base of the famous Red Arrows flying team. As the planes flew past, their wings tip to tip as they soared and dived, they provided us with unique entertainment. We were sure that Odd Farm was a marker for some of their dazzling practice runs. It was not unusual to see a couple of jets diving silently towards the farmhouse. If you missed them coming toward you, you certainly did not miss them leaving as they roared off into the distance. Even when Taff was not around there never seemed to be a dull moment.

  The end of my first month in the job came and went. Things were not turning out as we had expected but I was beginning to gain that all-important experience. I particularly enjoyed the company of assistant John, with whom, in theory anyway, I was on a par. At my interview with Mr Evans I had eventually brought up the subject of money, an issue which appeared to be of more importance to me than to him. It transpired that the starting salary I had in mind was the amount he was paying John. He agreed to pay me the same without any negotiation at all. What a generous man, we thought.

  There was a special sense of excitement carrying out night visits, albeit in the company of another vet. Usually we attended a cow having difficulty calving or down with milk fever, or calves with pneumonia, or a bitch having a problem whelping. Occasionally it was something a little different.

  One evening John and I treated a herd of milking cows that had broken into a food store and eaten a huge amount of concentrated feed. This was a nightmare to treat, one of the problems being that usually you had no idea which animal had eaten what and how much. It was not simply a case of a herd of cows suffering from indigestion. The complications that could rapidly develop from gorging rich cereal food frequently led to fatalities.

  Typically, when you arrived at a farm to treat such a case, you were greeted by a farmer in a state of shock and a herd with some of the cows looking normal and others staggering around the yard. Untreated, some of the cows would die as the contents of the stomach became increasingly more acidic: this acid corrosion resulting in stomach erosion. Treatment could involve performing rumenotomy, where surgery is carried out on the largest of the cow’s stomachs and the food physically removed by hand. Most would receive large volumes of intravenous fluids. Some may not recover even with treatment and would need to be sent for emergency slaughter as quickly as possible. Deciding which receives treatment and which you slaughter is sometimes a very difficult choice.

  As we drove back through the village, John suggested we called in at The Plough for a quick pint, which I was more than happy to agree to. As we walked across the road to the pub, John, whose thirst for knowledge and teaching was insatiable, asked with great interest what I had been taught at Liverpool about cereal over-eating in cattle. I knew that I was about to hear the latest research on the subject. We supped our pints and the viva continued. I remember those ‘end of the day’ occasions with pleasure. Perhaps we had discovered the true meaning of a ‘thirst for knowledge’.

  The Plough in the 1960s was a typical old-fashioned English village pub, attracting occasional visitors during the day, but acting mainly as the rendezvous for the locals at night. The darts board was in constant demand. The players may have been farm labourers by day but their mental arithmetic at night – as they calculated what was needed at the next throw – was astonishing. I often watched in amazement. Today it is still an appealing pub but it now has the added attraction of a fine restaurant. No doubt the business is run on more formal lines than forty years ago when we were customers. At closing time back then the front door was locked at 11 p.m., sometimes with the regulars on the inside, and drinking continued until everyone decided it was time to go home. On one occasion, allegedly, the local bobby knocked on the door late one night.

  ‘If you’re coming in’, the landlady shouted, ‘Put your bicycle round the back.’

  It was the end of my first month in practice and for all the obvious reasons I looked forward to pay day. It is normal practice in most businesses to pay your staff for their efforts at the end of the month, or at least early the next. In Mr Evans’ practice a cheque had still not materialised halfway through the second month and every daily request was met with a strange new reason for not paying. I gave in my notice and sure enough the next day the cheque appeared.

  There was a repeat performance the following month, but on this occasion I was determined to leave the practice without further delay unless prompt payment was combined with an effort to move us out of the isolated, cold, damp farmhouse. A chilly Wiltshire winter was fast approaching. The end of the third month became the final demand. Things were beyond a joke and our sense of humour had evaporated.

  Then, as unexpectedly as ever, Taff surprised everyone. At the 8.30 briefing one morning he was pleased to report that he had some pleasant news for me. Perhaps he was about to announce that he was going to pay me this month before I handed in my notice for the fourth time.

  ‘I have decided to sell Odd Farm and I have bought a place in the village, Ivor, which I think would make a much better veterinary hospital’, Taff pronounced. I looked for somewhere to sit before I fell down.

  ‘I think you will be happier there as well’, he added, more quietly. It sounded like a bit of an afterthought. His predictions were at least half right. I could not stop thinking how much he sounded like Aneurin Bevan giving a major parliamentary speech on profound social changes in the Valleys as he proudly rambled on. ‘Wonder where the hanging baskets will go?’ I thought. Hugh Evans finally had his veterinary dream, even if they did seem a little over-ambitious, and suddenly our world was much brighter, warmer and drier. We were on the move again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  IN AT THE DEEP END

  The property Taff had bought in the centre of the picturesque village of Crudwell was, to be fair, an assistant’s dream. Ridgeway Farm was to one side of the village green. By the 1960s the grounds of the farm had been incorporated into neighbouring farms and only the old farmhouse a
nd outbuildings remained, on opposite sides of a gravel yard. For many years it was the base for a haulage company owned by the Carpenter family, who had now reached retirement age. In his usual fashion Taff had used charm and persuasion to do a deal with Mrs Carpenter, apparently, so they say, leaving her late one night mentally exhausted following a long-winded negotiating session. And by means fair or foul he had struck a bargain, which he told me included generously writing off her outstanding veterinary fees.

  The house itself was very old indeed, probably dating back to the seventeenth century, and was believed to have once been used as a candle factory. Upstairs there was not a level floor in the place. It was an enjoyable place to make a home, and it had been sympathetically brought into the twentieth century by the installation of oil-fired central heating, which was more than a little welcome in December. Previous owners had fortunately retained its charm and sense of history but modern furniture blended in well and from time to time we bought items from the G-Plan range when there was something left over from the monthly payments on the cooker, washing machine and bed.

  We had persuaded Mr Evans that his insistence on using the study in our house as the practice office was not a good idea. The thought of having to repair the hinges of our doors following an unwelcome telephone call was unimaginable, and, in any case, logic stipulated that the office should be inside the new hospital on the other side of the yard.

  It was not long before the plans had been drawn up and proudly displayed to everyone. They were impressive. The large Cotswold-stone barn would house a reception area, a large waiting room, kennel rooms, operating theatres and most of the facilities found in a modern veterinary hospital. The building itself was big enough to include two apartments, one for Taff and a smaller one for his second assistant. To be charitable it was good forward planning, but even to an inexperienced young vet the project did not make good business sense. Clearly Taff’s heart was ruling his head. Where was the money coming from to pay for all this?