This series of stories will be titled 'I'm surprised I turned out as well as I did, given my childhood ...' 20

I have always loved animals – not just cats, dogs and horses – but all animals. I can find something to be fascinated with in any animal – I always could.

The thing is… animals seem to be ok with me too. Whether that’s because they see me as a ‘friend’, one who would do them no harm, or whether it’s because I’m not jittery or nervous around them, who knows?

After we moved from the rows, to a social housing estate (Council house), my grandmother loaned my father the money to buy a car so he could get a job.

My father took a job as an insurance salesman. The guy that went round from house to house on a weekly rotation, knocking on doors, collecting money because back in those days, there was no instalments for such things. Back then, if you didn’t have the money up front to pay for house insurance, then you either didn’t have any insurance or you needed the services of such a man that sells weekly-paid for insurance.

One particular day, in the summer break, my mother insisted my father take me with him on his usual round.

Whether that decision was made because I was a little too much for her to handle, I was getting into way too much trouble, or because, as I later realised, he was suspected of being less than appropriate with one of his clients.

I did ask why I was coming along for the ride, and the explanation was:

“Last week, I got back to the car and some kid was sitting in the driver’s seat, playing at driving.”

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A plausible enough explanation you may think, apart from the fact that he could easily have locked the doors and prevented the incident.

I accepted that explanation but my mind was working on it – that’s what my mind does.

So, we went on this road trip and we stopped at a housing estate, in as poor an area as the one we had lived on when we lived on the rows, or possibly worse.

A woman greeted my father and looked at me with deep suspicion. He told her I was his kid and he was taking me with him for the day.

We went inside the house and I remember it was very similar to the one we’d moved from.

The woman had a large greyhound and a couple of kids. I was sent outside to play in the dirt-patch she called a ‘garden’.

I don’t know how long they were conducting their business, I was too busy playing and making friends.

When he came out of the house, I stood up and he placed his hand on my head to indicate we were ready to leave.

Well, he almost placed his hand on my head. The greyhound took a dislike to him trying to touch me and snapped at him.

I cannot remember how old I was, but I do remember that greyhound. A black and white dog with a big, broad collar. The animal was sleek and beautiful and it wanted to protect me.

My father had visited the house before and the dog knew him, but it had taken a ‘shine’ to me for some reason.

---

I recall one instance when an animal took a dislike to me and reacted nastily. There have been a few and mostly they were ponies…

I used to go to a riding stables every Sunday morning. The stables are still there but I haven’t been back in a while.

We would follow the girl taking us out and we would ride in a line along a busy road (insanity, it’s a wonder none of us were in an accident). When we got to the park, there were a few places we could have a canter (if we could get the pony to ‘go’ of course). That’s where being a regular helped, I got to know which ponies were most likely to canter easily and I’d choose that one.

Twice around the park track and then back to the busy road to make our way to the stable. The ponies perked up a little when they were on their way home and we’d sometimes get chance to practice trotting too.

My grandmother took me, paid for an hour’s riding and then fetched me back a few hours later. That meant I could have an hour’s hack around the park AND get to fuss ponies – Heaven!

The ponies were all miss-matched, funny-shaped and sometimes downright ugly, but I didn’t care, they were ponies and I love ponies!

One day, all the stalls were occupied and one of the ponies needed to be held for a little while, until the next hack went out. The pony in question was small, black with white flecks, a couple of white socks and an unfortunate ‘wall-eye’ – his name was Wally, named for that eye.

“Can you hold Wally in the stall, please?” one of the bigger girls asked. “But be careful, the horse next to him doesn’t like him and may bite him.”

I took Wally, the wall-eyed pony into the stall and stood talking to him.

Sure enough, the big, Roman-nosed horse in the next stall leaned over and tried to bite Wally.

I pushed the horse’s nose away so he couldn’t take a chunk out of poor Wally.

The big grey (white) horse leaned over again and went for poor Wally. I have no idea what Wally had done to make this horse loathe him so much, but I stopped him biting, every time he tried.

Then the big horse changed tactics. He leaned over and as I went to push his nose away from Wally, he changed direction and took a bite at my face.

Luckily, horses don’t have a capacity to bite well and his teeth scraped my skin rather than digging in and taking out a chunk of flesh.

Don’t get me wrong, it bloody hurt, but it only grazed me rather than cutting my face.