Billy's seventh heaven was ratting

BILLY'S SEVENTH HEAVEN WAS RATTING

Meadow Cottage, East Sussex, May 2010

Billy was the first dog with whom I became on intimate terms. He had been rescued as a stray by my father who, in his retirement, took a perverse delight in mixing with the poachers and gypsies in our North Kent village just after the second war.

Billy came home in Dad's overcoat pocket - a small, worried, black and white terrier-style mongrel puppy, with a docked tail. He was never trained, but showed an inherent taste for good manners from the outset.

Seldom on a lead, he swaggered through the neighbouring gardens and fields like the gypsy he was. As an adolescent, he developed into a muscular, bright-eyed, well-behaved delight, and I was encouraged to take him with me into the farms and fields on which I was working in those early '50s

Thus he entered the canine seventh heaven of days spent ratting, digging-up non-existent rabbits and basking in the sunshine of those wide-open spaces. And on winter evenings, full of food, came the daily ecstasy of having his back scratched with an ancient brass toasting fork by the nearest member of the family before settling down with an audible sigh with his back to the inglenook fireplace - a habit which more than once caused consternation as the acrid smell of his singeing coat wafted through the house.

On the farms he mixed well with other animals and, from the first, would walk so single-mindedly though a field of sheep that they might not have existed for him.

He covered many miles trotting in the mark of the landwheels of the tractor when I was ploughing, pausing only to look back with a lolling tongue to check that I was following, and going about his canine business when we reached the headlands.

He was a welcome companion on cold mornings in the milking parlour although I doubt the Milk Marketing Board would have appreciated his grinning, muddy presence in the adjoining dairy. Billy was, in fact , an indefatigable mate in all weathers and in all places, who frequently - like Jumble in the William books - shared my packed lunch virtually mouthful for mouthful.

He was also indefatigable rake, known for miles around as he doggedly followed the straightest line to the current in-season bitch. In fact it was, as a rheumaticky, dim-sighted 15-year-old that he rather suddenly met his Maker as he was setting out yet another such amorous foray.

We buried him there, virtually on the spot,in the countryside he knew and loved so well, and I am quite sure would have appreciated the site of the grave with a whiskery leer.

Terrier

Picture from Rob Shore at Flickr, Creative Commons licence.

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