Beauty and The Beast

Details have been changed to preserve anonymity

I had been advised that the issue was the destruction of the garden, this, therefore, required a visit to the premises. I was met at the front door by Mrs Jennings a lady in her 70s who turned out to be one of the most fascinating people that I have ever met.

She invited me in, indicated that I should enter the lounge and she would go to the kitchen and make a cup of tea.

I went into the lounge and was amazed, the entire room was full of flowers, pot plants, bouquets, in fact, every conceivable way of sending floral tributes was here. It was almost impossible to sit.

Mrs Jennings returned, apologised and served tea.

“I’m so sorry, it was Mothers Day yesterday, I have told them to stop but it makes no difference, the children keep sending them, the local hospice will look amazing for a while.”

I had to ask and the conversation went something like this:-

“How many children do you have?”

“27” she smiled “I was a foster mum.”

“27! you must have the patience of a saint.”

“Not really, I had a system, I never raised my voice and rarely told a child off, you see having several I was able to ignore the naughty child and spent time with the good ones, children hate to be ignored.”

Just like dogs I thought. As the conversation moved on I discovered that Mrs Jennings life was quite extraordinary.

As a young lady she had been a charity volunteer working abroad, very often in war zones, she had delivered babies in mud huts, survived rebel militia attacks, nursed the sick and assisted doctors to operate.

I could have spent hours listening to this lady but duty calls, however, as we stood up to meet the purpose of the visit, the dog, I noticed among the many photographs on the mantlepiece, a picture of a stunningly attractive young nun.

“One of your children?” I asked. She shook her head “Me”

She smiled and said “Come and meet Marmaduke.”

It transpired that the lady had recently adopted a dog from the local shelter. We went out into the back garden to a scene of utter devastation, what was once a beautiful garden now looked like a bomb site and in the middle was Marmaduke. Now whoever had named this dog obviously had a sense of humour because the aristocratic name showed no relation to this dog. Imagine if you would this:- the face of an English bull terrier, the body of a bearded collie one ear up and one down and a hideously overshot bottom jaw which exposed a row of teeth giving this dog a permanent grin.

For Marmaduke it was quite obvious that digging was not just a pastime, this was a dog that had turned it into an art form and enjoyed every moment. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was to the reason for his chequered past. He would not have been out of place in Stalug luft 3 with Steve McQueen in The Great Escape This was going to be a challenge. Solving the problem was not going to be the issue but doing it in a way that was not going to distress Marmaduke was going to need some imagination.

Fortunately, Mrs Jennings was not without funds and to cut a long story short I came up with the following solution.

First Marmaduke was despatched to the poodle parlour whereupon he was given a sensible haircut and a bath, it didn’t improve his appearance but at least he was a little more pleasant to be around, a piece of the garden was fenced off so Marmaduke was able to temporarily continue to do his McQueen impression with an end panel which could be moved thus making the plot smaller as time went by. Activity toys were purchased, and a dog walker was engaged. It took several weeks but eventually, Marmadukes gardening exploits became a historical footnote and Mrs Jennings garden was returned to its former glory.

For my part, I was happy with the outcome but even to this day, I regret never having the chance to spend more time with Mrs Jennings. I suspect that her life story was just incredible. How do you go from nun to foster mum, with all the other stuff in between? I got the feeling this was the stuff that led to books and films.