An Alligator in the Bathroom...And Other Stories Read online

  A few of the staff were designated animal ambulance drivers. They had a duty rota, so many nights on call, so many not. If an animal was hurt in a road accident or needed care after any kind of incident, the RSPCA vehicle would attend. This was an idea I fancied, and one of the drivers had left. I’d still be kennel knave in the day but I’d be the RSPCA man at night, out there, in the world, driving to emergencies.

  The obstacle was that I couldn’t drive. I had a brother-in-law who was sometimes persuaded by my big sister to take me out in his car but I needed practice, lots of it, and some proper lessons if only I had any money to pay for them.

  At the age of seventeen, with nothing to declare but my ambition, I applied for the vacancy. When Jack raised the matter of my driving, I told him I’d booked some time off next week to take my test, and my only worry was the Highway Code questions. Jack told me to get swotting and not play with the dogs so much.

  I couldn’t get my real test booked for another eight weeks so I did the obvious thing. I backed myself to pass first time, and told Jack that I had. He was so pleased that he never asked to see my licence, nor did the police, the fire brigade or anyone else who called me out over the next eight weeks, which gave me the driving practice I needed so that I won my bet with myself and passed the driving test.

  Meanwhile, I met a drop-dead gorgeous blonde called Carol. I may have been a little naive but I actually thought that a penniless male kennel maid, whose idea of a good time was sitting up all night on the dockside waiting for a family of foxes to come out, stood a chance with a girl like that. Maybe it was the unpredictability that attracted her. She was expecting the cinema, chicken chow mein and a pound box of Black Magic chocolates. She got six penn’orth of chips and a ride in a small orange box of a van to rescue a cat.

  The Hull RSPCA district was without an out-in-the-field inspector at this time, so a locum was brought in, and he would live in the flat above our office. He drove into the yard in his blue van and got out. Now, I had never seen an inspector before, and what I saw seemed like a vision. The uniform was like the police had, with smart tunic and cap, with RSPCA insignia and two silver pips on the shoulders, and I knew instantly that I’d seen my future.

  The next weeks only made me more and more determined, as I got to know the man – only a few years older than me – and heard what he did and saw all the kit he had inside his van. He seemed like a free agent, responsible for solving every problem that came up, the dawn-to-dusk patrol, and that just had to be me.

  My life now was entirely mapped out. My next job would be as an RSPCA uniformed inspector, and I wanted no more than that for ever and a day, and my companion along life’s rocky road would be Carol. There were several things wrong with this map. There could be no question of our getting hitched without the inspector’s job. Inspectors got a decent wage, a van to use whenever, and, above all, a house, but the minimum age for inspectors was twenty-two and I was only eighteen.

  Time went by, then the good news. They lowered the age for inspectors to twenty. The bad news was that Jack retired, his place as manager was taken by Janet the assistant manager, and her place was taken by Herbert the senior supervisor, a man who hated all living creatures but especially cats, dogs and RSPCA ambulance drivers of whom he had previously been in charge.

  Herbert and I did not get on. I could not understand what he was doing there and I must have made that apparent because he designated me as a special case. While maintaining his general dislike of anything that breathed, he never missed an opportunity to stick his knife into me, and a good one came up with his promotion.

  ‘Well, now, good morning young man,’ he said to me one day, his white-coated tongue slipping and sliding over his yellow, protruding teeth (he was an ugly sod as well as being so unpleasant). ‘I understand you’re applying to become an inspector.’

  ‘So I am,’ I said, smelling all sorts of large, long-tailed grey rodents.

  ‘I’m the assistant manager now,’ said Herbert, in such a way that suggested I should perhaps kneel and offer him an annual tribute of gold, silver and nubile maidens. As I failed to react correctly, he continued. ‘One of the assistant manager’s jobs, which is always done by the assistant manager, is to write the employment references. So when head office comes calling, asking for a reference for you, I shall have to write it. See?’

