When I was in my early teens I was fearless catching animals; from rabbits, bats, rats, snakes I would try to catch whatever I saw. My first ferret was an escapee I found in the road at the end of our street.
Not knowing much about ferrets, it survived for a while on bread and milk before moving to a better home with someone who was more experienced with keeping the critters.
When we moved to Scotland we left behind our hens and bantams, bringing just our Abbysinian cat. Nick, my son, was desperate to have a pet; so was Phillipa for that matter; we palmed her off with two locusts but Nick was older and less gullible; he wanted ferrets.
Checking out the local newsagents in West Linton soon revealed that there was a litter of ferrets a couple of miles out of the village. Scrounging pallets and plywood out of a skip gave us the raw materials for a hutch. Three days and five pounds later we had two ferret kittens. One was an albino, the other was a polecat.
As they grew up the ferrets were a delight; they would lick food from your hand without biting; they would come when called; they would play bite with the gentlest of grips; they would chase the cat.
Then came the great day; taking the ferrets down the Dean to catch rabbits. Nick couldn’t come, so it was me and Pips. Now the problem with taking a four year old ferreting is you have to keep a close eye on her. The Dean was full of cattle when we arrived, but they were fairly quiet. I put some nets down, let the ferrets down the hole and stood back amongst the circle of curious cattle with Pips; dummy firmly clenched between her teeth.
One of the heifers stood on the edge of one of the holes. As it crumbled I noticed a few insects which quickly turned into a swarm of peeved wasps. At that moment a baby rabbit came belting out and got caught in one of the nets.
Now there is something you ought to know about my daughter; we took her fishing when we were on holiday and the kids were much younger, at one of the trout stew ponds somewhere between Cornwall and Bristol. Every fish you catch you have to kill and keep. I caught the first one, tapped it on the head with the priest and put it in the bucket. The hook was rebaited, and cast for Nick to catch a fish. Within minutes he had a fish on and eighteen month old Pips had the priest out of the bucket and was tapping it experimentally against her hand; funnily enough she had her dummy clenched between her teeth then as well.
Dodging the worst of the wasps, I caught up the rabbit just before Polly appeared at the hole, took one look at the cows and turned back down. I showed Pips the rabbit saying something soothing like “aahh – look at the baby rabbit” and making the mistake “shall we let it go?” which was not popular. After a hurried debate over whether she would really eat the rabbit or not I pretended to drop it and it shot off. So did Phillipa, in a strop, between the cattle in the direction of home 400 yards away.
Now I know she would have been safe negotiating her way home, but the difficulty would come when she arrived home without me. Not for her, but for me when I tried explaining to Terry. Trying to rush the ferrets out of the hole, whilst still avoiding the disturbed wasp nest, and keep the cattle out of sight of the ferrets whilst not losing sight of the daughter was one of the more complex problems I have had to juggle with.
Over the next few years though it got much simpler. I am going to see if I can find some of the ferreting videos we took; keep an eye on the site to spot it if you are interested.
