Bonzo's War (9 page)

Then there was the barking. In an open letter of apology to her St John's Wood neighbours Her Grace wrote: ‘I would like you to know that I heard officially that last Sunday [3 September] thousands of dogs and cats were destroyed and two days ago three truck loads of dead bodies went out from a certain animal clinic in London. We should be horrified if this sort of thing happened abroad. How we can explain such a thing to our foreign friends in this so called animal-loving England?' (The journal of the Reich Animal Protection League would report in spring 1940 that ‘millions of dogs and cats were killed in the first weeks of war … 750 tons of carcasses had been turned by one London firm into manure,' but did so in shock and sadness rather than propaganda gloating. It had been ‘totally unnecessary'.)

‘Considering how all these dogs are strangers to each other, and to us, I think they are all wonderfully quiet,' she wrote. Her neighbours might have disagreed.

Beyond Lynsted lay Ferne, the ducal estate in Wiltshire acquired in the 1920s. Nina Hamilton declared it once more to be a sanctuary for pets, as in the Munich crisis. The first raucous wartime transport of dogs and cats left London in the Duke's Daimler on 4 September. Many more would follow.

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  When Hippy died not long afterwards, Sir Nevile wrote: ‘I can hardly conceive of another life unless Hippy be waiting there to share it with me.' A biography of the Dachshund would be published in 1942, including a claim that he had growled at Nazis on the streets of pre-war Berlin.

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  There was a story that a ‘shock force' of stray cats had been collected from all over Spain to deal with a plague of rats in the city, besieged from October 1936, which eventually fell to the Nationalists on 28  March 1939. A small PDSA team, driven by an American war correspondent, had got into Madrid just before the end. They found plenty of wounded mules but no cats or dogs, ‘which bore out stories that they had all been eaten,' said their report. ‘Mules which had been humanely destroyed quickly disappeared for their flesh.'

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  Stordy would tell a newspaper, ‘It was the greatest single burial of pets anyone has ever seen. The secret burial ground was just by the site of recent boring for an Underground railway extension so we were able to run trucks down there.'

After a week, the killing frenzy burned out. Pet lovers blinked. What have we done? The sky had not darkened with bombers. A kind of calm returned. Where now were faithful Bonzo and little Oo-Oo? Reduced to fertilizer in Sugar House Lane or interred in some cold field in Ilford.

In Memoriam notices appeared in the pet press, looking it might seem, for forgiveness. ‘In ever loving memory of our dear Chum, put to sleep to save from suffering 25 August, 1939,' said one. ‘In memory of Bobbie. Put prematurely to sleep 30 August, 1939,' was another.

There was a meeting of the NARPAC executive on 12 September. Everyone threatened to resign but not over the massacre. Major E. J. Stuart, the Committee's transport officer, declared he could not work with Colonel Stordy. Mr Bridges Webb and Keith Robinson threatened to withdraw the PDSA and Dumb Friends' League outright – because they could not allow their ‘clinics to be given instructions except during the actual course of an air-raid'.

Colonel Stordy insisted that unless he could give on the spot directions that would be complied with, he would find it impossible to continue, and tendered his resignation. It was not accepted. The Dumb Friends' League's
inspectors, the Home Office noted meanwhile, ‘had in a short space of time acquired an extraordinary reputation for a complete lack of tact or discretion'.

Some kind of order returned. The Metropolitan Police official on the Committee drily noted: ‘It is something that they [the animal charities] have survived the outbreak of European hostilities at all.'

Was it even worth continuing? ‘It would be advantageous in many ways if we were to be out of their disputes,' the Scotland Yard man noted, ‘[however] it would seem essential that we are continued to be represented on this committee.'

Money was the immediate problem. The Home Office would advance a mere £1,000. The Dumb Friends' and the PDSA proclaimed there was no need for public money as the charitable public had given enough already. They confessed to being replete with funds. A dedicated bank account would be opened with an overdraft facility, which the ODFL and PDSA would guarantee. The RPSCA and National Canine Defence League refused, as did the Dogs' Home, Battersea because ‘we can only use our funds for the purposes for which they were given to us'. Charity began at home.