  I certainly did see, and that future I had planned, with house, van, salary and Carol, vanished like my dad’s favourite proverbial substance, Scotch mist. I was devastated. Carol, bless her, did not come up with alternatives, such as my being apprenticed to a painter and decorator, or taking a position as an on-street sales executive with the Hull Daily Mail. Her view was that I would win through despite the best efforts of Hateful Herbert, but whether I would have done so without an exceptionally hairy dog, I don’t know.

  This dog had been brought in to be put down straight away and, as ever, Herbert had volunteered to see to it. I saw him go into the little single-storey building set aside for the purpose, leading an animal I’d never seen the like of. It was massive and hairy beyond belief, like something out of a Hammer horror film. I supposed it was an Alsatian, perhaps crossed with something else such as a water buffalo, but it was one hell of a dog anyway.

  Inside the building was the machine used in those days for putting animals down, the electrophanator. It sounds horrifying now but it was the technology of the time. It consisted of a box, an electrical transformer, and some crocodile clips on wires. You put the animal in the box, secured it with collar and leather thong, then attached the clips, one to each ear and one to a back leg.

  There were two switches. The first delivered a shock through the animal’s brain, knocking it out cold. The second shock stopped the heart. If it sounds like execution by electric chair, it really wasn’t as bad as that. If it worked properly, it was as humane a method as we could have had then.

  Things were not working properly for Herbert, though, with the hairy timber wolf. Shouts and curses were coming out of the killing shed, so I went in to see what was up. Really I had no business in there but it was on the way to the store cupboard where my stuff for cleaning out the kennels was. Herbert stopped cursing when I went in but I soon saw what was the matter. He’d got the dog in the box all right, and it was tied, although its head was out. As he approached with the crocodile clips the dog gave the most threatening and chilling growl. If Herbert put his hand anywhere near, he could expect to become eligible for disability benefit.

  I had to smile at the thought as I headed for the store cupboard, but that little bit of amusement disappeared when I heard the dog cry out. I turned to look and there was Herbert with a length of four-by-two in his hands, about to whack the dog again. I ran over, shouting. If he did that once more, he would feel the four-by-two around his own earholes and might well experience new sensations in his private parts in connection with crocodile clips.

  I was taller than him, younger and fitter, and so angry that Herbert could tell I was capable of doing what I said and more.

  ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘If you’re so ****ing clever, ****head. You do it.’

  This was against regulations. I wasn’t trained, I wasn’t qualified, and I’d never done it. Such thoughts could not enter my crowded brain, (a) because I wanted to spare the dog any more hurt, (b) because I was furious at Herbert, and (c) because I expected the dog to bite my hand off.

  The animal seemed to trust me more than it had Herbert, and let me put the clips on its ears. Herbert meanwhile was making a big deal of attaching the last clip to the back leg. We stood back. Herbert threw the first switch.

  We were expecting an alive dog to become unconscious, but quite the reverse happened. A quiet dog became mad, in all senses of the word. Screaming its wrath, it translated into a bucking bronco and began wrecking the electrophanator from the inside. The box, something about the size of a trap at a greyhound track, disintegrated before our eyes. The lid flew this way, the back door flew
that way, and all the while the dog was howling, and it wasn’t the moon it was howling for.

  Herbert ran from the room and banged the door shut behind him. I was rooted, unable to move as the hairy monster managed to hurl itself and the box onto the floor, where it burst open completely. The giant was free, and looking for revenge.

  There was nothing in the room except another table like the one the electrophanator had been on. I jumped onto it and squatted on my haunches, watching wolfie padding around. He seemed even bigger somehow. Maybe he had a demonic spirit that fed on electricity.

  Never in my life before had I been frightened of, or by, an animal. This was a new experience which, as the hound saw me and came my way, I felt would be a last as well as a first.

  I didn’t know whether to try saying ‘Sit!’ in a commanding manner, or ‘Nice doggy, good boy’ in conciliation, but it didn’t matter because my mouth was so dry that I couldn’t say anything. All right, Carter, I thought, as the dog tensed, ready to pounce. I hope Carol will still like me with my throat torn out.

