I apologise for writing nothing in the last fortnight.

I just had to have a short break because --firstly those vital cells that control my heart rate and blood pressure were not performing at their usual rate --and secondly our Warwick who lives in London had accepted our invitation to spend his 60 eth birthday with us here in Beverley.    His wonderful Fiona and their two girls Eleanor and Rebecca came with him.    Simon and his wonderful Lyn came from Sheriff  Hutton.   Unfortunately their Judith, Ruth and Neil were unable to join us because of their work. Jill our adopted daughter was able to come from Leicester.   Two of our oldest friends here --Fred and Kerry Dobson only had to come from around the corner.    We live with Walter and his wonderful doctor Nuala and their musical girls Siobhan, Lucy and Hannah.   Two old Italian friends of Warwick and Simon since they were teaching in Alba thirty five years ago came all the way to be with us.  They are a very special couple.  Guido is a chemist and Carla is a lawyer.   They have a daughter -- Marta who is also a lawyer based in Luxembourg.

  We all sat around Walter and Nuala's big table for a delightful meal, good wine and a slice of birthday-cake.   Next evening in four cars we went to York for another enjoyable meal -- my first consisting of seven courses beside St. Cuthbert's Church.   Although we missed Judith, Ruth and Neil terribly, it still was one memorable event.   I was not well enough to be with the family on the trip to Flamborough Head.   This is a promontory with chalk cliffs and a white lighthouse with a black top built in 1669.    I like to go there and see see the thousands of protected sea birds who include auks, gannets, gulls, guillemotts, kittiwakes, puffins and razor bills.



      But my cardiac problem was minor compared to Gary Verity's.    Gary is the force behind the thousands of visitors attracted to Yorkshire's town and country sights.   He had to have surgery and all his fans were delighted to hear that it was totally successful.

A Literary Genius Over The Border -- In Derry.

    For the past two months I have been thinking about the loss of the famous poet and writer who was born eighteen years after me at Castledawson in my adjoining county.   He was only seventy four.  You will all know that his name was Seamus Heaney.    It seems so unfair that his health failed ;  he had so much to give to younger generations.   But we can take consolation from knowing that his words will
never be forgotten.

                                          Northern Ireland 's  Popular Genius With Words

     Seamus grew up on a farm with eight other children and his father was a cattle dealer.  In his later years he lived in Sandymount.   He was educated at St. Columbs catholic college in Derry.   Readers of his poetry considered that he got some of his inspiration from reading the works of Wordsworth.   He was appointed Professor at Oxford and at Harvard  and was awarded the Nobel prize for Literature.    His early poems were considered the best sine those by W.B. Yeats.    In his obituary  the Irish Independent called him one of the best known poets in the world.   The large funeral to Bellaghy was broadcast on television far and wide.

Yeats was born in Dublin in 1865  but was mostly associated with Sligo where his mother came from.  Yeats spent holidays on Howth at Balscadden House.  He was the first Irishman and member of the Senate to receive the Nobel Prize -- in 1923.  He died in France in 1939 and was buried there.   However  he had wished to be dug up after a while -- when he would be forgotten -- and buried again in his beloved Drumcliff.    I have never passed this church without stopping and entering the graveyard to read his epitaph on  the tombstone  -- " Cast a cold eye  on life,  on death   Horseman pass by ".   This was from his poem "Under Benbulben"

Benbulben's Dangerous Face Looking Down On Drumcliff

 This is an example of his mythical writing

We rode in sorrow, with strong hounds three,

Bran, Sgeolan, and Lomair,

On a morning misty and mild and fair.

The mist-drops hung on the fragrant trees,

And in the blossoms hung the bees.

We rode in sadness above Lough Lean,

For our best were dead on Gavra's green.

