Respite

It's been a long time since I've written on my blog. I've been in respite care for 8 weeks while my wife Margaret had a replacement knee operation.

Poor cat

I was working on my yard. The neighbour across the road was mowing grass for haymaking. He came and asked me if we had a black cat. I told him yes we did. He told me he thought he had caught one in his mowing machine.

My wife and I went looking but there was no sign of the cat. We left thinking he was mistaken.

At 2am that night, after we'd gone to bed, I heard a faint miaowing coming from the front room. I went downstairs with a torch and there was my cat. Three of its legs and its tail were badly damaged. It just sat there miaowing at me.

I didn't know what to do so I phoned the vet and described the problem. The vet said he could come but only to put it to sleep as there was nothing he could do. The vet said he would come or I could put it to sleep to sleep myself. I asked him if he meant kill it. He said yes, that is all that could be done.

So I called the neighbour who brought his 12 bore shotgun. I couldn't watch but at least it was killed immediately.

The poor cat. It had taken 12 hours to travel from the field to my bedroom window only to be put down. I felt dreadful but what else could I do?

Bicycle race

When I was about nine years old I had a bicycle race with a group of friends around a large field.

For the first three rounds I was well in front of the others but at the beginning of the forth round the chain came off my bike. I had to get off to put the chain on again. But by now the other cyclist were 50 yards in front of me so there was no hope on my catching them up.

I was pedalling along to get back to the finish and I heard this little girl saying to her mother, "Oh mummy, look at him, it's a pity he's last!".

I couldn't explain to them that I had been well in front for the first three rounds. It was very embarrassing!

Singapore

The armed security guard's hand dropped down to his revolver and his left hand lifted up for me to stop, which of course I did, in my wheelchair.

My wife and I were passing through customs in Singapore where everyone was very friendly and pro-British. I asked someone why the armed security guard had appeared so very aggressive. I was told that they are very aggressive against the import of any drugs - drug smuggling can even lead to execution in some cases.

I had heard a little 'ting' sound as I passed through customs, but that was caused by a tin of tobacco and a steel stemmed pipe that were in my pocket (I gave that obnoxious habit up many years ago). Nothing prohibited on me!

Memories

I was reflecting the other day on the happiest and also the saddest days of my life.

The happiest was of course June 4th 1955, when I married - who I thought then, and still think of as now - the loveliest and most sensible girl in the world.

The saddest without doubt was in 1941, when I was 11.

I had a little brother called Idwal. He was 3 years old. I can see him now, sitting on the fifth stair up, reading my comic 'The Hotspur' upside down with a mischievous grin on his face! He used to say you can't have it, coz I haven't finished reading it yet! Then a few seconds later he would give it to me!

A few months later my Mother was holding Idwal on her knee when she noticed his breathing was husky. She said to my Father we'd better take him to hospital, which they did. We left him there for treatment.

The following day Mr Williams from the power station came to our house (because we didn't have a phone) to say the hospital had rung to say that they should go there as soon as possible. They went.

They came back a couple of hours later. My Father was very quiet and my Mother was crying. I asked what was wrong and she said that Idwal had died of pneumonia.

I prayed every night for weeks that there had been a silly mistake, to no avail!

Scores of years later we had five lovely children and lots of equally superb grandchildren. Not a day goes by that I fail to realise that we cannot take anything for granted.

Brucellosis

I could never have achieved anything without my wife's constant support. As it said in our marriage vows in on 4 June 1955, 'In sickness and in health'. And thank GOD Margaret has always enjoyed relatively good health, albeit with rheumatic knees now.

In the past, I had a bad bout of Brucellosis (Brucella melitensis or 'Malta fever'), a dreadful condition which I contracted when I was working as a tractor driver at Saighton in Cheshire. My employer had it and I saw how he suffered. You catch it from infected cows.

When Margaret and I were establishing our Guernsey herd I took every precaution to ensure that our herd remained Brucella-free, getting rid of any cows which had aborted straight away and immunising all our calves with S19 vaccine (which protects them from getting the Brucella bug). When the anti-Brucella law came into force in the 50s ours was the first herd in North Wales to become Brucella-free.

Then, when that dreadful Foot and Mouth disease broke out in the 60s, thousands of cows, sheep and pigs (any animal with cloven feet) had to be shot and burnt. Obviously, I was worried sick. Every night, when I was milking our beautiful herd of about 65 Guernsey cows, my daughter or someone in our household would come out to our shippon to tell me how many F&M outbreaks had happened that day.

The strain on me was tremendous and the Brucella - which had been lying dormant in my body - flared up again. Margaret said that some nights the bedclothes would be very wet with my perspiration and I would shiver with cold.

My Doctor had to notify the Health Authority as to how I had got the Brucella bug, particularly as our herd had been declared Brucella-free. The Health Authority checked back in their records and confirmed that I had had the bug in my body for 20 years, but that it had lain dormant until this dreadful strain on my body caused it to flare up.

Nowadays, with all UK herds now Brucella-free, the public (and I) are quite safe. But that condition was the most dreadful of all.

Foot and mouth

There is much in the news about that horrific Foot and Mouth Disease that has struck the UK again.

I remember with dread when FMD struck us in the 1960s.

I was milking our lovely pure bred Guernsey herd of 70 cows plus their followers (calf heifers, heifers and calves). All of our cows were home-reared by myself, something that I and my family loved doing very much. FMD was coming rather too close to our farm. Every night when I was milking, one of my two daughters or my wife would come to tell me after the evening news that the outbreaks were down to 40. I would breathe a sigh of relief, only to be told the following night that there were up to 70 new outbreaks. The tension was horrific. I swore that if our herd got FMD the first to be shot had to be me. And I meant it!

The stress was so dreadful. The 'brucella bug', which I had contracted whilst working on a large Cheshire farm many years earlier and which had been lying dormant, flared up again.

Thank God, our Guernsey herd did not get FMD disease. But I was very ill for quite a long time.