Memoirs of a Cotswold Vet

by Ivor Smith

  Debbie was an enigma. She represents a type of staff member present in probably most of the veterinary practices throughout the country. For various reasons she hadn’t obtained the formal qualifications to study to become a qualified veterinary nurse, but as a result of her association with vets and nurses within the practice over the years, she had become an extremely knowledgeable and invaluable asset, familiar with anaesthetic procedures and someone we could trust. After many years she eventually left The Brambles practice to take up a career in the clinical environment of an NHS hospital laboratory, a post to which she was more than suitably qualified. The clients missed her caring attention and I missed her dry sense of humour.

  Debbie had been part of the practice for just a few weeks and was on duty over the Christmas period. There had been a dreadful accident on Boxing Day. Early in the afternoon a speeding car had mounted the pavement and struck a group of people on Innsworth Lane. There had been several fatalities, including a patient of ours, a large German Shepherd dog.

  At the time of the tragedy, we had been enjoying the seasonal company of Old Cryptians and Old Richians at their Longlevens rugby club. Traditionally for many, this was the festive day of Christmas when the teams of grammar school old boys fought it out for the Horns Trophy. The post-match celebrations were the best local rugby had to offer, and continued late into the afternoon. For some they continued late into the evening, but at about 4 o’clock, most of the wives and girlfriends drove their happy warriors home.

  Within minutes of arriving home Angela and I were aware that this was not how our Boxing Day was normally concluded. Immediately I was in sobering discussions with emergency service officers. They quickly explained all that had happened and I arranged for our duty vet and a nurse to attend the scene of the carnage. It was a dreadful way to end such an enjoyable day, and difficult to remove the pictures of what had happened from my mind. We sat zombie-like in front of the television while Morecambe and Wise did their best to cheer us up.

  The following day it was back to business. At 8.30 a.m. I wandered round the surgery trying rapidly to catch up with all the important events that had happened in my absence. It was customary for any unfortunate creature that we had put to sleep to be placed in a thick black plastic bag before being transferred to the confines of a chest freezer. Lifting the body of a large dog – literally a dead weight – into the freezer was often physically impossible for a nurse to undertake on her own. I assumed that one of the black bags contained the Boxing Day tragedy, so I casually asked, ‘What’s in the other bag, Debbie?’

  ‘Oh, that’s the other half of the dog, Mr Smith’ she replied innocently. I gulped.

  For most people buying a freezer should be nothing more strenuous than a trip to a nearby high-street chain. Normally you would just hope that there would be sufficient funds on the credit card to cover the cost of the purchase. That is unless you are a vet.

  Needing a new appliance for the surgery, our visit to the local branch of electrical goods started well and we were pleased to be greeted by the shop assistant who just happened to be a Brockworth lady we knew well; she was the devoted owner of miniature Poodles and a frequent visitor to our surgery. Half an hour later things were not going so well. She was determined not to sell me a chest freezer and continued to try and convince me that we needed the more economical modern one with five sliding drawers. At the peak of my frustration I resisted the temptation to ask her, ‘How the hell do I get a Rottweiler into one of those?’ At the end of an awkward and protracted debate I bought a big chest freezer anyway and no doubt left my client hoping I would fall into it! Thankfully, she remained a loyal client whom I saw frequently. We talked about ear infections, itchy skin and the weather, but never about fridges.

  Farm practice at this time was immensely enjoyable, and at that time I could not get enough of it. I was young and fit enough still to relish the challenge of the cold wet weather, the mud, the kicks and the physical effort needed to calve cows. There was still opportunity too to practise farm animal medicine the way we had been taught at Liverpool.

  A short distance out of Churchdown, travelling towards Brockworth, was Woodhouse Farm. At the time, the Davies, a lovely elderly Welsh couple lived and in a small way farmed there. Early one afternoon the practice received a call from a very worried Mr Davies asking if I would be kind enough to visit him as soon as possible to see a calf that was fitting. None of the calves in the group looked particularly well and the one that had prompted the visit was indeed showing neurological signs, frothing at the mouth and staggering around the small concrete yard. The poor beast was grinding his teeth and within minutes of my arrival collapsed and died.

