Alan the Christmas Donkey

by Tracy Garton

  The Mismatches were all pratting around as usual too. But with horror I realised the Hooligans’ field was completely empty. Alan and twelve of his naughty donkey pals were gone.

  It wasn’t the first time it had happened, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Sometimes I wondered whether those donkeys kept a secret supply of power tools stashed in the bushes, as they seemed to have a knack of getting the gates off the hinges. That day the timing couldn’t have been worse.

  ‘I bet they’ve done it on purpose just to wind me up,’ I groaned to Steve. ‘I’ll grab the head collars.’

  Any hope of a little lie-in to soothe my aching head was long gone. When the Hooligans embarked on an adventure they would not be easily tempted back. The trouble with keeping the naughtiest donkeys together was that they egged each other on. I could bet Alan was the ringleader, though. Deciding to get up to mischief on the one day I really needed him not to was exactly his type of game.

  A few minutes later Steve and I shuffled down the road into the village. Thankfully, with it being Boxing Day, no one else seemed to be up and about yet.

  ‘Where shall we start?’ Steve asked, looking around for any sign that our donkeys were about.

  ‘The bloke said he lived by the pub, so let’s work from there,’ I said.

  We plodded down towards the Axe and Cleaver just in time to see a donkey’s arse disappear around the corner, heading up the long untarmacked driveway opposite.

  ‘I reckon that was Billy,’ I panted, jogging across the road brandishing a head collar.

  Steve followed close behind. We caught Billy with his head in the hedge, having a good look to see what grub he could find.

  ‘No you don’t, you’re coming with me,’ I said, fastening the head collar before he even had time to realise the game was over.

  One down, eleven to go.

  ‘Up here, Tracy,’ Steve called to me from further up the driveway.

  Of course it was Dolly Daydream. If Billy was around, she’d never be far. They were like a match made in heaven. So, tugging Billy behind me, I went up to pass Steve a second head collar. He wasted no time in capturing her too.

  Dolly Daydream was the one donkey I knew would be no trouble to capture. She’d never known anything but kindness as she was actually born at the sanctuary. She had complete trust in humans. Her mother, Josephine, was dumped at the sanctuary one afternoon back in 1995. She was old and incredibly thin. In fact, when the vet saw her he said, ‘If I had a vase as old as that donkey, I’d be rich.’ We started an intensive rota to refeed her, gradually building her strength. Thankfully it worked.

  Then one day I was brushing the mud from her legs when I noticed that she had started developing udders. Alarm bells went off in my head. Surely she couldn’t be pregnant? But when I worked out the dates it was entirely possible she’d been in the early weeks of pregnancy when she arrived. A donkey pregnancy could last as long as fourteen months, and swollen udders were a sure sign that birth was imminent. It wasn’t something I’d had an opportunity to see before as I’d never had a pregnant donkey. I’d read about it, though.

  We called the vet back out, who was delighted to see how healthy Josephine was now. But he confirmed that yes, somehow, she was pregnant. In June 1996 little Dolly Daydream was born, and Josephine was a fantastic mother. She died in 2008, but our Dolly Daydream was a real credit to her. She was a lovely donkey.

  ‘You take these two back, and I’ll keep hunting,’ I said to Steve, passing him Billy’s rope.

  ‘Okey-dokey,’ Steve said.

  ‘You better come back, though. No stopping for a sneaky coffee or a lie down,’ I threatened.

  Then I decided to have a look around at the back of the pub. I crept across the car park at the front, and headed out of the view of the road. There I found Buster, exploring a dangerous-looking pile of rubble. He was always last to bed at night, but he would never pass up an opportunity for a little outing.

  ‘No, Buster, you’ll hurt yourself,’ I warned, as he tentatively placed his foot on top of the pile of old bricks.

  He looked back at me as if he was trying my patience, like a naughty child who wanted to do the one thing that their mum said they couldn’t. But I wasn’t going to give him the chance to find out what happened if he disobeyed me. I fastened the head collar, and pulled him out of harm’s way.

  ‘Now, where are your friends?’ Even if Buster could talk, I knew there was no way he’d give them up. He was enjoying the fun and games far too much.

