Authors: Clare Campbell
Its conclusions on the war between animal lovers were damning. âNARPAC has no legal existence or signed articles of association,' the report reminded the Minister. âThe crisis had been brought by dissension and financial difficulties due to a lack of confidence in the future.' It had been a mistake to ask the animal charities to pool ideas and money and show, âmore kindness to each other than kindness to animals can apparently evoke'. Furthermore:
Animal welfare charities are especially competitive for publicity and funds. The animal loving public is volatile, blood sports are an issue between them.
The charities remained true to their Edwardian instincts â craving quasi-royal patronage in the bosom of respectability. That is where the legacies came from. Now the Government was the only patron that mattered, already smothering every aspect of national life in socialistic officialdom. Milk for children, if not yet for cats.
The anonymous invigilator had interviewed the principles separately â âto ascertain the strengths of the jealousies'. It was a fascinating insight into animal-lovers' motivations.
RSPCA committee member Mr Arthur Moss âundoubtedly wished NARPAC to fail'. âThe RSPCA is not really interested in âpets' and âit regards the PDSA and ODFL as upstarts,' said the Ministry's investigator.
Sir Charles Hardinge (chairman) and Mr Edward Healy Tutt (secretary) of the Dogs' Home, Battersea were ânot
interested in any of it. Their principle concern is the disposal of carcasses of destroyed dogs.'
The municipal vet, Mr Bywater, was âquite unfit for the task of financial controller'. Meanwhile Mr Johns of the NCDL thought that Bridges Webb was an âoutright gambler who had manipulated the registration scheme so the PDSA could buy it up'.
It was Edward Bridges Webb who emerged as âthe motivator and by far the most interesting of the representatives,' said the report. âAll the solid and potential assets, as far as “pets” are concerned, are tightly controlled by this man. He is master of the situation and we have no option but to recognise the fact.'
The Ministry called him in personally on 1 November for an interview. He was frank about the schisms, especially between vets and the People's Dispensary â which the profession had always regarded as âunqualified quacks' (the RSPCA further had brought pre-war prosecutions against their staff for âcruelty' when performing simple surgery). Besides, vets were only interested in large animals in the country. In towns, their surgeries were in the better-off districts. Of the 120 animal welfare clinics in London, âvery few of them were in poorer areas,' he said.
The pet registration scheme had failed to cover its costs, he admitted. It had raised £23,000 (£1m+ in today's money) but it had cost the same to implement. There had not been much concentration on cats âbecause of the cost of collars'. The scheme could be expanded after the war and it paved the way for the licensing of cats (a long-term political ambition of the âradical' animal societies).
Mr Bridges Webb made some extraordinary admissions. He had designed the NARPAC badge and had had it registered at Stationer's Hall. Legally it was his property. He himself âhad taken over the staff at Harrison, Barber & Co.
and the Merton Bone Company', and was ânow disposing of animal carcasses at a profit by reducing them to their by-product.' At least the money was going to a good cause.
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Harrison, Barber & Co.'s West Ham rendering factory had itself been blitzed and âcould only dispose of the bodies of dogs three times a week'. The Dogs' Home, Battersea had resorted to burying hundreds of animals that it had lethalled in âa large hole' in its own garden. âIt is essential that continued pressure be brought to bear to obtain a dump or series of dumps within a reasonable distance of London,' the secretary, Edward Healey-Tutt, told Scotland Yard on 1 November.
Five days later he confessed to having âclimbed out of further difficulty' by disposing of the carcasses at a secret site at Longfields, near Dartford in Kent. The local authority did not know about it, and there would be âconsiderable trouble' if they did.
Food and petrol were short. He was getting horsemeat from Harrison, Barber & Co. but was now eating into reserves of biscuits. He was meanwhile âfinding homes outside London for any dogs worth keeping but a large proportion are puppy bitches, which nobody wants, or diseased mongrels'.
By mid November NARPAC's cash situation was critical. Trying to salvage blitzed farm animals was difficult and costly. With grim humour, a country vet in Hampshire, Mr J. F. Tutt, demanded some sort of official incorporation into the ARP so as to âprevent an undertaker being presented with a dead cow and a butcher with a specimen of homo sapiens for salvage'. He despaired at the futile attempts to run the organization on some kind of âquasi-military basis'.
By now more than 4,500 âParish Animal Stewards' had been appointed and 3,500 food animal carcasses salvaged. But pet welfare groups were subsidizing it all. Farm animals were not their concern. A total of £90,000 (£3.95m) was needed immediately. Creditors were clamouring. When the issue came to a head at a conference of regional veterinary officers there was a motion that the Government should be asked to bail them all out (the ODFL and PDSA voted against). But still the Treasury said no.
The travails of Britain's âMinistry of Pets' reached neutral America.
The New York Times
reported the refusal of dogs and cats to react to bombing in the way His Majesty's Government thought they would. âInstead of going mad, they adapted themselves quickly to new conditions,' wrote
The NYT's
London correspondent. âThe noise of sirens bothered them at first, but a few days after the start of the Blitz they began to understand what the noise meant and led the family procession to shelters. Similarly horses took the noise as a matter of course.
âHerr Hitler's introduction of the time bomb, however, has created a big problem with thousands of people forced to evacuate their homes, unable to take their pets with them.' The same problem was true of those evacuated from âinvasion corner' on the south coast, âthe problem now is to find a temporary refuge for hundreds of thousands of pets.'
âSpecial animal shelters have been built in parks and private canteens have been set up to feed stray dogs,' he wrote. âWhile the British Government does not like the idea of feeding dogs food that has to be convoyed into this island, the British people in their usual humanitarian fashion are seeing to it that as few pets as possible are destroyed.'