  The list of possible different causes flashed through my mind. Was this a case of a bacterial infection, listeriosis or tetanus? A nutritional disorder was possible, so was cerebrocortical necrosis of the brain, magnesium deficiency, or even poisoning. I found myself rattling off the list of possibilities that not so long ago I was repeating like poetry to my Liverpool Vet School lecturers.

  I hung my hat on this being a case of lead poisoning. I was alarmed when Mr Davies told me that a calf in the group had died a couple of days earlier. On closer examination, all the calves were showing the early signs of the illness – the teeth grinding and the abdominal pain. I took a couple of blood samples to check for the presence of lead, but if these animals were to be saved then I had to act immediately. I slipped back to the surgery and collected bottles of calcium versonate and, returning to the farm, injected each of the calves intravenously. They had more the next day and they recovered. I arranged for a post-mortem examination to be carried out at the ever-helpful Veterinary Investigation Centre at Elmbridge Court, and there my diagnosis was confirmed from the flakes of blue paint found in the calve’s rumen, and later from the high levels of lead in the blood samples.

  The diagnosis was not rocket science. It had not taken long to find where the calves had obtained the lead. An old door, among other items, had been used as a wall to confine the cattle, and calves do have an obsession with licking things; in this instance that included the peeling door paint. Today of course paint does not normally contain lead and this once common problem is thankfully now a rarity. Farmers are traditionally versatile in transforming old doors into new objects and there were many of them in use at another neighbouring farm, a little closer to Churchdown.

  Harry and Barbara Hopton farmed at Woodfield Farm. The farm buildings are situated on one side of the old narrow Brockworth road and the farmhouse, which has a distinctive pattern of chequered red brick, is on the opposite side. The couple were a brother and sister team and despite their constant arguing ran the farm well. It is difficult to describe Harry. He looked an old chap when I first met him in the 1960s, and looked no different thirty years later. Wearing his distinctive NHS wire spectacles he could well have been Albert Steptoe’s twin brother. Barbara was a lovely country lady who for many years rode her bike around the village.

  Harry walked everywhere. I do not know whether this was because he believed it more economical or because he could not ride a bike. He did not have a telephone and getting in touch with him meant visiting him at home; this could be tricky. Having knocked on the front door, which was at the side of the building, reaching the hub of the house – the farm kitchen – entailed running the gauntlet past the most vicious little Jack Russell, which was usually tied to a table leg in the scullery. He would dive at your leg as you tried to get past while Barbara prodded him with a walking stick and told him to behave himself.

  Like Harry, some farmers at that time were notoriously cheeky when it came to paying their bills. The usual routine was to pull out the vet’s bill that was tucked under the wireless set, squint at the bottom line and wince. The bill and cheque-book were then handed over with the request, ‘I expect you’d like to fill this in yourself, Mr Smith, and don’t forget some good luck money.’ The idea of course was that the bill would be rounded down plus a bit mor
e, and after I had checked that it was the last bill he had been sent, that is of course what I did. Today we call it discount if it is paid on time!

  Driving to Brockworth Court Farm one morning, I was surprised to see an agitated Harry on the road attempting to run towards Churchdown. He was waving his hands in the air and shouting something. I had to stop to avoid hitting him.

  ‘Quick, Vet’, he yelled, ‘I need ’elp to get a bullock out of a trough that’s stuck upside down with his arse in the air.’ I returned to the farm gates with him. The reason for his panic was easy enough to spot – with four long bovine legs pointing up and not down. We began to walk calmly through the other twenty-odd cattle that were part of the group when suddenly, in the midst of the milling cattle, I spotted Barbara, sitting battered and bruised among them on the ground, covered in everything the farmyard had to offer.

  ‘Hang on a minute, Harry’, I said. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘Ne’r moind ’bout ’er, we gotta get this bugger outa ’ere.’

  ‘We’re going to get Barb out first’, I stated.

