MEDIA: THE DAILY MAIL HAS A STORY WORTH READING

Please cut and paste the following link into your browser.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020396/Wont-somebody-love-Britains-cats-abandoned-record-numbers-inspiring-volunteers-struggling-homes.html

It's a good story about the problems animal rescues like our face all the time. Yesterday I had to tell three people we couldn't help them because we were full.

ANIMAL RESCUE: ANIMAL KRACKERS IN PICTURES

This post was first published in  http://catrescuesunderland.blogspot.com/.

Just for a change, and seeing as I have my brand new Which? best-buy camera to try out, I thought I'd take a few photographs of our shop which is the main source of our income. Without it there simply wouldn't be an Animal Krackers because we just wouldn't have the money we need for vets bills, kennel fees, pet food, and neutering costs.

The prime movers and organisers are Sue Hardy (my wife) and Andrea Parkin. Here they are with Benjy and Millie, Andrea's two dogs. Benjy is a recent acquisition. He was brought to our attention just after he'd been hit by a car. We paid for his leg to be amputated and looked after him until Andrea decided to keep him. He's lively friendly and happy despite being a tripod.

Here are a few pictures of the main shop area.

And that is pretty much most of it.

Behind the scenes is a kitchen/workroom area. Upstairs is an office and storeroom. and outside is a toilet, storeroom for pet items including bedding, food, traps, etc. What was a coalhouse we use for storing bags of clothing to be recycled. Plus the yard area which is a dumping ground and collection point for stuff that's unusable/unsaleable/unrecycleable which I take to the council tip in the charity's van.

 And some more people.

Finally a little something for the cat fans out there. Here are two kittens we've recently rescued. The ginger and black one is called Zoe and she's having a problem with her bowels. The other was  found near Carol's being threatened by dogs.

And here's me.

ANIMAL KRACKERS AT THE BANGLA DESHI CENTRE, SUNDERLAND

Now why, you're wondering, in the first place would we be at the Bangla Deshi Centre and who, in the second place, is we?

We, is me and Andrea. Why, is we was asking for money.  Let me explain...

There's a government funded local group called Back on the Map which is a quango with the aim of improving life in the Sunderland areas of Hendon and the East End. It does a lot of very good work, part of which involves promoting the area. One a year they allocate relatively small sums of money to groups which provide some form of service to the area which is where we come in.

Animal Krackers is well known in the area and a lot of rescued animals come from here such as Lulu the kitten. This year we put in a request for £1800 which would provide 5 places at Ferryfarm Kennels for a year and stray/unwanted dogs from Hendon would be guaranteed a place. One such dog can be seen sitting on my knee in the photo below about an hour after it was taken away to its new fosterer. The dog is a Jack Russell, a ratter by instinct and likely to chase small animals. It proved to be terrified of cats as I discovered when I had to drag it past one of my cats which was sitting just inside the front gate.

The format of the meeting is that each individual group gives a maximum 5-minute presentation. Each group is fit into one of 4 categories -Health & Fitness, the elderly, ethnic, and 'small sums' (our category). A varied amount of money is allocated to each category and is voted on by 50 volunteer judges from the area. However, as I've just found out from Susan a few minutes ago, the voting is overall and not in each separate category so it's possible that none of the groups in a particular category could be voted any money. This is obviously not a good idea and clearly I'm writing from hindsight as I found out some disturbing information after writing the following two paragraphs.

And it's held at the Bangla Deshi Centre which, despite the name, is open to all and is a very active centre.

Usually Susan and  Andrea we do it but Susan had to be at a meeting about her mother and I was the obvious replacement being articulate, confident  and charming. You do recognise that description of me, don't you? One slight problem, until the day before, Andrea was away for the week. Susan dictated an introduction which I typed and modified. I then wrote my piece about Lulu and Grace and brought it all together in the conclusion. Andrea emailed a piece a couple of days before which I then edited, cut, rewrote, etc until the whole thing pretty much worked. Given the 5-minute limit, I was still doing minor revisions an hour before we were due to arrive.

Held in a large hall arranged into the audience in groups of tables with up to six at a table, and the supplicants arrayed on either side of a wide table along one wall. With over 20 groups and allowing for technical hitches this would, I thought, take a long time. As it turned out, only one group overran and no-one minded as it was to support a group of prepubescent would-be cheerleaders who, while their young female presenter was excellent, were pretty terrible but all the more charming for it. Quite a few presentations were over in a minute or less and we were on last.

