These days, whatever people try to tell you about wildlife being on the decline and natural habitats disappearing and stuff - do not believe it !!
As an adult I regularly see all kinds of wild animals - rabbits, hares - the very occasional badger (in rural Buckinghamshire), the not so occasional deer (Roe, Fallow and Muntjak). Even in built up areas in Central London I clock foxes, herons, jays, woodpeckers (both brown AND red) - and of course millions and millions of squirrels.
When we were children though we saw nothing. The park near my Mum's, which I played in as a child, which we were dragged to by our class teachers on 'nature walks', is now teeming with squirrels and rabbits and god knows what else.
But back before I was a teenager it had nothing at all. Nothing that I ever saw anyway, and nothing that anyone that either I or my brother knew had ever seen either.
Which is why when we had a chance to venture further afield, we were always keen to see some animals.
Did I say keen ?
Perhaps a better expression would be "unhealthily obsessed with a strange manic desire". I don't know where this came from - but know this : It existed !
And so it came to pass, that on a Sunday day trip with my Mum and Dad, my brother Michael and myself were allowed to bring along Richard - or Roppy as we knew him.
The itinerary was simple. We were going to the seaside to do seaside things in Whitby, North Yorkshire - where I'd never been (and have only passed through briefly since then). And on the way, we were stopping in the country side to do country side things.
To my Mum and Dad, countryside things at that time meant getting out of our fibreglass bodied 3 wheeler car, eating a picnic on a tartan travel blanket in some picturesque spot, and then running around making noise for half an hour while Mum and Dad drank coffee from a Thermos, before we headed on our way to Dracula's favourite Yorkshire town.
We of course had other ideas.
We stopped in the picturesque spot - a road side, river side location close to the Fylingdales early warning station.There were Ministry of Defence signs everywhere warning us not to even think about looking over the fence - never mind jumping over it.
But we had made up our mind - this was definitely wild animal country. You could just sense it. Why there must have been ... several ... animals out there.
So instead of hanging around for the sandwiches and cornish pasties, we dashed off along the river bank, in sure and certain hope of catching a glimpse of a real honest to god mountain lion, or red deer, or badger, or fox, or rabbit.
Actually we'd have settled for a dead mouse if truth be told - but we were DEFINITELY going to see it.
Roppy took the lead - he could sense we were on to something special . Then he spotted the first clue :
Here on a grassy knoll was evidence of something far more exciting than any conspiracy to murder a president. What he saw was a number - maybe a dozen - of small round blackish green balls.
There was no doubting what they were. They were rabbit poo. Expert hunters like us though used their proper Yorkshire name.
These were rabbit 'Tods'
After the initial excitement had abated ever so slightly. Roppy gave us the benefit of his hunting expertise. "Look around - there's tods everywhere !!" he said breathlessly
And so there were - every few paces, clear incontrovertible proof of the presence of bunnies.
"but I know how to make sure we find the rabbit !" (and no it never did occur to us that there might have been more one )
"These tods are old ! See -" he said picking one up and handing it round.
"If it was new it would be fresher - it would be a soft tod !"
"We need to find the freshly done tods - the rabbit will be close when we find the fresh ones."
So off we charged. Like the knights of Baron Elmer Fudd chasing the mythical wabbit of Fylingdale Moor, our excited laughter echoing down the valley of what was actually a truly beautiful moorland stream, babbling as excitedly as we were on our right hand side.
Meanwhile our parents were ready to put the Ribena in the cups back at the picnic blanket. But where were the intrepid hunters. The thought quickly went through their mind, that if we strayed even slightly off the not so beaten track, we could end up trespassing in one of the most militarily sensitive sites in Western Europe, which would mean a possibly embarassing scene.
My Mum definitely did not want to explain to Lily and Harry, Roppy's parents, that their pride and joy had been shot dead by military police.
So off she set in pursuit. It was not difficult to follow the tracks. the ground was wet and muddy after recent showers, and the 3 sets of skiddy trainer prints were clearly visble. In any case after the first 50 yards, the shrieking, laughing and cheering from the hunters led her clearly towards we 3 boys.
At about this time. Richard found his next clue. He could not contain himself "THESE TODS ARE FRESHLY DONE !!!" he shouted back to his followers, and ran on ahead, opening up a considerable lead over the chasing pack.
It was then that we spotted our Mum, her voice sort of near enough to hear, yet far enough to pretend we hadn't.
"STEEPHEN, MICHAEEL" she shouted.
The rest of the sentence was obviously "COME BACK !!" - but we willed ourselves not to hear it, and carried on following Roppy at an only slightly slower pace than the break neck speed we'd intended before we spotted her.
"THEY'RE LEADING ACROSS THE RIVER !!" shouted our captain, gazing downwards into another crop of rabbit faeces. Now oblivious to any other external forces he was going for it for all he was worth - he stepped out onto rocks in the stream looking anxiously left and right to see what was the best way across the raging torrent". It was raging quite prettily actually.
By now we were slowing up. We didn't know whether we were in trouble, and didn't want to jeopardise our chances too much. We reached the bank of the stream just as Mum reached us.
Before she had a chance to speak, a sound of pure delight came from the water. A joyous mid stream sample declaring "FRESHLY DONE TODS !!!, FRESHLY DONE TODS !!!"
Roppy pointed to the opposite bank, and leapt from his rock and salvation towards the land of milk and bunnies.
As always in these situations the universe went into slow motion, and the three of us on the bank watched in still silence as Richard inevitably plunged his entire body lengthways in the water. The water which although a mere trickle of a brook, happened to have one small pool just at the right place, which was big enough and deep enough to accomodate all of Roppy, and all of Roppy's clothes and cover him in what looked like cool clear water, but which smelled like cow dung, cow urine, and of course - freshly done tods. The drenching also extended to his brand new 'Car Coat' - a sort of Anorak without a hood but with a stripe down one arm, which he had insisted on keeping on despite the warm weather.
There was no need to rescue him - he rose immediately, stiffly and shamefacedly. He knew already that the rabbit would never be found, that he would be in trouble with my Mum. That he would be in trouble with his own Mum.
He had no inkling however of just how miserable his day would be.
We returned to the car, and stripped Roppy off. We had no other clothes.
We did however have a towel and gave it to him as he stood naked at the roadside, eating an orange club biscuit. The picnic was truncated, but still took place as it had to - we had to clear the tartan blanket, which now became Roppy's clothing as we headed towards Whitby.
When we got to Whitby we of course headed straight for a Laundrette. It was however Sunday afternoon. - The first one we found was closed
.
And the second one
We didn't find a third.
To add to our troubles, the sunny Sunday morning had matured into a miserable heavy drizzling Sunday afternoon - these clothes would not dry on their own.
Even if they had, the 'essence of tod' which now permeated them, meant they needed both wash and dry cycles at the Bendix.
We set off on a tour of the North Yorkshire coast and nearby villages, in a farcical search for washing machines which would in later years have served very well as the basis of an episode of Heartbeat.
We did eventually find a laundrette, and then spent an hour or two waiting for the machines to do their job. By this time Michael and myself were bored and fed up, My Mum was angry and fed up, and my Dad was wondering how he'd been persuaded to take us all anyway.
Roppy poor sod, was shivering like an H block hunger striker on his blanket, and had been quietly sobbing on and off for much of the day.I don't recall how we got home or anything else about the day, and I don't know what the moral of this story is - perhaps it's 'Pride comes before a fall !".
I do know that I can never - and I mean never - see rabbit droppings anywhere at all, without conjuring up a picture of Richard triumphantly declaring "Freshly Done Tods !" before plunging to his watery gravy.
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