Tales from a Young Vet: Mad cows, crazy kittens, and all creatures big and small. Jo Hardy

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СКАЧАТЬ in the garden and horse boots on the legs of the dining room chairs. She had no problem finding us and then, as she always had, sitting at our feet and pawing at our laps until we gave her our undivided attention. And her radar still guided her unerringly towards the dishwasher after dinner, where she licked the plates as it was being loaded.

      We were lucky with Tosca. It could so easily have gone the other way for her, but she’d survived and, a year on, she was still doing well.

      Before I left dermatology for my next placement we were told that our student year group had been approached by ITN Productions, who were casting for a series about trainee vets that would be broadcast on the BBC. We were all invited to a question and answer session in which they explained that any student could apply, and that they would then pick up to ten for a reality series, following us through our final year of training.

      Around a hundred students went along to the casting sessions. I decided to apply because, well, what was there to lose? And I was curious – what would it be like to be filmed? I once dreamed of being an actress, and as a child I even went to weekend stage school. Now this was the nearest I was likely to get, so I decided to have a go. At the session the producers chatted to us for a bit, and then each of us had to spend a minute talking to camera about ourselves. I thought a minute was going to seem like forever, but it went too quickly, and afterwards I left feeling that I hadn’t said most of what I’d planned to say.

      I didn’t have time to think about it for long because the following day I packed my bags again and headed off to Wales for a fortnight of farm work. This time the five of us in my rotation group were working with another group, so there were ten of us staying together in a rented cottage. We were there to do what’s known as population work – studying herds of cows on local farms and writing reports on how to improve the standard of health in each herd. We had to score every cow on nutrition, locomotion and general health, so it was pretty repetitive work.

      The days when James Herriot dashed out to save the life of an ailing cow have given way to economically tougher times, as farmers, who often struggle to make a profit, can’t afford to be sentimental or have one sick cow affect the health of a herd. The emphasis has to be on keeping the whole herd as healthy as possible.

      With ten of us under one roof, tensions began to run high in the student house. Some of us wanted to write our reports as we went along, others wanted to leave it to the last minute, so there were a few clashes.

      To escape the strains within the house – and the endless cows – Lucy and I went out to explore the area with Chloe, a friend from the other group. We drove to the Brecon Beacons, and decided to stop and walk up a hill that we were passing.

      ‘Won’t take long,’ Lucy said cheerfully. ‘It’s only a little hill. The fresh air will do us good.’

      An hour later we were working up a fair sweat as we climbed. Somehow the ‘little hill’ had become more of a mountain, but having decided to climb it none of us was going to be the first to turn back. By the time we got to the top we were hot, thirsty and exhausted. We sat on the grass, admiring the wild ponies and stunning views.

      ‘See? It was worth it,’ Lucy said, taking a swig of water and passing me the bottle. ‘And going down will be a doddle.’

      I was examining the large blister on my heel. ‘Lucy,’ I said, smiling sweetly, ‘next time you see a “small hill” and decide to climb it, count me out.’

      Soon after we got back to college at the end of the fortnight we heard that ITN had picked the first five or six students for the series. We were all agog to know who had been chosen, and were delighted to hear that one of them was Grace. She was stunned. It was going to mean working with a film crew trailing behind her at some of her trickiest moments, so she wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or horrified.

      I heard that I’d been put on a list of students they were undecided about. I was pretty sure that meant it would probably never happen, and that was fine with me. I had plenty to occupy me over the coming weeks and felt relieved that I wouldn’t have a camera crew there to add to my embarrassment by recording the inevitable trail of blunders I’d be leaving in my wake.

CHAPTER FOUR

       ‘Don’t Cry, Englishman’

      As I stepped out of the airport terminal the warm night air and the sweet, delicate scent of the ganna bushes enveloped me, and the unmistakeable chirruping of cicadas, the sound of Africa, filled my ears.

      Fourteen hours earlier I had left a cold, grey London behind me and set off for Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. We flew via Johannesburg, where I changed planes for the final leg. As we began our descent I forgot about my stiff shoulders and cramped legs, and began to feel more and more excited. I hadn’t seen Jacques since he’d visited me at Christmas, and it felt like an age.

      He was waiting for me in the arrivals area. At six-foot-six he was impossible to miss. As I waited impatiently for my bag to arrive on the carousel we grinned at each other through the window. Mine always seemed to be the last bag to arrive … But then I was in his arms for the warmest of hugs. He grabbed my bags and we headed out to the truck, where Jacques presented me with a beautiful bunch of lilies. He always brought me flowers, and he always left them in the car, just in case I didn’t like them – as if I wouldn’t!

      We drove out of Port Elizabeth and onto the highway to Port Alfred, chatting away as if it had been days, rather than three months, that we had been apart. A few miles before Port Alfred Jacques swung off the main road and onto a dirt track that led twenty miles up to the old game lodge at Madolos, on the edge of a large game reserve, where Jacques lived and worked. As always, Jacques drove his Ford Ranger down the dirt road at 60 mph, kicking up clouds of red dust behind us.

      The lodge was huge; Jacques lived in one wing and the other was for his students. He taught at a university that offered degrees in tourism, and the lodge was the campus for the wildlife module. Students would arrive for a nine-week course in wildlife management and conservation taught by Jacques and his assistant Bongani, and they would be looked after by three large and warm-hearted ladies, Helezin, Patricia and Valencia, who cleaned and cooked, while the gardener, Michael, looked after the grounds.

      When there were no students it was just Jacques rattling around in the lodge, but he didn’t mind as he loved the peace and the company of the wildlife in the neighbouring reserve prowling past the garden. It wasn’t unusual to see cheetahs or elephants wandering past the fence, only yards from the lodge.

      Jacques and I had been together for almost four years and we’d known each other for five – ever since I went to South Africa in my gap year. I’d been nineteen, and after six months working in a livery yard to earn some money I’d booked the cheapest gap year trip I could find – three weeks doing conservation work on a game reserve in South Africa.

      It was April 2009 and I spent an incredibly happy three weeks as part of a group putting up fences, cutting down trees and clearing patches of bush. Jacques, who was twenty-three, was one of the staff at the reserve who helped manage the volunteers. His job was to make us feel welcome and, when we weren’t working, to take us on game drives and into town and teach us a bit about wildlife. I had lots to learn; I had no idea what an impala was (it’s a species of antelope) or a sable (another species of antelope) or indeed even a springbok (yes, yet another species of antelope) and I soaked up all the new information.

      Jacques and I got on from the start. He’s broad, muscular and, with his height, he can appear intimidating, but he’s actually a big softie and very easy to talk to. СКАЧАТЬ