But they had to have some future source of income. Edward Bridges Webb of the PDSA had an answer. The new organization would function like any other charity – with a money-raising Appeals Committee. He came up with a splendid wheeze, ‘registration' of the nation's domestic animals in a giant central directory with identity discs, distributed by local unpaid helpers, the ‘animal wardens' idea, in return for voluntary donations. He calculated it would raise £10,000 in London alone. Whoever controlled the registry would control the nation's pets.

There was already something like it, the Tail-Waggers
Club, a populist, dog-enthusiast organization founded in 1926, partly sponsored by Spratt's Pet Products, which issued a name-engraved collar badge of its own bearing the Club motto ‘I Help My Pals'. It published an engaging magazine featuring articles, some of which were ostensibly written by pets. Its headquarters were in Barking. But although the royal Corgis were members, it did not seem quite serious enough for the Ministry of Home Security. Actually, as it would turn out, the Tail-Waggers might have done better than anyone else.

The civil servants were delighted with the registration notion. It could all be paid for out of the British love of pets and there was no denying the strength of that particular passion. Even vets would work for free. It was noted for the minister that the People's Dispensary had ‘always quarrelled' with the veterinary profession – but last month an agreement had been reached (a drawn-out legal action for slander had been settled and the Dispensary agreed to call their unqualified staff ‘Technical Officers').

So let the Appeals Committee have what they wanted. They should be allowed to do door-to-door collections. NARPAC indeed should be the sole animal welfare fund-raiser. The RSPCA was incandescent.

The message meanwhile that killing pets was wrong was at last starting to work. Pet lovers faced up to meeting the challenges ahead with their animals by their sides. Each did so in his own way. ‘Do nothing in a panic! We urge everyone not to destroy their studs, whether of rabbits, cavies, mice or cats,' editorialized
Fur and Feather
magazine on 8 September. ‘Nobody knows how long the present emergency is going to last. We must have more rabbit breeders. Carry on!'

The magazine's exhortations were for readers to breed their pets so as to eat them. ‘Every breeder in the country
should now be making plans to produce rabbit flesh,' said the journal. ‘No matter whether his stud consists of purely fancy varieties, of fur, or of wool rabbits, he can utilise a part of it for food production.'

‘To keep rabbits is to perform a national service,' said the editor of
The Smallholder
. ‘Soldiers are we now, every man and woman amongst us.'

Mr C. H. Johnson, president of the National Mouse Club, declared: ‘This is not just a nod to those fanciers who have answered the national call and joined the services but also to those of our members who are left at home. I ask you to continue with mouse activities. Let us make a solemn resolve that we will always keep a few mice, however difficult it may be.' And who could argue with that?

Cats too dug in for a long campaign. Captain W. H. Powell, the writer of ‘Cats and Catdom' (the feline spot in
Fur and Feather)
declared on 15 September: ‘We MUST strive to keep the Cat Fancy going through this infernal business. The cat fancy is not some useless luxury hobby. Do nothing irrevocable!'

The Cats Protection League announced stirringly: ‘There must be no truce in the war to help cats.' Mr Albert A. Steward, writing in its fine journal,
The Cat
, recognized that it was ‘difficult in the present tragic days to write about the ordinary lives and needs of cats. The human tragedies, mental and physical, that are about to surround us will be uppermost in all minds and the little companions of our peaceful days will be forgotten by many.'

It was not the Nazis who cats should fear but ‘indifferent, bad and nervy owners,' said Mr Steward. He defined as such ‘those who, when rationing comes, will make no effort to feed their cats' or ‘those who, when air raids are expected, will be too lazy to ensure that they are brought in at night'. Other owners ‘will be so scared that they will
forget everything but their own fear,' he predicted. The cats of such uncaring owners would, ‘find life unendurable and wander away'.

It was not potential enemy action immediately endangering cats but changes in the ordinary routine for such a creature of habit. Evacuation and blackout were disturbing enough for humans. ‘The blackout has affected the town cat more than his country cousin,'
The Cat
would record, ‘who, indeed, generally gets the best of it, always.' But there was a distinct class order for wartime felines:

If the plebeian city puss, whose playground is the street, is not in by blackout time he must stay out, and there we must leave him. Next in the social scale is the flat cat. He has had to forgo the pleasure of taking the air on the balcony or window ledge at dusk, a time of special interest to ancestrally nocturnal animals.

