Myxomatosis, Ladders and Salt.

Not all my memories are pleasant and possibly some of the worst was when Myxomatosis was brought to the island.

It was brought to the island deliberately to cull the local rabbit population.

It was horrendous, and regrettably still is.

A vile disease, and I hope you never see a rabbit that has it.

Back when it took over the island Dad had a motorbike, and he used to have a big stick tied to the back.

Now, as he went to work, these poor rabbits were by the roadside, blind, in pain hopeless.

Dad used to get off his bike and kill them, as many as he could.

Now some reading this may be upset, not agree, and think he was a murderer.

But, you were not there.

My dad and I have killed many things, rabbits, pigeons, and fish, but we did it for food.

He would never let a sick animal suffer.

Dad used to come home so upset, he had killed sometimes 20 rabbits that were in the last stages of Myxi.

It was horrendous for about a year.

Even today as I drive along, if I see a rabbit crouched by the side of the road, I will stop because I know it has Myxi.

Like my father, I will not leave a poor animal to die a long and painful death.

I know most people would not kill, or could not and turn a blind eye and let nature take its course.

I am not one of them.

Still, that is how it was and regrettably still is.

Back then we killed, as I said to put food on the table.

People I know have given me abuse about putting out snares, shooting pigeons, spearing fish, and then going home and order a chicken curry or a Big Mac.

Enough of that, but it had to be said as it was part of my life, like it or not.

When we used to go spearing fish, it was under the cliffs at low tide.

Back then, regrettably, all gone were lots of caves, mostly above high tide and some quite deep.

Now these caves were the home of feral pigeons, lots of them.

So.... dad had this idea, he borrowed a shotgun and thought we could go around at low tide, and before the tide turned and the fish came in we could shoot some pigeons for the table.

Now pigeons don't like to fly at night, so they were sitting ducks, or in their case sitting pigeons.

The problem was that two things.

Firstly shotguns are noisy so after one shot, the pigeons thought ' bugger this' and flew away, and the second was that any pigeon we shot was so full of lead it was uneatable.

Plan B

Now as I said some of these caves were quite deep and high about in today's measurements 5 meters, but all had small openings.

The plan was to take a ladder around the bay at night, cover the entrance with a net and I would cr all in, knock the pigeons on the head, and happy days for us.

We never took more than we needed, or the young ones.

And it worked.

However, on this particular quiet night, we were walking along the shingle with the ladder and there were some guys fishing there.

We exchanged pleasantries and carried on around the corner to the two small bays where the caves were.

Half an hour later we returned, with a few pigeons in the sack, ladder, and all and said goodnight.

Little did we know that the two guys were reporters from the Telegraph Newspaper.

The following week was a story about strange goings on at Freshwater Bay where local people walked along the beach at night with an extending ladder, the reason for this they did not know.

Well, they could have asked, but the story ran for a few days with people putting their ideas forward.

Remember this was in the days before drug smuggling and people smuggling so they were a bit stumped.

There were a couple of reporters who came down asking questions, but apart from us all they got was fantasy replies.

I think the best was Bazil Chessel who told them there was a hermit who lived in a cave and we went and fed him.

Still after that we had some bad storms and it was never followed up.

Dad bought an air gun from Dooper Groves, a BSA Airsporter, and after that, we used to go down on the ebb tide around the rocks, bag a few pigeons, and then see if we could spear any fish on the flood tide.

Now I know this may have upset some people, but that was how it was back then, so tough.

As I have said we never had a freezer but we had a garden. Money was tight so the produce from the garden along with the fish and pigeons were a big help.

But how to keep the vegetables for the winter?

Well, my Gran had a sweet shop and the sweets were weighed out from big jars into some scales to be sold.

Eventually, the jars were empty so we got them.

Salt was the answer.

Runner beans were duly sliced and packed in salt it the jars, apples wrapped in newspaper and stored in the attic

Carrots in dried sand ( never worked) they were worse than the ones we found in the tins.

Nowadays everything has a sale-by date.

Forget it.

If the milk went off and it was proper milk them, you let it go, then site it out of some of mum's old stockings, and hew presto cottage cheese.

I used to go to the local grocers to get bacon and the sides of bacon were hung up in the shop, flies and all.

'Half a pound of back please Mr. Lacey' and he would unhook the bacon, put it in the machine with the big spinning blade ( never washed), and rasher a few rashers off.

And it was proper bacon not full of water like today wrap it in greaseproof paper and off you went.

Never did us any harm, and stayed fine for weeks if it had a chance.

Trouble is today things have to be so sterile, because if it isn't someone will get in contact with a lawyer and put in a claim.

You can't even get proper milk.

In my day milk had the cream at the top.

This sums today up.

Compton farm, just over the Downs from us used to be owned by a guy called Den Phillips. A top man and a real IOW.

He opened one of his fields as a campsite, which has been on TV with that bird from Bucks Fizz.

Carol Baker?

And it is still going although Den has passed away.

Still, when Den was alive, he was milking and this guy came in with his son to watch the cows being milked.

' Oh ' says the guy ' We have never tasted real milk can we have a pint?'

Well, Den gave him some.

The asshole then reported Den for doing it and he nearly lost his license.

Hope you enjoyed that

More to come and far better