We had brought three display boards packed with photos of Hendon animals we'd rescued and put it in front of the table. Holding the microphone close and wearing my Animal Krackers t-shirt, I gave the introduction about why we were asking for money and what we did. I passed the mic to Andrea who then cited examples of Hendon dogs we'd rescued referencing the relevant photos. Back to me for brief stories of Grace and Lulu and I then wrapped it up by explaining that if we got the money for the dogs if would have a knock-on effect in that we would not be placed, by limited funds, into having to choose whether to provide either veterinary care or a kennel place, in effect, condemning an animal to an uncertain future. I may have imagined it but I thought we got a substantial applause when we finished.

Strange thing is, despite being shy in a social situation where I'm not on familiar territory or with people I know, I have no problems at all about talking to a large group, concerns that I might fluff lines or lose my place, yes, but I don't feel nervous at all. It would also seem that this is not a delusion on my part as several people mentioned how confidently I came over.  Andrea and I agreed that if we didn't get the money it would be because the judges had other priorities rather than any weaknesses in our presentation or content.

We then networked the various tables for about three quarters of an hour until lunch arrived, ate lunch, and, deciding we'd done all we could, left.

In a nutshell: we got the money we asked for.

However, Back on the Map shot themselves in the foot. Because it wasn't voted on by category, none of the groups in the ethnic section got anything and the organisation is in turmoil and accusations of racism are flying around. Susan even offered to donate £500 of the money we'd been given to one of the ethnic groups but we weren't allowed. I feel sorry for BOTM because they are a worthy organisation but they've screwed up big time and I hope they can this mess sorted. It's rather soured our win as I do feel the ethnic groups haven't had a fair shake.

And that's it, no real wrap up, just life, man.

What I did Today

4.00 am. Woke up.

5.15. Got up, let 6 cats out, let 2 cats in, fed same, breakfast, watch News 24.

7.30. Swimming at nearby Raich Carter Sports Centre. Because I'm either under 16 or over 60, I'm entitled to free swimming, which I do as often as possible, swim freely and slowly, 20 lengths in 36 minutes, but it's the exercise that matters.


8.20. Post Office to post three parcels. I sell stuff on Amazon Marketplace -basically the type of stuff I write about here but that, for whatever reasons, I don't want to keep.

8.30 Asda superstore to buy cat food for rescued cats.

10.00. Set off in Animal Krackers' van, as passenger, to pick up 6 cats from Carol, the lady who looks after our rescued cats, and where I drop off most of the food. she's over-full at the moment and another cat rescue (which doubles as a professional cattery) has offered to take them. The cattery is in Burnhope, a small village in County Durham, a 40 minute drive away and up in the lush, partly wooded hills.

10.40. We (that is me, Ian and, just to be confusing, Ian the driver. In our shop is another Ian.) arrive at Burnhope, a pleasant if fairly nondescript. The view that greets us as we arrive is shown in the photograph above. It's obviously well-run and the standard of the cat housing is very high and will make a nice, albeit hopefully, temporary accomodation. It's far more spacious than Carol's and there at most only 2 cats to a room (they are too big to be called cages, though that's what they are).
Tracy, the lady who runs it pretty much single-handedly, is a very pleasant woman of forty-something and we immediately bond over our mutual love of cats -we speak the same language. I spend some time looking round, taking photographs and talking to Tracy about the problems (mostly financial) of rescuing, getting veterinary treatment, and rehoming cats.

12.30 pm. Arrive home.
I don't do afternoons.

4.30. Call at the Animal Krackers shop which is only about 250 yards from our house, to pick up the car and keys. I find a dog which they've had handed to them. A stray, it had been hit by a car, and then taken by us (Susan and Andrea) to the vets for treatment. It's an old dog and it can't walk very well. The vet has given it pain killers but can't do anything more for it. One thing most of us in the charity agree on is never to let an animal suffer and sometimes this means having to do the worst thing of all. However, until we've had this dog for a week we can't, by law, make that decision just in case the owner turns up. Frankly we doubt if it will last that long.

4.50. Pick up a cat from Carol's to take to the vet's for a checkup. The young female tortoiseshell is a stray that was found under the bonnet (U.S. 'hood') of a car with burns to its feet. We also had it neutered and a rupture fixed. The vet says it's healing well but to keep an eye on it and bring it back if there's any deterioration.