The patrician cat, who lives in a house with a garden, has hardly felt the blackout after the first few weeks. The country cat has been affected by the blackout as little as the town aristocrat, except that motor cars in country lanes have taken a greater toll of life.

As for evacuated cats: ‘Those who accompanied their owners into exile have only experienced that as might happen to them at any time,' said
The Cat
. ‘The difficulty of settling in strange surroundings can all be surmounted by common sense – paw-buttering, extra fuss, familiar cushions or baskets and all the usual devices.'

Cage birds too might find safety in the country.
ARP Journal
declared at the end of the year: ‘There is a list of animal lovers who will take birds or beasts in reception areas. Bird fanciers are opening their aviaries to town
budgies and canaries and these kindly folk charge 2d per week for seed.'

Dogs would have to tough it out wherever they were, those that had survived the September massacre at least. In the first few days, pedigree and mongrel alike had gone to the lethal chamber. There followed a deeply unpleasant interlude when the survival of the poshest seemed paramount. Lesser breeds had better watch out.

A ‘world-renowned authority and judge' wrote in
The Dog World:
‘I should say that the present time offers an opportunity to wipe out all mongrels and cross-bred dogs, and if the authorities could or would carry that out, it would clear the streets of a lot of danger and filth as well.'

‘I do not want mongrels to multiply because they are ugly, ill-mannered curs, usually dirty and cross and have no value whatever, either to the senses or the pocket,' wrote the uncharitable dog expert, Mr George Wallwork. But those Nazi-seeming sentiments were soon stifled.

The Dog World
canvassed pedigree breeders for their views in a round-up called ‘Dogdom and the War' on 22 September. They were a little kinder.

Mrs J Campbell-Inglis, of the Mannerhead Poodles, Wimbledon Common, said: ‘I suppose I shall carry on but I find a lot of people are tired of dog shows, which cost a lot and are not always much fun.'

Mrs E. M. Buckley of the Adel Chow Chows, Stratford-upon-Avon, said: ‘England breeds some of the best dogs in the world and we'll need them when all this wretched business is over. By all means the weaklings should go to leave room for the best ones of the future.' An unpleasant sentiment Herr Hitler himself might have seconded.

On 29 September Mrs I. M. de Pledge of the Caversham Pekingese declared: ‘I am determined to hang on to my kennel of Pekingese at all costs, especially my best studs
and bitches. I have an Anglo-Nubian goat, whose milk will be invaluable for mixing with their biscuits, rice and meat.'

Mrs Ethel E. Smith of the Leodride Bulldogs said: ‘It is early days and it might not be wise to embark on a plan which might cause endless regrets if the war proved to be a short one.' Meanwhile: ‘For feeding purposes, Mrs Smith recommends good raw lean beef, occasional eggs and a good biscuit meal.' Such luxury was not going to last long.

The Duchess of Newcastle told
The Dog World
that she had twelve evacuated boys staying with her, ‘luckily a very nice lot'. Her Grace was ‘keeping on as many Clumber Spaniels and Smooth Haired Fox Terriers as possible but is worried that as time goes on, both Smith, her kennel man, and her chauffeur will be called up. But she is determined to carry on by working herself with perhaps the help of a kennel-maid.'

For an evacuated pet in 1939 you could not do much better than end up at the Duchess of Hamilton's Wiltshire animal sanctuary. After the first frantic weeks of September the place was teeming. At least there was plenty of room. ‘A couple of hundred dogs are housed in the enormous coach house,' wrote Mary Golightly. ‘Two hundred cats were housed in the private aerodrome,' so it would be reported, ‘each one of which was as carefully looked after as the dogs [and] evacuee parrots.'

The ‘aerodrome' at Ferne had been cleared by Lord Clydesdale, heir to the dukedom and intrepid pre-war aviator. A similar field was created at Dungavel House, the ducal home in south Lanarkshire (a former hunting lodge, adopted when stately Hamilton Palace was demolished in 1919, and definitely no hunting there now), to keep the family in airborne contact. This would prove significant in the course of the wider war.