‘Thou shalt not buy any animal you are not prepared to clean up after. Men and small children have a tendency to lie about their readiness to attend to such matters.’
Thus the lonely existence of an only child continued until the happy coincidence of two not entirely unconnected events. The first involved my disappearance. I was four. This was the 1950s and, apart from reading, listening to the wireless and being helpful around the house, there was not much to keep a child entertained at home.
Parents were relatively unconcerned about their youngsters playing out. In fact, for a mother whose work was staying home, cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing, it was something of a relief to have her offspring out from under her feet for an hour or two. There was none of today’s dire warnings of stranger danger, nor were there enough cars on the road for incessant traffic to be seen as much of a threat. There must have been a degree of parental concern as I was frequently warned not to ‘go off ’. ‘Stay in the garden or the fields or the street where I can keep an eye on you.’
Only, on the day of my disappearance, I was George – the best fictional role-model any growing girl could have and the star of my favourite Famous Five books by Enid Blyton. How I longed to have a name that could be made to sound like a boy’s, to show scant interest in the making of cakes and sandwiches and be the protagonist in whatever adventure I could conjure. Naturally, at my heel, would be the celebrated Timmy. I don’t recall that Timmy was ever held on a lead in the books, he simply ran along obediently by George’s side.
But I knew, whilst still a tiny girl, that even slow-moving traffic could cause devastation. A small boy, the son of a neighbour, had been killed not long before whilst playing under the Co-op grocery van. He’d been crushed as it pulled away and all of us who were used to playing in the street had seen the white, drawn faces of the mothers who comforted the one who had lost her child.
We had stood at our kitchen windows as the cortège with the tiny coffin had driven slowly down the road and had sobbed in sympathy with our own parents. I know now that people would think it silly to compare the threat to an imaginary dog with that of an all-too-real child, but to me, at my young age, the danger was genuine. I was so worried that during our long trip looking for thrills in the village Timmy might run into the road, I had his leash clutched in my hand.
We were gone for hours. We popped into the Co-op store and trailed our feet through the sawdust on the wooden floor, sniffing the pungent aroma of freshly ground coffee and watching the man in the white coat and cap slicing through the huge smelly cheeses with an enormous wire – scary, just like a guillotine. Then he’d cut through a ham with a whirring circular saw, leaning over the counter and asking whether my dog might like a taste. We said thank you, I scoffed the lot and we left and crossed the street to Tom the fruit and veg man who’d been kind enough to return a lost and beloved teddy I’d once left behind. He too welcomed Timmy and me and offered an apple. I declined, explaining that the dog wasn’t keen on fruit and I mustn’t as it was nearly teatime. We set off home, climbing the steep hill, tired by now, and hungry.
For years my mother would describe in exacting detail the moment she saw her diminutive daughter come at last into view, dragging a piece of string behind her and demanding, imperiously, ‘Come along, Timmy, don’t dawdle. We’ll be in terrible trouble if we’re late for tea.’ Until I had my own children, I never understood why mothers, who are hugely relieved at seeing their child safe and sound after long, anxious hours, shout, scream and are furious rather than huggy, kissy and nice. Very cross was what she was. Timmy and I were sent upstairs to my room in disgrace and with no tea. I think she must have sat in the kitchen thinking how much more sensible it would be, should I ever dare to disappear again, for me to be accompanied by a real dog who might provide some protection rather than by a useless figment of my imagination.
Which is when we had the visit from Cousin Winnie. She shared my mother’s Christian name and her penchant for upward mobility. She bred corgis with a pedigree as long as your arm in tacit emulation of the Royal Family. She had a problem. Her prize bitch had shown scant regard for the preservation of the blueness of her blood and had indulged in illicit relations with some mongrel mutt from the wrong side of the tracks. The resultant puppies were far from pure bred. She was having trouble getting rid of them and just wondered if we might be prepared to take one off her hands.
Thus, on my fifth birthday, I came down to breakfast and was given a parcel of irregular shape to open. It contained a collar and lead. The lead had a tag on which was engraved, not Timmy, but Taffy. A minor disappointment, but an acceptable nod in the direction of his half Welshness, and my parents led me by the hand, trembling with anticipation, to the shed outside.
There, lying nervously in a far from comfy plastic bed (easy to keep clean, said my mother; he won’t be in it for a minute, thought I, he’ll be snuggled up on my blankets) was everything I’d imagined Timmy/ Taffy to be. Gingery brown, huge, meltingly dark eyes, stiffly pointed ears, spindly legs and the longest, waggiest tail I could have hoped for. The mongrel genes had won out big time over the short-legged, stocky corgi. He hopped out of the bed, wriggled over to where I crouched on the ground and licked my hand. I knew I would never be lonely again.
Taffy turned out to be the fulfilment of every one of my childish canine fantasies. He was a willing and uncomplaining accomplice in any silly adventure in which I chose to involve him, mostly concerning the tracking down of evil criminals hiding out in the woods near the house – he did the sniffing – or unearthing buried treasure in the garden. He did the digging, much to my father’s displeasure when the only things of any value we managed to uncover were the seed potatoes he’d put his back out planting. If there was trouble as a result of our adventures we’d simply escape to my bedroom and dig out an Enid Blyton for further inspiration.
We spent hours together strolling around the cemetery. It may seem strange that a young child should be fascinated by death, but I found it all quite touching. On days when it was too wet or cold to visit the graves I would read the notices in the Barnsley Chronicle and found the often trite poetic clichés utterly beautiful.
In the burial ground itself, which was a short stroll from our front door, there were long, carefully tended paths to walk along and then pause at the poor, simple headstones of those without much money and the grandiose mausoleums, almost like houses, that were the final resting place of the rich merchants and coalmine owners of the past.
We’d take a few sandwiches and a bottle of pop and sit by the elaborate gravestones of tiny children who’d died in the 1800s. There were Sarahs and Edwards, Pollys and Williams. In some families four or five babies had survived for only a few months and I would read the unbearably sad poems out loud to Taffy, ears cocked, ever attentive as the tears poured down my cheeks.
‘With angel’s wings she soared on high, To meet her saviour in the sky’ is the only one that sticks in my memory, apart from the scary one on a grown-up’s grave positioned near the great wrought-iron gates at the entrance and which I copied into my diary.
Remember well as you go by,
As you are now, so once was I. As I am now so shall you be. Prepare yourself to follow me.
I never failed to read it as we passed the grave and never failed to be absolutely terrified by it. We would run home to the warmth and safety of my mother’s kitchen and her wasted words of advice.
‘Of course you’re not going to die. They didn’t have such good doctors in those days. And if it upsets you so much, don’t go there.’ But for most of our walks I was irresistibly drawn to what Dad always tried to make me laugh by calling ‘the dead centre of Barnsley’. Not funny. Not funny at all.
An alternative route was the lane opposite my grandmother’s house which led to a bridge over the railway line and then the river. We would pause on the bridge and wait for a train to pass, the steam puffing up and over us. I loved it and the promise of bigger and better places it offered. Taffy hated it and would cower at my feet until the roaring noise was well past. But he