  Attracted by the amount of unusual activity as he passed by, John Halford could not have arrived at a more opportune time. We carried a distressed Barbara to safety and left Harry swearing at his upside-down steer. We left Barbara in her favourite kitchen chair, nipped back to the farmyard, turned the water trough and its contents over and freed the beast. He was suffering from loss of dignity and a bit of bruising but it was clear that Barbara’s injuries were more serious. We ignored her ‘Oh, I’ll be all right’ pleas and called for an ambulance. The trampling cattle had fractured her pelvis and a femur. She was a tough nut and, happily, a few months and a couple of major operations later, she was back on the farm and back on her bike.

  As the years went by she and Harry did make some efforts to move into the twentieth century and a new indoor toilet was installed. It was not one that was joined up to a sewage system, but a cesspit was a vast improvement and it was no longer necessary to take a trip to the little building at the end of the garden. I have no recollection of them ever having a telephone put into the house, but eventually they did invest in a television set and at last they were able to see a world that existed beyond Churchdown.

  Geoff Saxon lived on a small farm named Windermere at Bamfurlong, a hamlet between Churchdown and Cheltenham. I cannot remember the first time I met this workaholic but I should. He was from the north-east and fortunately had an accent that we could understand and a wonderful sense of humour. I never asked him how he got into farming or how he came to be in our neck of the woods, but perhaps it was better that I hadn’t. He was mainly interested in cattle and pigs and they were well cared for, though sometimes not in a well-organised way. As well as farming with his son, Paul, they owned and drove very large transport wagons. Geoff really needed a twenty-five-hour day to fit in all that he did, and he often looked in want of it.

  I usually met Mrs Saxon when I visited the farm and it was to Sue that I could most relate. There were frequent differences of opinion between them when I was on the farm but happily they were usually resolved while I was still there. Geoff’s northern humour shone through in adversity, and on those occasions when it was necessary to break a silence, usually after I had pinched my fingers for the third time in the rusting latches of his cattle crush, tuberculin testing his wild Charollais cows, he was still able to remark, ‘Bet it isn’t like this at Pullens.’ It wasn’t, but I never laboured the point. He was referring to his big farming neighbour, where things were indeed organised a little differently – albeit with a lot more help. Nevertheless he provided the fun and the stories. One Sunday morning found him on the farm sawing logs with a circular saw. He must have been distracted at the time he ripped through the thumb on his right hand.

  ‘Christ, I’ve sawn my bloody thumb off!’ he yelled. Sue knew that Geoff was prone to exaggeration and shouted back, ‘Don’t you be so silly!’ He held his hand aloft and on this occasion she believed him and put the box of plasters away.

  Within the hour they had reached the Accident and Emergency Department at Gloucester’s Hospital, accompanied by a couple of local farm-working pals. He was quickly referred to a specialist surgeon, who was no doubt looking forward to a couple of challenging hours of reconstructive surgery. Asked if they had brought the missing digit with them, the lads apologised and said they would go back and look for it. Half an hour later they were back with the main portion of the thumb. The surgeon cast his eye over the adhering sawdust, various samples of animal faeces and other unrecognisable things. He made his mind up instantly and decided it was in Geoff’s best interest to go ahead and amputate the remnant of his thumb.

  It was not the end of the world for Geoff, but losing the thumb of your best hand could lead to a lifetime of frustration for any farmer. Apart from anything else, farmers needed that thumb to ‘nose’ cattle. The largest of cattle could usually be controlled with a good armlock and a firm index finger and thumb pinching with the other strong arm. It drove Geoff mad when he could no longer do it. It drove me mad when he let go and I was thumped by the cow he was supposed to be restraining.

  There was an occasion when another neighbour’s saddleback gilts were running with a group of Geoff’s large white gilts with reputedly the best large white boar in the county. We had some of the best pig farms in the country not so very far away. Time had gone by and if a gilt was pregnant she would be by now and for husbandry reasons the neighbouring farmer wanted his pigs back.

  The problem was the weather. It would not stop raining, and this led to a further problem – mud, glorious mud. The irate neighbour demanded his pigs back. An equally irate and frustrated Geoff said he could not have them.

