Aside from Hank, in particular, and the usual succession of pets—cats and dogs—in our household, you had an odd, rather touching relationship with animals. I remember especially the mini-farm we had at Braughing, the parish you took on after Aspley Guise.
We must have moved there pretty much immediately when the war was over. The Vicarage was a huge property—a Queen Anne house surrounded, in front, by an expanse of green grass, some of which had been tamed into a rather uneven tennis court while the rest grew long and wild, requiring only the occasional visitation with an industrial-sized mowing machine. At the bottom of the garden, downhill, to the right, there was what might be a large pond or a small lake, so completely choked with reeds that the water was no longer visible; and up the hill from there, to the left, a stand of trees large enough to be called a copse, if not a woods. Leaning up against the house, on one side, was a rather dilapidated greenhouse with a glorious old vine which did, in fact, surprisingly for the climate, produce grapes.
Behind the house was a large barn with stables that were no longer used for horses—definitely not your realm of interest!—and a cluster of small outhouses of undetermined use. And two pigsties. Which called for occupants, particularly in those immediately post-war years when rationing was still in effect and meat was in short supply. So in part our animal husbandry was public-spirited, to do our part in the recovery. I think Martha was the first arrival—a big old sow who gave birth to a succession of litters of piglets, all of which, or most of which, were sent off to the market at an appropriate age. One of them, Mary, was kept as another breeding sow. And one of the runt pigs, the littlest of the litter, was spared the fate of his siblings—I think because you took pity on the little guy and decided he should stay on at the Vicarage. His name was Harry. You were tickled by the namesake, of course, but he got his name because in that part of the countryside the runt of the litter is actually called “the harry pig.”
And then there were Susan and Sarah.
Unpredictably, they did. At least two of the three. And, not knowing how to determine their sex, we called them Susan and Sarah. Sarah, it turned out, was a gander. Susan was a goose. They soon took over the run of the property, strutting around as though they owned the place—which undoubtedly they thought they did. And then one day we discovered that Susan was laying eggs in a straw nest at the back of one of the small outhouses. We soon counted eight of them—and we were thrilled.
News got around, as it does in small English country villages, in the usual way: in the pubs. (More on these favorite haunts of yours in another letter, but you frequented them in part, I’d like to think, as important centers for your pastoral duties). On this occasion you brought back home the sage opinion of the local farmers: never allow a goose to sit on her own eggs. She’s too lazy, too easily distracted. She’ll never stay with them. Put those eggs under a hen, if you ever want to see the goslings hatch.
You wouldn’t hear of it. Let nature take her course, was your philosophy. I’m not sure whether God had anything to do with. Perhaps not. But you insisted on Susan sitting on her own eggs.
And you were right. Improbably, all eight of the eggs hatched. All eight of the little birds survived, and were soon strutting around the garden all in a row, Susan following after Sarah---we never changed his name—who proudly led the way, and the eight goslings strung out in a line behind them. They did not restrict themselves, either, to the garden. On more than one occasion they felt entitled to stroll in through the back door of the Vicarage and out through the front, where a visitor might surprised by this pompous avian procession emerging from the house to greet them.
Cute as they were, they rapidly became a nuisance. They pooped everywhere. On the tennis lawn. On the gravel driveway outside the front door. In the greenhouse. And ten of these birds can produce an alarming amount of poop, especially once the goslings grow up into something more resembling adult geese.
Worse, though, Susan and Sarah and their flock soon became dissatisfied with what the Vicarage grounds could offer in the way of forage and found their way across the little trout stream that marked one boundary… and into the farmer’s field beyond. In no time, they were wreaking havoc with the farmer’s cabbage crop. He complained. Loudly. In public, in the pub. And you, good pastor, could not afford to alienate your parishioners.
What became of the rest of the flock I do not recall, but I do know what happened to Sarah. He was given to the farmer who had him plucked and feathered and trussed up to be given away as a whist drive prize (whist drives were the weekly village entertainments, the bingo of their day). The person who was required to ceremoniously give away the prize was you, Harry, Father, the Vicar of the parish. And you came home as close to tears as ever I remember you.
It was a different matter with that belligerent rooster. That was earlier, in Aspley Guise. It was my job to feed the chickens—my guess is that I was eight or nine years old—and this creature started to attack me every time I opened the gate to the chicken run. You mocked me when I told you I was afraid, and set out one morning to feed the fowl yourself, to prove me nothing but a chicken myself. Then the beastly bird attacked you, beak and talons flying. He ended up like Sarah, on the dining table. Ours. And we had no compunction about giving him the fate that he deserved.
Remembering all this nonsense, with love, Peter
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