  I started to make my way to the front of the pub, to see if Steve was on his way back. I looked up just in time to see a donkey pop his head around the corner, see that I was on the warpath, and retreat immediately.

  I’d know that cheeky little face anywhere. It was Alan, but I couldn’t chase him without letting go of Buster. I yanked on the rope and pulled Buster after me. Alan was still loitering at the front of the pub. It was like he was daring me to try to capture him. He knew he had the upper hand. But what he hadn’t banked on was how well I knew him. I couldn’t chase him, he was right about that. However, I did have the one thing he wanted. Treats.

  I rustled in my pocket with my spare hand, producing a handful of ginger biscuits.

  ‘Look what I’ve got for you, yummy biscuits,’ I said, holding them out in front of me so he could see.

  His nostrils twitched, picking up the scent. He was tempted. So was Buster, who shoved his head towards my pocket, trying to nibble the rest of the packet. I passed him a biscuit to keep him quiet for a moment. My negotiation with Alan was reaching the crucial stage. Would he stay for a treat, or would he leg it?

  ‘Do you want one?’ I asked, lobbing a biscuit out on the ground a couple of metres away from me.

  Of course he stayed for a biscuit. With only a second’s thought, he stepped forward and gulped it down. I breathed a sigh of relief as I spotted Steve at the far end of the road. I only had to keep Alan occupied for a few more moments.

  ‘Look, I’ve got lots more,’ I said, waving my handful of crumbs again.

  I threw another out to him, a bit closer to where I was stood this time. Again, he fell for it, and gobbled it down. Steve was closer, and I gave him a desperate look to hurry up. So while I distracted Alan with a third biscuit Steve came up from behind with the head collars he’d taken from Dolly Daydream and Billy. Before Alan knew what was going on, we’d caught him.

  At first he looked horrified that I’d tricked him. Then a look of resignation came over him. It was the end of his adventure. He glanced behind him, and I saw the faces of four more of my donkeys peering out from an open front garden down the road.

  That confirmed everything I needed to know. Alan had been the boss of the whole escapade, and the rest of the donkeys were looking for him to tell them what their next move should be. Well, I had their ringleader now, so it was game over.

  ‘Have you not caused enough trouble this Christmas?’ I asked Alan. ‘You had to ruin my Boxing Day too?’

  He didn’t even pretend to be sorry. I could tell he thought the whole thing was hilarious. I didn’t agree. My headache was even worse than ever, and thanks to Alan and his friends I was pratting around in the village dressed in pyjamas and odd wellies.

  Once I’d led Alan back to the safety of the sanctuary, it didn’t take us long to round up the other escapees. We began leading the last few back just in time for the rest of the village to start waking up.

  ‘You’re up early,’ one woman remarked, as she shifted a bin bag full of ripped-up wrapping paper out of her front door.

  ‘Not by choice,’ I said.

  Then she looked down at my legs and caught sight of my pyjamas.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ she said, trying to hide her amusement.

  Soon they were all back in the field with the gate firmly closed. I headed straight for the kitchen and stood there in a dilemma. Coffee first or bacon? Steve had the same thought.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on, you
get the butties on the go. We’ve earned them,’ he said, grabbing some mugs.

  As we tucked into our greasy hot baps my headache started to subside. And, to my surprise, I began to see the funny side.

  ‘What a morning,’ I chuckled.

  ‘You looked a right sight in those stupid pyjamas,’ Steve said. ‘It’s a good job no one was up, or we’d never be able to show our faces down at the pub again.’

  ‘Don’t blame me, it was all blooming Alan’s fault. I’m sure this whole thing was his idea,’ I said. ‘He picks on me.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Steve rolled his eyes at my conspiracy theory.

  It was true, though. He’d been determined to cause chaos all Christmas. Ruining the Christmas party hadn’t been enough for him. He wasn’t going to let me relax on Boxing Day either. I was just surprised that Christmas Day had been so quiet.