Clearly the American journalist had been briefed by insiders on what he called âThe National Pet Register'. To function it depended on telephone calls to the capital when it was often impossible to get the call through. âConsequently hundreds of thousands of pets had to be destroyed and officials are now trying to meet this problem by decentralizing their organization and letting each city take care of its own register,' he wrote. âThe problem of financing this new machinery came up before the officials today.' This was a carefully spun version of the truth.
Nevertheless, New Yorkers were treated to a vision of a nation of humane pet lovers to whose aid neutral America must surely come:
The trouble to which the British people and officials have gone for their pets is simply staggering. Hundreds of voluntary workers, including veterinary surgeons all over the country, are giving their services free of charge and risking their own lives every night to take care of these animals.
The top vet Henry Steele-Bodger found all this bending of the truth most unpalatable. He burst into a rage on 4 December about a BBC broadcast, âin which certain of the animal welfare societies have been wallowing in for their own benefit and self glorification, something the veterinary medical profession cannot do'.
He was finding the animal welfare advocates increasingly wearisome. In communications with the Ministry, Mr Steele-Bodger was by now questioning whether their love of animals had gone beyond reason.
The second Christmas of the war was coming and the intermittently fed goose was not getting especially fat. Backyard poultry breeders eyed up âHenrietta' and âBlackie' for the chop. For Britain's pets there were mixed reasons to celebrate the festive season under fire. Perhaps the charities would bury their differences in the spirit of goodwill. Our Dumb Friends' League led the way by hosting a Christmas party for bombed-out dogs at its headquarters near Buckingham Palace.
Mrs Maria Dickin published a moving tribute in the Christmas edition of
PDSA News:
âThat plaintive cry, the faint moan,' she wrote, âhow it rings in the ears and tears at the heart of the PDSA staff who, often at great personal danger, toil hour after hour to rescue the animals trapped under the debris.'
Mrs W. Slater of Birmingham was one of them. âI have rescued hundreds of cats,' she told the
Daily Mirror
in early December, âeven while a house is burning, a cat will remain there. I throw the lasso cord over its neck and drag the cat out.' Her fiercely independent Harborne Home and Dispensary for Animals was the designated NARPAC detention post. âMany of them are so badly injured they have to go into the lethal box immediately,' she said, âand last week three lorry loads of dead cats were taken away from the city' [the heaviest attacks on the city were in late November]. Mrs Slater and her family had voluntarily become vegetarians, it was reported, âso that the many cats she has rescued can have meat at her home'.
There was more upbeat news as well. During the Christmas Blitz on Manchester (22â24 December) it was reported: âAt midnight, a goat was found by the police at the Odeon Cinema in Oxford Street. This bewildered animal had luckily been registered with the National A.R.P. Animals Committee, and a telephone call soon
resulted in restoration to its Longsight owner'.
Mancunian Animal Guards seemed terribly keen. After the festive-season raids they were reported to be touring the city on foot and by bicycle organizing relief for the âwild, starving cats' of the city. Scraps of meat and fish from caterers and abattoirs had been collected and mixed with dried cat food stockpiled by the committee.
âThirty volunteer women reported the cats' whereabouts and distributed baskets of food to approved animals,' it was reported. âThey carry rope lassos to catch stray dogs and cat waifs are brought to the lethal chamber.'
Mr J. T. Beilby of the Committee's North-west Region said, âThese cats are wild and elusive and we have to leave the food out for them to take. But I am convinced it is the cats who get it and not the rats.'
Since the Christmas 1940 raids, 500 cats had been destroyed by their owners and the same number more saved from âhungry vagrancy' (by being destroyed by PDSA mobile squads), so it was reported. It was perhaps better for Manchester cats to stay clinging to the ruins if they were to survive.
In a round-up of evacuee tales,
The Dog World
told the story of a woman in a provincial town who broke down in tears because no one would take her in with dog and her baby â until âthe kindly owner of a local boarding kennel offered free shelter for the Westie [West Highland White Terrier] thus simplifying her search for lodgings'.
Cats too charmed their way into places of warmth and safety.
The Cat
told the story of the church cat of St Magnus the Martyr in the City of London: â“Puss” placed her four young kittens in the manger with the Bambino. A little lad visiting the church during Christmastide saw the kittens and with much delight shouted: “Baby kittens with mother Jesus!”'
And in Chester Cathedral during the festive season another correspondent saw âa huge black Tom curled up very cosily upon the straw within the manger. He was not the official church cat, but may have been invited in by the resident puss â one never knows.'
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  War was good for business.
The Times
recorded, âHarrison, Barber & Co. (animal slaughterers) â A profit of £8,607 is returned for 1940 (against £3,471 for 1939).'
In spite of all its troubles, by the start of 1941 the protecting veil of NARPAC had been spread over the whole country. Britain's cities continued to take a pounding as the pet lovers' militia now stood sentinel, supposedly, over
all
the nation's animals. Its committee members had been released from pending bankruptcy meanwhile by the intervention of the Ministry of Home Security. All sins had been forgiven; the Animal Guards were back. Whether this would actually help animals under fire had yet to be seen.
That early spring, a Ministry of Information photo session for the US press featured Mrs Olive Day of Drayton Gardens, Kensington in: âA Day in the Life of a Wartime Housewife', where she was seen knitting a balaclava and preparing for her naval officer husband to come home on leave. Her agreeable black cat, âLittle One', accompanies her throughout, prominently wearing a collar with its NARPAC badge. The collar âwas to ensure, should he stray in Blitz or blackout, he will be returned safely to his owner'. How thoughtful.