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Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 7:32 pm Post subject: Power of the Pen in a Small World!
Absolutely amazing! So, there I am, stood in another derelict, stone built shed. Dead centre of absolutely no where, BallygodknowswhereIam, heart of wildest and really quite wooly Co. Leitrim. This place made Plummers' " Cottage at the End of the World " seem like a huge, self indulgent joke!
I'm poking around as I'm chatting to the Client about the risks of Weils Disease from the major rat infestation he's called me in about. Just then I spot a dinky little ferret carrying box, hung on the wall! Having 'Done A Bit' in my time, I was delighted to see such a reminder. Sadly, he agreed that it was from a long gone day when we still had rabbits in Co. Leitrim I've seen maybe three here, in three years.
But then the conversation had turned back to Weils Disease and he was telling me something about, 'Something he'd probably read in an old poaching book.'. He said there was " This kid, and he had a shoulder bag ....." Something clicked in my head that second and I caught my breath ......
" And he had some biscuits in the bag, and was chucking dead rats in there. " At this point I was staring, wide eyed. Mouth open as my jaw locked. My mind reciting me the rest of the story, inside my head. " He never realised the dead rats would leak some urine onto the biscuits ~ and he ate them and got Weils Disease! "
I was completely stunned. " Ye damn right he did! " I gasped. " I was fifteen at the time. Spent my sixteenth birthday in hospital with it. I'm the man who Wrote that damn account! I Was that kid!!! "
Just In F*cking Credible!!! I racked my brain. I pointed out that Plummer liked to steal others stories and that I hadn't read All of his books. But the guy seemed satisfied it hadn't been a Plummer book he'd read it in. And I pointed out that I've never had a book of my own published. He had no internet ..... WTF?!
Then I asked him if he'd ever been in england. He had! Somewhere just south of London. In the eighties. And there we pretty much had it; Either he'd been passed a copy of the Wessex Ferret Club News Letter ~ for who I originally wrote that piece. Or else I may well have re written it, still in the eighties, during my time with the Shooting News.
Either way, there I was, today, in another world and another time completely. Having a sixty year old man delightedly recalling a story he'd read some half a life time ago ~ and which I had written!
And now that raw, naive kid is himself an older and wiser man. And has come, in his Professional capacity as a truly Veteran Rat Catcher, to take on his old adversary once again.
I wonder if the guy thought he might teach Me something, by relating that tale to me, there in that old shed?
Foot Note: As he drove me the few miles home, in the dark, the headlights picked up something small, brown and bobbing along before us on little, short legs. I've just seen my Fourth ever rabbit! And it's barely a couple of miles from this cottage! They're coming back!!!
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I've seen maybe three here, in three years.
I racked my brain. I pointed out that Plummer liked to steal others stories and that I hadn't read All of his books. But the guy seemed satisfied it hadn't been a Plummer book he'd read it in. And I pointed out that I've never had a book of my own published. He had no internet ..... WTF?!
