PET MEMORIES
CHRISTOPHER BERKS
for the
Grandchildren
Copyright © Apr 2022 Christopher Berks
PROLOGUE
When I was 10 or 11 my parents decided I needed a hobby. First my father bought an electric train set. Apparently I showed no interest in that so it was sold off quite quickly. Next my father tried to interest me in philately, but collecting stamps did not catch my fancy. However Dad became an avid philatelist making up his own stamp albums and writing descriptions of each stamp with his meticulous handwriting. He made several friends through stamp collecting clubs. I remember being absolutely amazed when one of them visited our house and mentioned that he had been retired for 20 years. How could anyone be retired for so long? As I said I was amazed but as I write these words I have been retired for 14 years.
Finally my parents decided we should have dog and that it would be good for me to have the responsibility of feeding and walking it.
RICK
We went to visit a cocker spaniel breeder. My cousin Colin and his father Uncle Tom came with us. We chose a puppy which we named Rick. Colin chose another one and named it Rack.
When we went on vacation we would put Rick into kennels. In those days the kennels would send a van to the house to pick up the animal they were to board. As soon as we opened the front door and Rick saw it was the person from the kennels he would run away protesting that we were sending him away. He would dash out of the kitchen door complaining. However he was then somehow able to get out of the backyard onto the driveway between our house and the neighbors. He would run out to the street and stand at the back door of the van, with his tail wagging furiously, ready to jump into the van to go off on his vacation.
There was a girl, the younger sister of my sister's best friend, who would come round to our house to take Rick for a walk. Rick would make a terrific fuss when she cam to the front door. She moved to live with relatives in Switzerland I think.
One day we were sitting in our living room, suddenly Rick started barking loudly and jumping up and down.
My mother remarked, "It is just like when xxxxx came round to take him for a walk. He could hear her high heels clipping down the hill.
There was a knock on the front door. Mother opened the door and there was xxxxx.
She told us she was visiting her parents and had come round hoping to see Rick and take him for a walk. He had remembered the sound of her approaching all these years.
In our living room we had a large sofa. If I was sitting alone on the sofa Rick would jump up and sit next to me. He would throw himself back so he was sitting upright and he would put a paw over my shoulder around my neck with his back against the back of
the sofa.
My father was still collecting stamps and would have them spread out on a board in front of him sorting the new packages that he had bought at his stamp collecting club. Now and then he would complain that I or Mother were stealing his stamps. This mystery was not sold until one day he decided to move his armchair. There to his surprise were his missing stamps hidden behind his chair. Rick had been taking one stamp at a time, presumably on his tongue, and hiding them.
IBSEN
After I left college I worked in Central London. I shared a flat in Mountview Ave, Finsbury Park with two work colleagues. We had the top floor of the house. There were bed-sits on the second floor and the landlady with her family lived on the ground floor.
The landlady's cat gave birth. I asked if I could have one as she said she was giving them away. I christened my kitten Ibsen. He was black and white. At that time I was commuting to work on the underground. I would walk to the station. Ibsen would walk some of the way with me . When I walked home from the station after a day's work more often than not I would find Ibsen sitting on some garden wall waiting for me. He would walk Back to the house with me.
One interesting thing about the walk home to the house was that I
would frequently treat myself to a six-pennyworth bag of chips
(french fries) to eat on the walk. It was a fun to see how far the bag of chips would last. I could gauge the price of potatoes by how long they lasted - how many chips I got for
six-pence.
Occasionally, very occasionally, I would treat myself to a meal at the little cafe which I passed on my daily walk to the station. The cafe was very small, just a few tables and a gas stove where the owner did the cooking. She was helped in the serving by her young daughter.
One day I was hungry. I ordered steak and chips. When I had finished eating the meal I was asked if I wanted anything else. I said "The same again." I must have been very hungry to spend all that money.
The next day I was walking to the station. The young girl from the cafe was walking on the other side of the road with a friend, both in school uniform. She pointed to me and announced to her friend in a loud voice "That's the man who had two steaks!"
KATY
When I got married we lived in Berkhamsted in a small detached modern house. We acquired a black and white cat we named Katie. After a few months she went missing. We were not short of wildlife. As we live on the outskirts of a small town there was quite a lot of green space around in fact we were next to the Grand Union canal. I would walk along the tow path to the station to catch a train into London and the office, however if I timed it right I would leave the house at the same time as a neighbor leaving his house on the opposite side of the road. He worked as a chauffeur for a local millionaire. He usually brought the Rolls Royce home at night. He would call to me "Hey Chris want a ride?" and I would be taken to the station in luxury. I would be sitting in the back and he would be in the driver's seat in his chauffeur's uniform and hat.
I liked to walk the canal with my eldest son in a carrier on my back. Sometimes I would take a fishing rod with me. It was all very peaceful. One day there was a loud commotion and noise coming towards us along the towpath. I climbed into the hedge at the side of the path with my son still on my back. Two giant cart horses came galloping up the tow path and rushed past us. They had escaped from a local farmer's field.
The house we had bought was a fairly recent build and there was still work to be done in the back garden. One day I was digging and a blackbird flew down and perched on the top of my head. That became a regular occurrence. We thought the Blackbird must once Have been someone's pet.
One day my sister visited us. She was sitting on a sofa facing a large picture window looking out to the back garden. She nearly had a fit when this black bird flew down perched on the window sill and started to peck on the window. Hitchcock's film 'The Birds' had just been released!
