*
This book was published in November 1960. Five extracts were serialised in the London Evening Standard. But still I was amazed to see a huge coloured billboard showing Dee and Dum in full flight on the paper’s sales stand at the crossroads in the High Street.
I am sure that I walked past pink in the face and was probably mobbed up mercilessly by my friends. Within a fortnight we were in the Evening Standard’s Top Ten bestseller list. The week before there had been extracts from a biography of Lord Curzon and one critic expressed his relief that memories of that ‘Most superior person’ had been fluffed away by a couple of birds! The next day a girl I’d always fancied wrote saying that she’d just walked past Liberty’s in Regent Street and that a whole window was dedicated to my book, with at least three hundred copies on display. I hoped that my chances might improve with her. But no, Dee and Dum didn’t win on that one.
I was to leave Eton for the last time that Christmas. Robert Birley, the Headmaster, asked me to lunch. He said that Dee and Dum had done more good for the school’s image than any other recent publication. That, certainly, was worth a bonus mouse for Dee.
And then BBC Look East rang wanting a live interview. I drifted about in a haze of incredulity with no idea of the fame that was about to hit Dee and Dum. Even Walt Disney played with the idea of an animated cartoon. Often a well-meaning hostess at her daughter’s coming-out party would insist that I sat beside her to talk about owls; whereas all I wanted to do was to be next to her daughter as a prelude to the last dance of the evening, hopefully cheek to cheek.
Often as I walked to work down the King’s Road in London, there would be a pat on my shoulder and a friendly greeting of, ‘Hello, Owls. How’s life?’
And then I left for France and on to Brazil. But owls didn’t forget us. Often, at my mother’s house in Suffolk, a cardboard box with no message, just a plain box, would be on front doorstep and we’d know what was inside: one, two and even, once, three baby owls. We’d become a safe haven for distressed owls. Over fifteen years we nursed and released between eighteen and twenty abandoned tawny and barn owls.
Even in Brazil, owls refused to forget me. I was given two immature least pygmy owls. Tiny little chestnut, yellow-eyed, fierce predators, no bigger than my fist, that live in burrows. An armadillo had probably wrecked their nest. I spent hours with them but failed to make friends, and eventually and very sadly they died of bad chicken heads from the local butcher because I’d run out of fresh sparrows. I was devastated at my failure.
*
Today, I understand that, due to the fame of Hedwig, the owl in the Harry Potter books, perfectly healthy owlets are taken from their nests to be somebody’s Hedwig. I expect many die within days. I implore that this book does not encourage any such robbery. Owls are wild animals and we must do our best to protect them, especially in these times of intense agricultural practices. To look after an owlet is a full-time job. You can’t leave one in a room and expect it to be happy. If you want to help, put up owl boxes. They are effective. Every owl that my mother and I brought up was an orphan or damaged, and our object was to get them back into the wild as soon as possible.
On a balmy autumn evening, with a glass of wine to hand, I sit in the garden a few yards away from where Dee and Dum began to gain enough confidence to return to the wild. I listen with pleasure to the shrill hooting and sharp squawks as the descendants of Dee and Dum (as much Old Etonians as George Orwell and Prince William) squabble with their children and shoo them out, as parents are wont to do.
SEPTEMBER 2016
From yonder ivy-mantled tow’r The moping owl does to the moon complain.
THOMAS GRAY ‘ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD’
THE PORCH OF Debenhams in London’s Oxford Street was filled with a crowd of people; all eyes were fixed on one object. Little did I know that the centre of their attention was my pair of owls in their cage. There they were, squatting on their haunches, quietly contemplating the chattering mass of onlookers. I pushed my way through, excited at the thought of seeing them for the first time for two weeks.
It all started one day late in April when a friend rang me up to tell me he had a nest of tawny owls in his garden; would I like one? Apparently the mother had been shot by a gamekeeper and there were some young orphans left. It annoyed me very much to hear this, as the constant massacre of owls is pointless; they do incomparably more good than harm. On the other hand I was excited to hear about the babies, because owls have always fascinated me. Not thinking of the complications involved, I immediately said ‘yes’. This one word changed the whole routine of my life for a good year.
The nest was in a hollow tree and held two babies. I immediately broached the subject of having them with my parents, who were decidedly against the idea. Who, they asked, would look after them when I went back to school in a week and they had to leave for the Continent? I suggested Susan, our gardener’s daughter. There was no reply to this idea except a quiet ‘Poor thing’ from my sister. However, I knew the answer was ‘no’.
The subject arose again at breakfast with my father, as I thought that if I could persuade him, my animal-loving mother would soon agree. The argument waxed hot and tempers rose. I kept saying that we could not let them die and must save them and bring them up. Then, I had the brainwave of taking the owls back to school with me. They were very small and could not possibly cause any trouble. This complicated the issue rather than simplified it and remarks such as ‘Never heard of such a thing, owls at Eton!’ were frequent. My father is not at his best at the breakfast table. However, a temporary arrangement was reached. I must write to M’Tutor (that is, my House Master) and ask him if I could bring them back to school. If he said yes, wonderful, if no, I hoped Susan would take on the job of nursemaid for me, as she is very fond of animals.
I did not write the letter until two days before school began, only just leaving time for a reply to arrive on the morning before I left home. Meanwhile I collected the owls from their tree fifteen miles away, helped by a very kind friend, Mrs Hawdon. We both went armed with leather gloves and scarves to protect our eyes, as I had read that owls in the mating season are more courageous than any hawk.
I found the hole was just within ladder height and climbed up. Peering in, I could see two small balls of fluffy white down. They seemed to consist only of stomachs and mouths and into these, although the owls were only the size of tennis balls, I could insert my thumb. They were lying in a makeshift nest of old pellets and bones, surrounded by dead rats and mice.
When owls catch their prey – rats, mice, voles, moles, baby rabbits and the occasional fish taken on the surface – they do not necessarily eat it immediately but put it beside their nests. This is a useful habit, as in winter food can be scarce for days on end and so the hungry owl can then resort to this reserve. These stored animals are often decomposed but an owl will eat almost any rotting food.
As I looked at them, I felt very doubtful whether I could hope to rear babies so young; they were only three weeks old. But when the larger, sensing my presence, turned towards me and gave a loud click with its beak I could not resist the temptation to pick them up and put them into a cloth-lined box.
The journey home was uneventful and the owls lay quietly in their box. They were the ugliest baby creatures I had ever seen and at first I felt disappointed.