CH52 – Carlo Harrison.
| Title | My First Dog |
| Date | 1964 |
| Location | Yeadon |
| Written By | Carlo Harrison |
| Comment | Read on…. |
I was 17 when this photo was taken.
That’s my first dog a cross bred collie called Rex, he had been my constant companion all of my life.
My Dad bought Rex from a market stall in Bradford market and brought him home on the bus.
Goodness knows how old he was but he was just a tiny puppy in my Dads hand, you could do that in those days, just picked him out of a cardboard box full of puppies.
Rex was 14 years old when he died, he had been a Yorkshire dog, lived in a kennel outside except for when there was a thunderstorm and once stole and ate a rabbit delivered in a box of groceries by Mr. Kaye the grocer, my Mum rang him and said that he had never delivered it, but the remains were on our back lawn.
That’s where I get it from!
Rex roamed the Haw, all over the fields down to Novia Wood and to Yeadon Dam, didn’t cause any bother that we knew of, always back for meals and on an evening, not a dog that you could put on a lead and take walking the streets of Harrogate while you shopped, not his thing at all.
He was well known to pupils at South View School, when my parents bought the house I now live in on Rufford Avenue, Rex used to go to the school kitchens every day at dinner time and was well known by cooks and pupils in the playground.
We all missed him really badly when he died, I couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t there and he used to sit by the top gates of South View School waiting for my Mum to get off the bus from work at Peates Mill, just not the same she said when he wasn’t there to greet her.
May 2013
Previous Comments:
electricalphil2005
I Know how you feel Carlo, our old Black and white Border collie cross died last August. Scamp was 3 months short of 17, and had been in my partner’s family since he was six weeks old. We have had an 8 month break from dog ownership but last month it was my partners birthday and her youngest daughter rang up from Edinburgh and said “I have put some pictures of your birthday present on Facebook”. of course when we looked at the little flop eared rascal we could not resist him. He is another long haired black and white border Collie Cross about 12 months old. He is a rescue dog and he came to us from the Edinburg Cats and Dogs Home where my partners daughter Jessica is a supervisor.
The Police had picked him up in the city running wild and starving, vastly underweight. one month on in his new home with us and his weight has gone up by two kilos and we have two very happy pensioners and one very happy dog.
Its a shame that dogs can’t roam free as they did then.
My first dog that I was actually responsible for was a Labrador /Alsatian cross, a bitch named Bess who was the most placid dog you could ever meet she roamed all day on the Queensway estate and the fields opposite and in Kirk Lane Park.
She wood regularly walk to South View School with the children on a morning, play in the school yard with the kids all day then wander home at tea time.
So much fun has gone out of young lives in these risk averse times.
23 May 2013.
Consolidated by Jack Brayshaw. 23 August 2022.
Last updated: 23 August 2022.
