It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet Read online

kind of black morning when country vets wonder about their choice of

  profession. Shivering as the ever-present passage draught struck at my

  pyjamaed legs, I switched on the light and opened the door. I saw a

  small figure muffled in an old army greatcoat and balaclava leaning on a

  bicycle. Beyond him the light spilled onto a few feet of streaming

  pavement where the rain beat down in savage swathes.

  "Sorry to ring your bell at this hour, guvnor," he said. "My names Rudd,

  Birch Tree Farm, Coulston. I've got a heifer calvin' and she's not

  getting on with t'job. Will you come."

  I looked closer at the thin face, at the water trickling down the cheeks

  and dripping from the end of the nose. "Right, I'll get dressed and come

  straight along But why don't you leave your bike here and come with me

  in the car? Coulston's about four miles isn't it and you must be soaked

  through."

  "Nay, nay, it'll be right." The face broke into the most cheerful of

  grins and under the sopping balaclava a pair of lively blue eyes glinted

  at me. "I'd only have to come back and get it another time. I'll get off

  now and you won't be there long afore me."

  He mounted his bike quickly and pedalled away. People who think farming

  is a pleasant, easy life should have been there to see the hunched

  figure disappear into the blackness and the driving rain. No car, no

  telephone, a night up with the heifer, eight miles biking in the rain

  and a back-breaking day ahead of him. Whenever I thought of the

  existence of the small farmer it made my own occasional bursts of

  activity seem small stuff indeed.

  I produced a nice live heifer calf for Dick that first morning and

  later, gratefully drinking a cup of hot tea in the farmhouse kitchen, I

  was surprised at the throng of young Rudds milling around me; there were

  seven of them and they were unexpectedly grown up. Their ages ranged

  from twenty odd down to about ten and I hadn't thought of Dick as

  middle-aged; in the dim light of the doorway at Skeldale House and later

  in the byre lit only by a smoke-blackened oil lamp his lively movements

  and perky manner had seemed those of a man in his thirties. But as I

  looked at him now I could see that the short, wiry hair was streaked

  with grey and a maze of fine wrinkles spread from around his eyes onto

  his cheeks.

  In their early married life the Rudds, anxious like all farmers for male

  children, had observed with increasing chagrin the arrival of five

  successive daughters. "We nearly packed up then," Dick confided to me

  once; but they didn't and their perseverance was rewarded at last by the

  appearance of two fine boys. A farmer farms for his sons and Dick had

  something to work for now.

  As I came to know them better I used to observe the family with wonder.

  The five girls were all tall, big-limbed, handsome, and already the two

  chunky young boys gave promise of massive growth. I kept looking from

  them to their frail little parents - 'not a pickin' on either of us', as

  Mrs. Rudd used to say - and wonder how the miracle had happened.

  It puzzled me, too, how Mrs. Rudd, armed only with the milk cheque from

  Dick's few shaggy cows, had managed to feed them all, never mind bring

  them to this state of physical perfection. I gained my first clue one

  day when I had been seeing some calves and I was asked to have a 'bit ."

  dinner' with them. Butcher's meat was a scarce commodity on the hill

  farms and I was familiar with the usual expedients for filling up the

  eager stomachs before the main course - the doughy slab of Yorkshire

  pudding or the heap of suet dumpling. But Mrs. Rudd had her own method a

  big bowl of rice pudding with lots of milk was her hors d'oeuores. It

  was a new one on me and I could see the family slowing down as they

  ploughed their way through. I was ravenous when I sat down but after the

  rice I viewed the rest of the meal with total detachment.

  Dick believed in veterinary advice for everything so I was a frequent

  visitor at Birch Tree Farm. After every visit there was an unvarying

  ritual; I was asked into the house for a cup of tea and the whole family

  downed tools and sat down to watch me drink it. On weekdays the eldest

  girl was out at work and the boys were at school but on Sundays the

  ceremony reached its full splendour with myself sipping the tea and all

  nine Rudds sitting around in what I can only call an admiring circle. My

  every remark was greeted with nods and smiles all round. There is no

  doubt it was good for my ego to have an entire family literally hanging

  on my words, but at the same time it made me feel curiously humble.

  I suppose it was because of Dick's character. Not that he was unique in

  any way - there were thousands of small farmers just like him - but he

  seemed to embody the best qualities of the Dalesman; the

  indestructibility, the tough philosophy, the unthinking generosity and

  hospitality. And there were the things that were Dick's own; the

  integrity which could be read always in his steady eyes and the humour

  which was never very far away. Dick was no wit but he was always trying

  to say ordinary things in a funny way. If I asked him to get hold of a

  cow's nose for me he would say solemnly "Ah'll endeavour to do so', or I

  remember when I was trying to lift a square of plywood which was penning

  a calf in a corner he said "Just a minute till ah raise portcullis'.

  When he broke into a smile a kind of radiance flooded his pinched

  features.

  When I held my audiences in the kitchen with all the family reflecting

  Dick's outlook in their eager laughter I marvelled at their utter

  contentment with their lot. None of them had known ease or softness but

  it didn't matter; and they looked on me as a friend and I was proud.

  Whenever I left the farm I found something on the seat of my car - a

  couple of home-made scones, three eggs. I don't know how Mrs. Rudd

  spared them but she never failed.

  Dick had a burning ambition - to upgrade his stock until he had a dairy

  herd which would live up to his ideals. Without money behind him he knew

  it would be a painfully slow business but he was determined. It probably

  wouldn't be in his own lifetime but some time, perhaps when his sons

  were grown up, people would come and look with admiration at the cows of

  Birch Tree.

  I was there to see the very beginning of it. When Dick stopped me on the

  road one morning and asked me to come up to his place with him I knew by

  his air of suppressed excitement that something big had happened. He led

  me into the byre and stood silent. He didn't need to say anything

  because I was staring unbelievingly at a bovine aristocrat.

  Dick's cows had been scratched together over the years and they were a

  motley lot. Many of them were old animals discarded by more prosperous

  farmers because of their pendulous udders or because they were 'three

  fitted 'uns'. Others had been reared by Dick from calves and tended to

  be rough-haired and scruffy. But half way down the byre, contrasting

  almost violently with her neighbours was what seemed to me a perfect

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