All Things Wise and Wonderful

This old man had once told me that he left school when he was twelve, whereas I had spent most of the twenty-four years in my life in study. Yet when I looked back on the last hour or so I could come to only one conclusion. I'd had more of books, but he had more of learning.

Why had I entered this profession? I could have gone in for something easier and gentler—like coalmining or lumberjacking.

as long as a man can pay ’is way, he’s got enough.

The clever economists who tell us that we don’t need British agriculture and that our farms should be turned into national parks seem to ignore the rather obvious snag that an unfriendly country could starve us into submission in a week. But to me a greater tragedy still would be the loss of a whole community of people like

She was too good a cook and I was too faithful a disciple of her art.

Finally they got me in, half lying across the back seat. My face was pressed against the side window and from the outside it must have been a grotesque sight with the nose squashed sideways and a solitary dead-mackerel eye staring sightlessly into the night.

onto a heap, making a churned brown trail across the whiteness. ‘Now then,’ he muttered along the side of a half-smoked cigarette. He was over seventy but still ran the smallholding single-handed. He told me once that he had worked as a farm hand for six shillings a day for thirty years, yet still managed

I thought of the object lesson which I thought he had given me, but in fact it was a lesson of another kind and one which I have never forgotten; that there are countless people like Paul who are not what they seem.

As soon as I got hold of the teats I could see

the mutually depending, trusting and loving association between man and animal.

Looking at him, a picture of health and contentment, my mind went back to his mother. Was it too much to think that that dying little creature with the last of her strength had carried her kitten to the only haven of comfort and warmth she had ever known in the hope that it would be cared for there? Maybe it was.

But I’m having the agony. I’ve been dreading this happening for so long. I haven’t been able to sleep for thinking about it. It seems so cruel and unjust for this to strike a helpless animal—a little creature who’s never done anybody any harm.

Remember to wear your identity discs at all times. We had two prangs last week – couple of fellers burned beyond recognition and neither of ’em was wearing his discs. We didn’t know who they were.

It was a placid scene

Treating guide dogs for the blind has always seemed to me to be one of a veterinary surgeon’s most rewarding tasks. To be in a position to help and care for these magnificent animals is a privilege, not just because they are highly trained and valuable but because they represent in the ultimate way something which has always lain near the core and centre of my life: the mutually depending, trusting and loving association between man and animal.

That’s what you get for begging among the stalls on market day