08. A Little Bit of Sunshine

The day he arrived was a red-letter day. With a pale fawn coat, a white patch on his chest (that looked a little like the white triangle of a shirt that appeared between the lapels of a suit jacket), Laddie was a spaniel of a ‘not much looked-into’ line of pedigree, to which the description “a cross between a hearth- rug and door-mat” would be a generous compliment. He was cuddly and lovable with a very long tail which added to his ‘different’ appearance…but we adored him. We managed to feed him on scraps and offal, obtainable at that time for the feeding of animals, and dog biscuits. As time went by and the biscuits ran out of stock and offal became restricted, it became more difficult.

One of the most devastating factors of the occupation for the civilian population was the monotony. Time moved slowly…oh, so slowly. Tiresome routines and restrictions upon all manner of things, those that were taken for granted in the normal, replaced well-ordered rounds of everyday living in pre-occupation Guernsey. There were curfews, limitations, new laws and orders. It was a constant flow of orders, orders and more orders, many of which contradicted each other within 24 hours.  Above all there was the scarcity and blandness of available food. The staple diet contracted until, in the last months of the occupation, it consisted of turnips, carrots and parsnips, washed down with acorn coffee, the afore-mentioned blackberry-tea or other inventive substitutes (added to the menu as the isolation progressed).

At first, the abattoirs (where they butchered the meat destined for the menus of the German Authorities’ dining tables) saved the blood and intestines of slaughtered animals for pet food. However, with dwindling food stocks, more offal was made available for human consumption. The blood, when combined with breadcrumbs, suet or coarse-ground grain could be used to make black pudding. Intestines could be either rendered down to a heavy, yellow fat (ideal for frying black pudding), or cooked as a highly sought-after delicacy, known to the connoisseurs of the community as ‘pipes and tripes’.

Cambridge Park was handy to our house and ideal for Laddie’s walks on the lead so, Gilbert and I made this welcome diversion a part of our daily routine. It was an outing beneficial to all three of us. We had a kennel near the back door and Laddie was a cute and well-behaved puppy.

And then one morning, the kennel was empty!

We called and called but no Laddie. So, bicycles out, we set off in search of him, but with no joy. Later in the day I was told by a friend that they heard he had been seen on the back of a lorry with some German soldiers, on the other side of the island, his white ‘shirt-front’ and distinctive tail giving his identity away. Sadly, I thought my pet was gone forever. Certainly the soldiers were not going to return him…but as the days passed, I continued my calling and searching…just in case.

Early one morning, upon opening the back door, I was greeted with the unexpected sight of a log tail protruding from the kennel. With a cry of absolute delight, I called Gilbert, who came quickly to see what the fuss was all about. Thin, bedraggled, and exhausted, there lay our Laddie. He must have run for miles following his instinct to return to his home and he lay sleeping the whole day…just where he had flopped… with his tail in that same position…totally worn out.

 Next morning it was like he’d never been away. Gilbert went and got some scraps of horse meat, which we had gleaned from the slaughterhouse, and he gobbled it down. Then, tail wagging, running in small circles, barking and bounding around the garden in anticipation of a walk, he delighted us once again with his exuberance for life. What a faithful friend! 

Sometime later, when we had little or nothing of sustenance to feed him, we were forced to make the difficult decision to take him on his last walk to the vet. We never had another dog since Laddie. He was an ‘occupation treasure’ who helped fill our days with interest… a’ little ray of sunshine’, lent to brighten our way for a while.