Jake the overenthusiastic Cocker Spaniel, last foray in Epping Forest

Jake the Cocker Spaniel enters the Clark household - a great companion for the family but a failure at the shoot! In Bill's last period as a farmer, he and other farmers in Colchester discover a major failure in the design of the new tractors they are buying and have to battle with the manufacturer. Bill and Caroline make a last nature trip to Epping Forest.

Cocker Spaniel, photo Katrina_S

Extracts from Chapter 6 of Bill Clark's autobiography 'Route and Branch'
Full reading available here as a podcast: 
https://archive.org/download/jake-cockerspaniel-gearboxes-epping-forest/Ch6d-Jake-cockerspaniel-gearboxes-epping-forest.mp3

On Christmas day, our gamekeeper came knocking on the door. ‘Happy Christmas Bill,’ he said, and handed me the lead of his liver and white Cocker Spaniel, Jake. Confused, I said, ‘Well, yes, I am sure we can look after him, where are you going?’ He laughed, and said, ‘I’m not going anywhere, he’s yours; Wendy has bought him for you.’ I was a member of Jim’s small ‘shoot’, and knew of young Jake, the biggest and bravest of the keeper’s four dogs, and the occasional misbehaviour when working – which I believed to be due to the way his master handled him. Wendy had obviously thought I could soon put Jake to rights, and this would go some way, to make up for my loss of Julie as a gun dog! Jake and I exchanged enthusiastic greetings, and every spare moment from then on, was taken up in training.

The following autumn I was invited to beat for a prestigious shoot, and specifically asked by the head gamekeeper, to take Jake. The first ‘drive’ was heavy going, but Jake obeyed every whistle, and the pheasants flew forward at an increasing rate to the finish. The second drive was through mature woodland and open ground, but I was asked to take Jake into some very dense bramble patches. None of this made any difference to Jake, he crashed through like a, ‘hot knife through butter’, as the head keeper, so nicely put it. Then suddenly, silence; and in answer to my shouted queries, no one else could see him either. My heart sank! This was the behaviour that had made his previous owner angry. I traipsed around in the wood when the drive was over, whistling and calling, but no sign of him. I reluctantly joined in the drive through the next wood, still giving my ‘Come to heel’ whistle from time to time, much to the amusement of the beaters who had been in the know as to, ‘Jake’s wonderful improvement.’

Despite a sudden flurry of shots up ahead, I gloomily kept in line, whistling ever louder and more frequently, with the odd call from nearby grinning beaters. ‘Sounds as if Jake is pulling out all the stops,’ or, ‘Don’t look so worried Bill, he is making up for lost time.’ As we neared the end I could hear frustrated and angry voices, ‘Who’s damned dog is that, get it out of there.’ ‘That blasted dog, has just retrieved my bird.’ And as I burst through the hedge at the end, one called out, ‘If you can’t catch the b***** thing, shoot it!’ I gave a desperate shout, ‘HEEL JAKE,’ ...

....As it happened, that very evening I had been invited to the inaugural meeting of the ‘Colchester Machinery Club.’ About a score of us attended in a room at the rear of a Colchester pub and, once the agenda of setting up the club and coercing folk into Committee posts – and voting for them – had finished, we retired to the bar. The serious part of discussing machinery could now begin – the Ford SelectO-Matic was quite high on my list! To our collective surprise, no less than four of us had driven ‘The first tractor to have a gear box problem.’ One had broken down three times within the guarantee period. And a fifth man knew it had happened on a neighbouring farm – and it was all due to our faulty driving! This news was conveyed hotfoot to our respective employers – there must have been some angry phone calls to both Colchester Tractors and Ford's headquarters the following day. Only weeks later, the Select-O-Matic range was no longer available...

...On our field trips, Caroline – who was small for her age – received much notice, for no matter how many pairs of eyes – or field glasses – were peeled, inevitably she would pipe up, ‘Daddy, look at this funny beetle,’ or ‘Look at this lovely caterpillar,’ or ‘Is that the bird we are looking for?’ On what turned out to be her last trip in September 1972 – to look at fungi in Epping Forest – it was obviously beginning to get to one enthusiast when, for the umpteenth time, Caroline, deep in the bracken, called out, ‘Here’s a different one Daddy.’ ‘What can you expect,’ grumbled the lady, ‘of course she will find the most, she is so much nearer the ground than we are.’ But even as she spoke, a voice shrilled, ‘Daddy, Daddy. Look!’ We followed the line of her finger pointing up into a tree. ‘Oh well done,’ said our guide, ‘come over here everyone, Caroline has found a really rare example.’