I climbed this spectacular mountain before I went to the top of  Errigal which was nearer to me.   The opportunity arose when I was at school.   The geography master took about twenty of us on an outing by bus.   We climbed from the easy south side ;  the other is very dangerous.   I still remember the wonderful view while he was telling us that it was formed three hundred million years ago.    He also

told us that the ancient warrior  Fionn Mac Cool lived where we were standing  in the third century.

This is Errigal.  At 751 metres it is the tallest of our Derryveagh mountain range.

This is a photo of myself taken by Jane after we had reached the top in June '76.
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I am pleased to report that at their meeting on November 13 Beverley Council rejected the application to conduct experiments on a further 2,000 beagles.   I would like to have herd the speakers but I was taken ill and had to leave after a few minutes.

               

                                                                            X   X   X

How we got another twelve Donkeys!

Other creatures whose fate worries me now are the thousands of donkeys dying of  thirst in the Mauritanian desert in Africa.     Spana are appealing for funding for the repair of wells to provide lifesaving water.  I'm sending the £15 they are asking for and wish I could afford more.  The address :-  Freepost  RSYJ - HGEK- RGBX  Spana Dept P1311 / SMN  Slough SL1  4PY

I have been fond of donkeys since I was a child.    I remember a flock of grey ones  at Creeslough fair when I was seven years old.   Dad bought one for me.   He called him Tim - after Tipperary Tim who won the Grand National that year.   He proved useful when he carried the turf out of the bog to the road where it was stacked and left for a while to dry.   Tim had two baskets attached to a saddle on his back and I enjoyed leading him.   Some time later we got a black one who would not allow me or any other boy to ride him.   He would buck us off.   If we were still on after three bucks he would lie down and roll over us.    He was however a willing worker in the cart.    Somewhere  I still have a photo of 'Bucker' giving eleven of us a lift home from school in Cloughaneely in 1910.    After 'Rover'  the black & white faithful collie who herded our cattle and sheep  I was also infatuated by the humble donkeys for a few years until I became interested in ponies and horses.

    One of the many reasons why I married Jane was that she shared my appreciation of the character of the donkey and the dogs.  Those of you who have read my earlier blogs may remember a photograph of fifteen lined up in front of my surgery.  They were handled or ridden by our three sons, our adopted daughter and six of our loyal staff.   We bought our first one through my friendship with the famous greyhound breeder Paddy Dunphy.

In 1955  Paddy advised Cecil & Mollie Colahan from Loughrea to send me an injured dog who had been sired by his 'Grand Champion'.   His name was Our Viscount and he was out of a good bitch called 'Wild Nellie'.   He came sound to win a few top class races until he was again a victim to the inevitable stress on the tight turns.    We established such a friendship with the Colahans that they invited us to stay with them for a week.   Their neighbours had a donkey called Whisky whom they loaned to us so that Walter might learn to ride it.   He got so much pleasure that Jane bought Whisky for him.   Cecil arranged to have Whisky sent by train to Dublin, by boat to Holyhead and then by train to us at Rugby.   He was the only donkey for twenty miles around us.   His loud braying made all our neighbours aware of his arrival.   Warwick and many of the local children learned to ride him.    His teeth were too long to tell me his age other than to know that he was  'well on'  in years.    His many grateful jockeys were giving him more rewards than he had been accustomed to.   Within six months he got a bout of colic and I could not save him.   News of his death brought mourners young and old.   We did not have enough spades to satisfy all who wanted to dig his grave.

Donkeys were rare in Warwickshire and we were without one for a while until the famous Cork cattle dealer Dan Horgan found us what he called the best ass in Ireland.    She was a very big guaranteed

in-foal grey mare and she was delivered as a present from a large lorry containing fifty Irish bullocks four days before Christmas.

      Jane and I decided to hide him from the children until Christmas morning.  The lorry driver kindly agreed to drive another half mile to the next farm.   I went there with him and asked our kind neighbour Mr Cummins to keep a precious equine for four days.   Being a great horseman he was delighted to help

us.   In his younger days he had been a champion cyclist.   When she alighted he loved her and said he had never seen a finer donkey.