  But when I thought about the past few weeks, I realised that I hadn’t smiled so much in months. Alan’s antics had made my Christmas one to remember, once I’d got over the stress of it all. It was the best Christmas gift I could have had. Nearly a year before, I’d given him the gift of life, scooping him up from that dingy little car park and bringing him home for a life of countryside bliss. He’d given me the perfect present in return – the gift of love and laughter.

  Epilogue

  It would have been great if life had settled down for a while, after the Christmas chaos was behind us. I certainly deserved a bit of time to put my feet up. Deep down I knew there was no chance of that, though. Not with Alan around.

  He revelled in his festive antics for a while. It certainly cemented his position as the sanctuary’s number one troublemaker. I could have sworn the little bugger had a bit of a spring in his step in the weeks that followed, as if he was proud of having given me the runaround. And it wasn’t long before he was back to making mischief again.

  But then something happened that rocked our world to the very core. Dona Pepa, Alan’s closest friend, passed away. This time, there was nothing he could do to save her. I could tell by the vacant look in her eyes that we were losing her. Norrie tried her best to revive her, but her time had come. I made her as comfortable as I could and lay down next to her in the stable. Then she let out a sigh and with that she was gone. I cried and cried, and I could tell that Alan was mourning too. He’d lost his partner in crime, and for a while his appetite for trouble vanished.

  We were all feeling low when a pick-me-up came in an unlikely form. I’d rescued two zedonks, which are rare crosses between a zebra and donkey. Tigger and Humbug were bred in Holland to wild zebra mothers, and they shared a donkey dad. They’d been imported to a farm park in Dorset, but when that closed down the owner was at a loss for what to do with them. The genetic mix had left them almost untameable, so he was struggling to find anyone who’d take them in.

  As usual, I couldn’t refuse an animal in need, so the pair were transported up to Lincolnshire to join the rest of my motley crew. At first they wouldn’t let me near them. They didn’t trust humans, and would happily have trampled me. They were turned out into their own separate field every day to amuse themselves, then returned to the stable yard at night. At least they were safe, warm and being fed. But then one morning I was shocked to see that the stable yard was empty. The gates were closed; however, somehow the zedonks had completely disappeared.

  My panic only subsided when I found them both in the bottom field, grazing with a group of donkeys. We managed to round Tigger and Humbug up, but it wasn’t long before they were showing off their new trick again. They’d learned to jump the gate. It was obvious that they’d decided they wanted to make friends with my donkeys. I’d been worried their behaviour would be too rough, but I was soon proved wrong.

  For some reason, Tigger took a liking to my little Alan. They were a perfect pairing. Alan was happy to indulge Tigger’s rough and tumble games, and the friendship seemed to calm Tigger’s temper too. I felt hugely relieved. I didn’t care whether Tigger liked me or not, as long as I was offering him a better quality of life. Seeing him rolling around on the ground with Alan made me certain he was happy.

  Nowadays, Tigger and Alan are completely inseparable. Alan has retired from the Hooligans, and lives happily with Tigger and the rest of the Mismatches. That’s not to say he’s grown up at all, though. He still causes more trouble than I’d ever have guessed a little donkey could. As always he gives the customers the sad eyes to lure them over with their buckets of carrots, but he’s not fooling me. I know exactly what he’s up to, and the glint in his eye tells me that he knows I’m on to him.

  Alan certainly hasn’t learnt any lessons from his first year of escapades at the sanctuary. Just a few months ago I went out one morning to find that it had absolutely chucked it down overnight. The fields were sodden and flooded in places, and most of the donkeys were sticking to the safety of drier ground. But not my Alan. He’d managed to paddle all the way up to his belly, finding the deepest puddle in the field. It was as if Dona Pepa’s ordeal in the dyke had taught him nothing. I immediately leaped in and dragged him out, and he plodded reluctantly behind me. He hadn’t been in any difficulty; he just wanted to give me a scare. Nothing’s changed there.

  He’s also proved himself to be just as nosy as ever. He hates the thought that there could be any drama going on at the sanctuary without him being involved. Even when Miss Ellie, our huge American Jackstock mare, went into labour he was trying to poke his head into the stable to get a look at the action. Most blokes would have run a mile, but not my Alan.