  ‘Look, until it stops raining there’s bugger all I can do. I can’t sort ’em out. I don’t know whether they are supposed to be my white pigs or your black and white pigs or someone else’s black pigs. They are all black pigs and they all look the bloody same to me.’ No doubt the only person not frustrated at the time was the large white boar, whatever colour he happened to be at that time.

  A few miles away, as you approach Gloucester from the direction of Stroud, you descend the steep Birdlip Hill and to your left you see through the trees the beautiful views of Witcombe Lakes. They appear to be natural lakes but they are of course relatively modern reservoirs. Everything else, however, is the wonderful countryside that would have been enjoyed by our Roman ancestors. I really began to appreciate the true beauty of this area on my frequent visits to Mr Metson, who farmed at the picturesque Coopers Hill Farm. I am sure that there must be scores of local people who can still remember Mr Metson the milkman. He was a milk producer/retailer who delivered the early morning pints and quarts to homes in Brockworth and Hucclecote from churns in his pony and trap.

  The telephone rang shortly after 5 o’clock one fine June morning. Most farmers start the telephone conversation with an honest apology. Then there are others who open the conversation with, ‘I’m glad you are up already and I haven’t disturbed you, Ivor.’ There were occasions when I would have loved to say with some truth, ‘Actually, I have only just got into bed.’

  Mr Metson’s description of his cow needing an early morning call was the last thing you wanted to hear before you had properly woken up, but it was an emergency. A prolapse of the uterus is not an uncommon complication in a cow suffering from milk fever shortly after calving. The calcium deficiency leads to a loss in muscle tone and the continued straining sometimes allows the uterus to invert and the vast organ simply turns inside out.

  ‘I’ll be with you shortly, but get as many towels under her womb as you can.’ The last thing we needed was further damage to the uterus from Cotswold weeds and thistles. As so often happens, the cow had collapsed to the ground with her head uphill, allowing gravity to ensure the prolapse was complete. Even without the morning’s first mug of tea, I found the energy to rope and swing her hind legs in the opposite direction, carefully manoeuvri
ng the prolapsed organ with her.

  Gravity is one of life’s mysteries and there are times like this when it is a very welcome force working in your favour. Twenty minutes later, with my patient’s head pointing downhill, the one hundredweight of inverted uterus was returned to its rightful place. This very important organ had naturally suffered an immense amount of superficial damage and in the short term she would need treatment for a transient uterine infection, but with the appropriate attention she would probably breed again. I cannot say for sure but I like to think that she did.

  Within minutes of the routine intravenous calcium treatment, mum was back on her feet and her calf’s head was pummeling at the udder and enjoying her morning milk. I declined Mr Metson’s offer of early morning coffee and, stripped to the waist, scrubbed myself as clean as I could in the fresh morning air, enjoying the wondrous views of green fields and surrounding majestic hills that lay in all directions. Tucked away in this mysterious place are the remains of Witcombe’s Roman villa. There isn’t really a lot for the tourist to see but to the historian it’s intriguing. Some experts suggest that at some time there was a much larger and more important Roman villa in the area, the ruins of which are still waiting to be unearthed.

  Mr Metson eventually retired and in the 1970s Mark and Celia moved into Coopers Hill Farm. Mark Hicks-Beach was the owner of the Witcombe Park Estates, and lands as far as the Roman eye would have seen. In a short period of time he became one of my practice’s largest farm clients and, in an equally short time, a close friend. Naturally there were a number of farming families with whom Angela and I developed close friendly relationships, and visiting their farms was a pleasurable bonus. Mark and his family were one of them. To me he had all those special qualities that I admire in being British, and some, if I am honest, I envied.

  Mark was Eton educated, outwardly inspiring and confident and a very good organiser. He blended well with his band of farm staff who I am certain had great respect for him. During the working day it was fascinating to listen to the usual farm banter but in the contrasting tones of a distinctive Oxford accent and that of broad Gloucestershire all in harmony. His commonsense and natural organising ability made him an excellent local politician, and for many years he served as a Tewkesbury borough councillor. Mark accepted his limitations and he knew how to delegate. But here’s a secret. He had a phobia of flying. He hated it so much that on some family holidays he would meet up with Celia and the children by sea a few days later.