  The dog reared up on its hind legs. I was motionless, still squatting, all sensations suspended other than fear. It put its enormous front paws on the table, one on either side of me, sniffed my face, and licked me.

  Although it had been officially condemned, it had committed no greater crime than appearing to have no owner. It took me two days to find a family who would take it on and, while I was persuading Janet the manager to let me try to do that, I mentioned the matter of my reference and Horrible Herbert. That’s all right, she said. He’s new to that job. Never done one before. I’ll show him how.

  4

  AN INSPECTOR BOILS

  One of the hardest parts of becoming an RSPCA inspector was getting on the training course in the first place. The courses were run every six months and there were thousands of applicants, many of them ex-military, who tended to find favour with the hierarchy who were themselves largely from the same source. There were no female inspectors then, so the whole recruitment culture was biased that way.

  My first hurdle would be to avoid my application being thrown in the bin along with hundreds of others by the first scrutineer, who would be the Superintendent for England North East, a vast area stretching from the Nottinghamshire border to the Scottish one. He was exmilitary; I obviously wasn’t, apart from my forgettable few months in the navy, but I did already work for the RSPCA, albeit in the lowliest capacity and with an invisible driving licence, and I had actually met the chap when he came to see us at the Hull rescue centre.

  If I got past that one, I felt I had another advantage: Carol. We were married by this time and RSPCA inspectors’ wives are an important part of the set-up, as unpaid personal assistants. I knew that if the superintendent met her, that would be a gold star on my form. And so it proved. Next, I was asked to appear before the selection board at HQ, Horsham, and a formidable experience that was – like a rabbit being interviewed by England’s most senior foxes.

  Somehow I got through that, and so on to the very concentrated six-month training course, varying from the academic – you have to know the law inside out as it relates to animals –to the extremely practical, such as abseiling down a cliff to rescue a cat, and spending a week working in a slaughterhouse. Not even the abattoir was going to stop me, now I was on my way to my perfect job.

  If you divided that job of RSPCA Inspector: Scorswick, in the standard way – into objectives, responsibilities and circumstances – I couldn’t see how it could be bettered. The circumstances included a salary that wouldn’t make many people groan with envy but was adequate. I was supplied with a new Ford Escort van fully equipped, uniform, and a house within a modest price limit. My piece of God’s own broad acres was mostly rural but there were towns. Also, the RSPCA relief system meant that I had alternate weekends off but, during the weekends on, I covered for one of my neighbour inspectors across his territory, thus doubling my workload. At one time or another I could count pretty well all the great features of the Yorkshire-scape, from coast to moors to dales and back again. It was decidedly the green and pleasant land. I loved the rolling countryside, I loved the ducks on the pond, and I loved the classic English villages, the mix of cottages, some finer houses, pub, church, shop, school, a delight to the eye and the heart.

  RSPCA inspectors were given a six-monthly checking over by their regional superintendent, and mine was a big, blunt Yorkshireman of the Jack Hartley type, called Fred Sheriff. He was a natural for his job, keen of eye and brain, mighty of aspect, impatient of footlers and fiddlers, thoroughly experienced and completely trustworthy. Management sometimes seems to attract politicians, ladder climbers who use other people as rungs. Fred wasn’t like that. He was there because he was there. No politician would ever shift him.

  He wanted to see that I understood my responsibilities, that all my paperwork was in order, my house was in order and my orders were in order. He also wanted to know that my family was happy, my children were fit and healthy, and most of all that he would be able to have a second and third slice with his tea of Carol’s special chocolate cake, RSPCA superintendents for the pleasuring of. This magnificent structure of three layers of chocolate ambrosia, touched by angels with whipped cream in between, always ensured that, on the very rare occasions that there was any wintry discontent, it was made glorious summer for all the sons of York present at the time.

  On his first visit, of course he didn’t know about the chocolate cake and so he piled in. Had I introduced myself to the police, the fire service, the social services, the local vets? Were my firearms in perfect condition? We were issued with a .32 pistol – a World War Two vintage repeater, modified from nine shots to two and mainly for putting down horses – and a captive ball pistol as humane killer for other, large animals.