  Miss Ellie had been pregnant when she came to live at the sanctuary, and waiting for the birth was the most stressful time I’ve ever had. I even got Steve to set up a CCTV link to her stable so I could keep an eye on her from the house in the evening. I called it Ellievision, and it became addictive viewing. Eventually she gave birth to a little male foal we named Derrick, and Steve got stuck in to help with the delivery. I could tell Alan was disappointed that it wasn’t his moment of glory. He was certainly making his presence felt outside with his noisy bray.

  Elsewhere at the sanctuary, our fields are fuller than ever. It’s bittersweet for me. I love seeing the donkeys prancing around, enjoying life. It’s what they should be doing. They shouldn’t be languishing alone in a paddock, or locked in a shed, or being plumped up for the slaughterhouse. But taking in a new resident usually means that they’ve been mistreated or let down in some way by someone else. There’s no pleasure in that.

  I feel so lucky to have the life that I do. It’s a privilege to give the donkeys the opportunity to enjoy however many years they have left. People always ask me how I do it. How I cope with the long hours, the stress, and the fact I’ve never had another day off since my excursion to Twycross Zoo. My answer is always that I don’t need a day off and I don’t want a day off. It’s easy to get out of bed when you’re waking up to the possibility of making a difference. I need them just as much as they need me really.

  That’s why this Christmas, as at every Christmas, I’ll be giving thanks for the things that are important to me. My family, my friends, and of course my donkeys. Alan’s been invited to take part in a local nativity, and I’m still in two minds about whether he’s up to the job. His naughty antics might prove too much for the kids to handle. Whatever happens, though, there’s no doubt how I’ll be celebrating on Christmas Day. I’ll be up bright and early in the fields giving Alan and his friends their festive tipple, although I’ll be hoping that won’t inspire another escape plot this year. Christmas is a time to spend with your loved ones, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be.

  Acknowledgements

  Having the opportunity to put Alan’s adventures down on paper has been an absolute pleasure. On a day-to-day basis I’m so busy mucking out stables, tricking donkeys into taking their medicine, and planning my next rescues that it’s not often I get time to reflect. At the end of the day I flop into bed, ready to get up at 5.30 a.m. to do it all again. But reliving A
lan’s antics has given me no end of laughter. The memories of that bikini photoshoot and his Christmas party shenanigans really are priceless, and I hope they make readers smile too.

  None of this would have been possible without the help of Danielle Hoffman, who helped me to put my story into words. I have to thank Ingrid Connell and the rest of the team at Pan Macmillan, as well as my literary agent Clare Hulton. I would also like to express my gratitude to Jack Falber for his hard work behind the scenes to make this possible, as well as Helen O’Brien for her valuable input and for proofreading the drafts of the manuscript.

  Special thanks must also go to my long-suffering husband, Steve. He only had a budgie before he met me, so he certainly never expected to be sharing his home with so many noisy, smelly donkeys. But he has supported and helped me in every single step I’ve taken to build the Radcliffe Donkey Sanctuary into what it is today. Without him, hundreds of donkeys wouldn’t have had their second chance at life.

  I am also grateful from the bottom of my heart to all the volunteers who have spared their time and energy to help at the sanctuary. I am especially thankful to those who put their faith in what I was trying to achieve right at the beginning, in particular Becky Wade, Laura Stokes, Alex Brown, Sue and Brian Broughton, and not forgetting Kath Thompson, who stayed with us for a week to help the animals settle in when we moved to Huttoft. She still travels from Radcliffe-on-Trent to help me now.

  Whether it’s making cakes to sell in the cafe, helping me to capture the donkeys for a bath, or painting my fences, the volunteers are all worth their weight in gold. I must also thank my mum, Barbara, who still comes to help me out now, and my stepdad, Ken, who sadly died in 2004. He would have been so proud of everything we’ve achieved, and was always ready to dip into his pocket to pay for some donkey feed when times were desperate.

  Without the expertise and patience of our vet, Norrie, our farrier, Russell, and our equine dentist, Tom, the donkeys wouldn’t be living the happy, safe and pain-free lives that they do now. I couldn’t count how many times I’ve been on the phone to them in an emergency, and they’ve always been ready to help.