6.15. Home for tea with Susan -Sunday's leftovers, a great British tradition.

A little bit about me

Life, in part, is an intellectual process, a gradual refining of beliefs and ideas which are modified by age and experience and the individual's perception of the world as the world itself changes. What you start out as, as say a teenager when certain values and beliefs are already in place, may not be how you end up. Your beliefs and values may well have changed. Many of mine did.

I was a child in the 1950's when everything was grey. Everyone smoked, it seemed. Women were second class citizens. The 'N' word could be used casually and unthinkingly about black people. Indeed the influx of immigrants from the Caribbean in response to the post-war boom was causing racism to rear its ugly head, though being a child in the North East of England with itstraditionally high unemployment meant that I saw very few people from ethnic minorities and I never even met a Jew until I went to grammar school age 11. I have to say my response to that was simply a puzzlement that Fatty Gordon's family didn't celebrate Christmas and an 'oh well people are strange' shrug. I was aware of the Holocaust (and horrified by it) but simply didn't understand the concept of anti-semitism.

What am I back then? A Christian, believing every word I heard and was taught at the Methodist Sunday school. A boy scout, not a good one, but nevertheless... Following the example of my family, I supported the Conservative Party and believed, again like my family, that I was of the middle classes -we weren't, upper working class at best, just one of the many collective delusions my family held.

For any American readers I'll repeat a joke, of sorts, I heard decades ago. The Republican party is the American equivalent of the Conservatives. And so are the Democrats. (That's it.) Americans tend to strike the British as rather politically naïve (while we are cynical). This did seem to be born out when I watched an elderly American from Maryland describe Obama as a socialist. I nearly laughed my socks off. Your new president is no more a socialist than is David Cameron the leader of the Conservatives. And, yes, like everyone else, I would have voted for him if I could and I watched his inauguration live on tv. Today I've ordered his autobiography from Amazon. Barack Obama has the opportunity to change the way Americans see themselves and how they see the word by opening their minds to alternative ways of thinking. Just as we do, or should do, throughout our lives.

Change is a gradual process built on the measuring of past and present experiences. Everything is built on what has gone before. Darwin, one of the greatest men who ever lived, in part based his work on what had gone before by scientists such as Carl Linnaeus (or so memory tells me, it's been a while). What he did do was the connect the dots in a way that no one else had ever done -such is the mark of genius.

I believe the way that you change is inherently based on your personality. True revelations on the road to Damascus are relatively rare. We are predisposed to certain beliefs, certain ways of thinking. For example, while not of a scientific bent, I was as a child interested in science, in how the world worked so perhaps it was inevitable that, once I started questioning my religion, I became an atheist. I became a librarian and the most satisfaction I got from my work was on the frontline, working with the public, helping them. For all my self-obsession and various character flaws, it is my inclination to help. So it's no surprise that I became strongly opposed to anything which sought to suppress humanity for perceived differences such as being of a different racial or cultural group, being a woman, having alternative sexual preferences, and why I accept political correctness believing it to be merely a form of good manners. It's no surprise too that ended up quite left wing politically (although it took years of gradual change), willing to admit to being a non-dogmatic socialist. My becoming a union steward is another stage in this my personal growth andenlightenment. I'll return to the subject of politics later.

My 20's and 30's were pretty much dominated (and to those who know me, yes this is an oversimplification) by my involvement with science fiction fandom and with writing (not that the two are separate) but I'm not going to go into that here. They ended with me being a chainsmoking borderline alcoholic who'd sold a teenage sf novel.

Then, while attending an Open University Social Sciences foundation course, I met Susan Hardy who changed my life completely and for the better and we got married on 24th August 1988, two months after we started going out and eight months after we first met. And we're still married. Oddly, it wasn't the course that made us click, but our love of animals.

Thus my 40's and 50's were marked by a growing involvement in animal welfare on a local basis. (Again a simplification.) It began with some minor involvement with the local branch of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, Susan and her mother being members. While generally agreeing with this, I did have some reservations about a complete ban, and felt guilty again about having them. Towards the end of the 1990's Susan and I became involved with a couple of local animal rescue groups which ended with us, with others, forming Animal Krackers a charity set up to help local rescue groups but ended up with us becoming one as well. At one point a local government councillor tried to get all the different groups to work together under a new umbrella group. It failed because the chair of the group (me) got sick of doing all the work without the support I needed and it fell apart without really getting anywhere. Animal Krackers has now been going for six years and is well known andrespected in the Sunderland area.

Me, I'm the main cat rescuer/transporter to vets.