  Was my drugs register up to the minute and did it match exactly with my stock? We had to euthanise animals sometimes, mostly alone and never with the help of a veterinary nurse, and so our reports, being the only evidence, had to be meticulous. When he saw that I was a disciplined and conscientious keeper of records and kit, he eased off and we became good friends. He was only making sure, after all, that I was doing my job properly and, since I thought it the ideal job in Utopia, that didn’t represent a difficulty.

  The other big issue the superintendents looked out for was your partner in life. The RSPCA didn’t pay Carol anything but she was crucial to the job. We were in Yellow Pages. In my area, it wasn’t just me that was the RSPCA. It was both of us. Carol had to take messages, make judgements on their priority, get in touch with me somehow in the age before mobile phones, keep angry people at a suitable distance and distressed people calm. She was very good at it.

  The final part of the job spec is objectives, and that can be summed up very easily: solve every problem that has anything at all to do with animals. It could be a cow stuck halfway down a ravine, a goose wandering around a pub car park or a tortoise trying to cross the road. It could be an accusation of cruelty or, worse in some ways, a rumour of cruelty. It could be a cat up a tree, a fugitive anaconda, an escaped budgerigar, a goat in someone’s garden eating the strawberries or someone who insisted on keeping five goats and a horse in the dining room.

  There were wildlife criminals like badger diggers, birds’ eggers, bird trappers and bird-of-prey poisoners. There were wildlife UFO spotters who that very minute had seen the Phantom Black Panther of Cleckuddersfax, and there was everything in between.

  I was on 24-hour call all the time, except on those alternate weekends when my telephone was diverted to a neighbouring inspector. The other weekend brought us the double calls. There was an official RSPCA brass plaque outside the house. The word soon spread through the village and surrounding districts and I grew to become a local figure, like the doctor or the dentist, the village postmistress, the vicar, the vet or the undertaker, and from time to time I had to be bits of all of those.

  We had a switch on the telephone that allowed calls t
hrough only to our private number when I was off duty. It diverted calls made to the RSPCA number. This was fine, except that the police and all sorts of other people knew where we lived. If they couldn’t get through on the phone, they’d knock on our door and present us with a litter of kittens, an injured owl, a myxy rabbit, any kind of stray – foxes, badgers, young otters, hedgehogs. Some folk were genuinely concerned, some were over-concerned, and some saw us as a convenient way to get rid of an inconvenient animal.

  I really never knew what was going to happen next, except with people like Mrs Stokesley. Every RSPCA inspector acquires regular customers. These may be animal lovers, misguided perhaps, or over-optimistic about what they can take on. Or they may be in the business, making a living or extra cash from animals, careless about welfare or downright cynical about it. If the latter, they may become regular customers of the magistrates too.

  Mrs Stokesley lived with her daughter in a big old terraced house on one of the main residential streets in Scorswick. Her neighbours likewise had big old terraced houses but the difference was that they were normal families, seemingly with sufficient income to maintain a pleasant lifestyle. Mrs Stokesley’s family, daughter apart, consisted entirely of stray dogs, and she clearly didn’t have the money to cope. Even so, she could not resist taking in a dog, any dog, and I think that some people who were fed up with looking after a dog, or surprised that a Christmas puppy actually needed any looking after, would offload the animal onto Mrs Stokesley rather than have the embarrassment of taking it to the RSPCA or the vet.

  I’d often be round there, following a complaint or because I was passing, and I’d find a dog with distemper or demodectic mange. This is caused by a mite of the demodex family which lives in the follicles of all sorts of animals, including humans, mostly doing no harm at all. In certain circumstances, such as when a dog has a weakened immune system, the mites go mad, cause dreadful itching, which makes the dog go crackers trying to scratch and bite itself, producing wounds that become infected. Result: dog covered in pus and bloody sores, suffering terribly.