     We thought she deserved a noble name and after considering ten or more we decided to call her Maeve after the legendary Queen Maeve of Connaught who is said to be buried in a twelve metre high cairn at Knocknarea in county Sligo.

Before our boys were awake on Xmas day Mr Cummins brought Maeve around the side of our house where there was a wide sliding door for entry to our sitting room.   When they  came down stairs we suggested we should all go there to see what Santa Claus might have brought us.   Simon - our youngest looked in awe at Maeve for a minute.   Then he looked at the chimney and asked - how did Santa get her down ?

Lots of neighbours used to come to see Maeve when they heard her loud voice.  After a month or two three of them asked if I could get one for them.  Mr Horgan had a farm on the Stratford road out of Warwick where he used to keep bullocks on arrival from Ireland.  When they had recovered from the journey he used to offer them for sale at markets in Warwickshire.  Whenever one or two were sick or injured, Tom his farm manager used to telephone me for assistance.  One day while I was there I met Mr Hogan and told him I had orders for three more donkeys.  One evening three months later a long tall lorry reversed and stopped right in front of our house preventing any light through our windows.   For a moment we 'we thought it was a solar eclipse !  Opening our door told us it was the arrival of the donkeys.  I threw open the field- gate so that they could be released.    After three jumped out I was shocked to count four, five, six, seven, eight and nine more - joining them to gallop around the field - roaring and making noise unlikely to have been heard in the county before.  !

The explanation was -- because donkeys were more plentiful and cheaper around Skibbereen than in Cork Mr Horgan contacted a dealer there and ordered six.   This gentleman felt it made sense to send a dozen because their fare on the boat would cost no more.   We used to hold a sports day with races  for children and donkeys in summner time in aid of Handicapped children.  After a few years it was so popular that we had to hold it in Rugby by courtesy of the Town Football Club.  As more people saw how children loved donkeys I never had difficulty selling one.   On my travels in Ireland I often spotted a good looking one.   Occasionally the owner would sell it to me at a reasonable price.   I was lucky to find three outstanding specimens near Enniscorthy.   They were all highly priced and I made no offer.  I was on my way to buy a greyhound called Rose Adagio from a bookmaker called Eddie Tobin.   He was famous for breeding an outstanding bitch called  'On End' in '54.  She threw another equally good one called  'Princess Collette ' and she in turn when mated to 'Hi There ' gave him the great 'Buffalo Bill'.   I remember buying another pup from him --also from On End but sired by Fourth of July.  She got injured in an early trial and I sold her for breeding to a Mrs Brown from Peterborough.

I told Eddie about the 3 asses -and what they would be worth to we.   He said  "That man always asks big from strangers ;  I will go and tell him to be reasonable if he wishes to sell them".  A week later he telephoned to say  - The three with long ears will be on the boat out of Rosslare  to-night.
Eddie and his talented wife Maureen and their wonderful family became life long friends to us.  Late at night I stopped at many hotels in Ireland -- but never at one within twenty miles of Enniscorthy.   There was always a warm bed for me at Tomduff farm house.   I dislike hearing people attributing success or failure to luck because so many really good people suffer undeserved misfortune.   Everyone who knew the Tobin family would say they belonged to this category.     They lost three  of their four fine sons --
young Eddie, John and Martin from heart attacks in their forties  and when they had so much to live for. Their sadness did not end then.
Eddie's health failed and he had to spend the last four years of his life in a local nursing home.  I visited him on the two occasions when near him and was impressed by his bravery in coping with his problems.   There was never a day  when he did not have the pleasure of a visit from Maureen his devoted wife,  or one of their loving family - Patrick, Mary Ruth, Anne Marie, Paul, Lisa, Alan or young Ed.   Eddie is much missed by his many friends in farming, hunting, coursing and racing throughout Wexford and neighbouring counties.