Another day a neighbor was screaming. It turned out that she had gone into her bedroom and had found that a hawk had flown in through an open window. It was perched on a bedpost.
The community became anxious about a large wild ginger tom which was wandering around the neighborhood. I once watched it slinking along our back fence eyeing what mischief it could get up to. Now and then it would get into fights with people's pets. Each time the owner would have to go to the vet to get the cat a shot because of the risk of infection from a scratch from the wild tom.
Once it looked as if it was going to pounce on a baby in a pram. We decided to do something about it. I called the RSPCA and the local representatives told me that if we caught this ginger tom and brought it to them they would take care of it.
There was a cat flap in the back door of our house which we installed when we had Katie. I bought a large Have-a-Heart trap. We placed this just inside the back door by the cat-flap and put some fish in it as bait. We had got halfway up the stairs to bed when there was a crash and we found we had caught the ginger tom. It was quite scary looking at this big wild looking large ferocious head hissing at us. We quickly put the trap in a large black plastic bag.
We arrived at the RSPCA representatives house to find two very old people. They told us to bring the bag to their garage. They took the bag and trap and placing them into a large barrel. If you have ever used a Havea-Heart trap you will know that if you place it vertically the doors are not secure. They may fall open.
The couple began to pour chloroform on to the bag and on to the ginger tom. The cat shot up into the air and ran up the street. It soon was staggering from side to side. The old couple told us not to worry. They would find it in the morning. They assured us that the cat asleep in the cemetery up the road.
FRODO & BAGGINS
I was living alone in Darien, Connecticut on a second two year assignment to the United States. My neighbor's cat had a litter of kittens. I took two to keep each other company. I named them Frodo and Baggins though actually they were both female. Apparently all calico cats are female.
I was working long hours then . One evening I came home opened the front door and felt Frodo and Baggins brushed past my leg. I was so tired that I did not even turn a light on. I just went to bed. When I awoke in the morning I found that the whole litter of seven kittens was asleep in bed with me.
The neighbor had named one of the kittens Evinrude as it had such a loud purr . It was not until later that I found out that Evinrude was a brand of outboard motor.
I went back to England at the end of my assignment. Frodo and Baggins were placed in six month quarantine. After a few months I was walking down a corridor in one of the company's Parisian offices to accept a job. I bumped into someone I had known from my spell in the States. He said "Hey Chris do you want to come back
to this United States.
I had met the lady who was to become my second wife. We married and moved to the States. Frodo and Baggins stayed in quarantine until we found somewhere to live. They were then shipped over. They had been in kennels for nearly twelve months.
We received a telephone call from
British Airways. Our cats were in Hangar 7 at JFK airport, could we come to collect them? We drove down in the pouring rain and with some difficulty found Hangar 7. The man behind the counter went into the backroom and returned with two cats in a carrier.
I had not seen Frodo and Baggins for a whole year, but after a moment's hesitation I decided that two calico cats could not have changed into one black and white cat and one ginger cat. The kennels had sent the wrong cats.
One of the cats had a limp. We took pity on them and took them home. The next day a van turned up to take them back to JFK. A couple of weeks later Frodo and Baggins were delivered to us.
We lived in an apartment in White Plains. There were balconies along the front of the building. Frodo and Baggins would hop over to the neighbors balcony, then to the next and so on. Our patient neighbors would often knock on our door and hand Frodo or Baggins back to us.
We moved to Brewster NY then to
Santa Teresa California. It was in California that Baggins was diagnosed with diabetes. We had to give her insulin injections every day. She stood still to allow us inject her once she was used to it.
PATRICK & SANTIPAWS & MABEL
One day our two daughters announced and there was a beautiful long haired black and white cat living under our screened porch. My wife saw that this cat was pregnant and decided we could keep Mabel (I don't remember how she got her name) in the screenedporch untill she gave birth which she eventually did.
We brought Mabel and the kittens into the house. We told the girls they could keep two of the kittens. They choose one each and named them Patrick (it was near Saint Patrick's Day) and Santipaws. Patrick was mostly white with some black patches. Santipaws was black with whit socks.
Both the kittens loved to climb the screens on our living-room door and perch on top.
When Patrick and Sandipaws were settled in our house Frodo decided that we would be well looked after by our new cats. She laid down and died. Eventually Santipaws lived long enough to retire with us to Vermont.
ZOE
Our daughter moved into a fourth floor apartment with Zoe her corgi dog. It was hard for Zoe having to climb up and down four flights of stairs with her short legs. We agreed to have Zoe live with us in Vermont. As Zoe had spent some time with us in Brewster she and Santipaws knew each other well and got along together.
Zoe would jump up on my to my bed at night and sleep there until she grew too old to climb onto the bed so she slept under it.
She enjoyed being in the local kennels when we were away the kennels was attached to a vetinarian's office. The kennel assistants would greet Zoe with great friendliness when we dropped her off and Zoe would reciprocate.
One day I decided I needed more exercise. So I drove to a popular nearby walk called the 'mile-a-round' with Zoe sitting upright in the passenger seat. We walked up the path and round the mile-around in the woods. The next day we did the same walk but we went on through the woods and back to the car along a road . The third day we parked in the usual place but instead I took Zoe along the road to a crossroads and then back
again - about three miles.
The next day when I started to put my boots on Zoe rushed into the bedroom and hid under the bed. She would not come out. No more long walks for Zoe!
