The mole and me

A mole and me

Critters or creatures as we call then in the UK form the bedrock of every childhood experience. Not every child catches a dragonfly and puts it in a jar to wonder. Some of us have a trusty hound and a sheepskin glove to make immortal a memory of those innocent Sunday afternoons of young childhood.

Uncle Bob, his wife Gladys and son Bobby were the first family after my parents to move into another of the newly built houses in Malden Close. They had a lovely German Shepherd called Rinti. Uncle Bob and Rinti were my childhood 'friends' - well at least the dog was. Looking at it now, I suspect Bob and Gladys’s marriage was on the rocks at an early start because he never did spend much time with her or his son. Gladys would sit with my brother and I after school until Mum got home from work. It was great; they had a TV and a gramophone player and they had snacks !

On Sundays I went for very long walks with Rinti and Uncle Bob scavenging the local air raid shelters and municipal dump for “stuff’. Discovering a hospital waste bag with sharps was always a treat! One time we even found a rotted gas mask. I must have been about 6 years old when on a cold November Sunday afternoon Rinti caught the mole….

In another and quainter time when Royal succession to the British throne was a hotly and often violently contested thing, the mole was once toasted as the ’little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat’. In my childhood, to most farmers then and to a lesser extent today considered them a pest. Their adorable appearance and beautifully tactile coat belie the aggressive nature of these ‘underminers’. For Rinti, sixty years ago, Mr Mole was an action toy to play catch and release with! By the time Uncle Bob had rescued the poor thing from Rinti’s jaws he was in a high level of stress, his tiny heart pounding like a steam engine in his velvety chest.

I wanted to keep him and with his usual casual acquiescence to my requests (after all, I was just another creature being walked that afternoon) Uncle Bob let me sneak the little fellow into my sheepskin mitten. What a prize for a 6-year-old boy in the custody of an indifferent child walker. I couldn’t wait to get home and show my new pet to my parents; I say new. He was my only pet because my parents were not into increasing the family Howlett.

In my glove I could feel the little creature settle down, secure in the familiar darkness. I skipped and sang all the way home with the innocent delight only a 6-year-old wildlife kidnapper could show. I ignored Rinti’s glares. He wasn’t responsible enough to look after a mole, Mr mole who I had valiantly rescued from a certain heart attack. No, he was safe and certain of a future of luxury with me and my family, not the surrogate dog walker’s.

My parents had a different view that was surprisingly endorsed by me when I reached into my sheepskin mitten to reveal the little fellow. With his sharp incisor front teeth, it bit my finger and I dropped the glove. He scarpered for permanent cover underneath the shed. A hot tear slowly made its way down my cheek – I had lost a future friend and unique talking point with my peers. There have been many ‘Mr Moles’ since that day cementing the truth that ‘you don’t always get what you want’.