The naughtiest dog in Nottingham

 Soon after we moved to the city centre, we found that one pleasant walk is to go along the footpath above Newcastle Drive, which gives you splendid views of The Park, and indeed over to Radcliffe on Soar and even, on clear days, the control tower of East Midlands airport. Then you cross Canning Circus and walk down through the General Cemetery, cross the road, go up through the Arboretum, and then return to Canning Circus on different paths.

The view from the footpath

I got really interested in the General Cemetery. There are lots of intriguing graves, including one of the directors of the cemetery company, who was also one of the first burials, having drowned on the Forfarshire, the ship wrecked on the Farne Islands. He wasn’t one of the passengers who survived long enough to be rescued by Grace Darling and her father, and was only identified by the laundry marks on his clothes. He was doubly unlucky, as his parents had christened him Daft Smith Churchill. 

Daft Smith Churchill's grave

I have a lot to say about some of the weirder names bestowed by misguided parents nowadays, but Victorian parents weren’t much more thoughtful. There’s a Nettleship, a couple of Hephzibahs and a Pharaoh. I presume some of the odd names had to do with the chance of an inheritance. It would take a lot of money to make up for being landed with a name like Daft.

There’s also “the Queen’s Jester” – a sort of Victorian Max Miller, as far as I can make out - the authoress of “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”,  a promising cricketer who was killed at Lord’s by being hit on the head by a cricket ball, and one I just can’t find – a Polish Anglican vicar of Greasley, who appears in D.H.Lawrence’s “The Rainbow”. Apparently –I haven’t read it.  I can’t stand Lawrence. He’s such a misogynist. We had to study “Sons and Lovers” for A Level, and it wasn’t a good book to study. The more you studied it, the more you disliked it.

So the other day I took youngest son’s puppy, Atlas, for a walk through the cemetery and Arboretum. It’s about time he learned to come back when called, so I let him off the lead in the bandstand enclosure, with the gates firmly closed. He had a brilliant time fetching sticks, and then I decided it was time to go.

Well, could I catch the wretched animal! He obviously thought it was all the most brilliant game. Trying to grab him didn’t work. Treats didn’t work. Sitting still and hoping he got bored didn’t work. Eventually, I thought that if I went out of the gate, he would follow, and if I only opened it a crack, I’d be able to grab him. So I went out. He followed – he doesn’t want to lose you, he just doesn’t want to go on the lead. I left the gate open a little bit and grabbed for him. It was like trying to grab a greased piglet. So now he was loose in the Arboretum, and the gates are open to the road and the trams are going up and down the road.

The naughtiest dog in Nottingham

I didn’t dare move towards the gate, and he was still teasing me by standing still, quite close to me, and then hurtling off like a rocket when I moved any nearer. Then Atlas tried to make friends with a biggish white dog on a lead. It is a cross between a Staffordshire Bull and a Boxer, his nice owner  told me, and he also told me about his other dogs, because we had plenty of time to have quite a long conversation, although by this time I was seriously having to watch my language. Anyway the nice bloke tried to help me catch Atlas, but neither of us could manage it. “He’s fast, isn’t he?” Yes. He’s lightning fast, and he’s grinning all over his face and having the time of his life and when I do finally catch him………………………………………………………………..

In the end the big dog knocked Atlas over and pinned him down, but unfortunately let go too soon and both of us humans ended up grabbing at nothing. Atlas wasn’t a bit put off by this, but I felt I had better take him away before we had serious trouble. I thought that, if I went towards the pond, he might just get sufficiently interested in the ducks for me to grab him.

But all at once he seemed to get tired - between stress and running around, I was worn out - and flopped down on the grass. I really thought he was teasing me and would wriggle out of my grip at the last moment, but as I slowly approached he stayed still and let me grab his harness. Thank God and all the saints in Heaven! I don’t have to try to explain how I lost his dog to my son!

Phil, in The Arboretum with Atlas

I shall take him a walk again, because Atlas is nice company (and for any young man who wants to meet girls, let me tell you, I can’t think of a better method than walking a puppy), but that is the very last time I let him off the lead.