The Big Society, The Good Samaritan & The Dangerous Dogs

It was the card that did it. Until then, I hadn’t shed a single tear, despite the often excruciating pain and the sheer, life-flashing-before-your-eyes, terror of the memories.

At first, I presumed it was yet another pizza-kebab-curry flyer when it came through the letter box. In fact, I almost missed it, in the growing pile of junk mail. But then I saw it was addressed to “Dominique & Family”. The illustration above barely does it justice. It is hand made and the pattern on the Scottie Dog is an intricate, inlaid collage. One of the neighbours, Carole, whom I know just a bit from walking our dogs, made it, especially for me, and when I read the message she had written, the tears started and they didn’t stop.

On Tuesday morning, coming back from our regular morning stroll on Wandsworth Common, Harley and Buster were set upon by two huge “Staffie”-type dogs wearing studded leather harnesses. I had seen both dogs a few times before. They had snarled more than once in our direction but were then firmly on the lead.

This time, we had no chance. One dog picked Buster up in his jaws, worrying him as if he were a rat or a squeaky toy. The other set about Harley who was nimble enough to escape and shoot back to our rented house. The owner stood by & watched as I – possibly foolishly – tried to extricate Buster. The second dog then joined in, snapping at my flapping elbows & then seizing my ankle. The neighbours, alerted by my screams, later told me the dog did not let go until I was struggling across the road with Buster in my arms.

In the parable, the Good Samaritan does not walk past the man set upon by thieves. He tends to his wounds, gets him to the inn and leaves two silver pieces for his care. If you have a Bible handy, I’ll remind you that it is from Luke’s Gospel (10: 25-37) and that the epithet is now shorthand for anyone who helps a stranger.

In the next 72 hours, I was repeatedly rendered speechless by the kindness of strangers and not only that of the neighbours who called the ambulance & the police as I stood gibbering. There was the lady jogging past who located Harley, calmed her and made sure she was safe. There was the chatty, tactile girl in the waiting room of the hospital who gave me a much-needed hug. There was the young vet who operated all afternoon to reattach skin to muscle around Buster’s neck and ears. There was the steady stream of emails from local residents, none of whom I knew, but all of whom took time to express their sympathy, outrage and support. And of course, there was Carole, Bob and their dog, Ash, who made a card for me and came to drop it off.

Via the magic of the worldwide intrawebs, I have also been the recipient of cyber-support from not quite so strange friends and acquaintances, doggy and otherwise, from New Zealand to Nova Scotia, quite literally. If you are reading this, you probably already know where I stand on the authenticity and utility of online communities. I can absolutely assure you that every single Facebook comment, Twitter DM or simple click of the “Like” button under uploaded pictures of the brave but heavily bandaged Buster helped.




It helped me to realise that for every insecure young man who stands by while his patently dangerous dogs attack much-loved pets and innocent passers-by, there are scores and scores of fundamentally good people who will not stand by but rather stand up, with compassion, for their neighbour, whether known to them or not, and for the common good.

The “Big Society” doesn’t necessarily need a Westminster campaign and a huge chunk of taxpayers’ money to get it off the ground. As far as I can tell, and this whole experience has reinforced my conviction: the “Big Society” is alive and well; at least it is in my small corner of South London.

On a more prosaic note, my new local friends and I are now hoping to identify the owner of the dogs. Obviously, being the sad, mad dog woman that you all know I am, I would far rather that they were not destroyed. It is not the dogs themselves who are at fault here. It is their owner who cannot control them and who may even be encouraging their aggression.

However, as yet another of my new e-mail pals pointed out, what if their next victim were a child?

Your Father smelled of Elderberries. When Name Calling turns Nasty

Apologies. There are no prizes for identifying the source of the quote in the post title above. Any super-annuated school boy of a certain age knows that it is from the justly notorious French taunting scene in Monty Python & the Holy Grail, the 1975 film triumphantly transferred to the stage as Spamalot. If your mother was a hamster, click here to watch the full clip.

I feared the scene might have aged but it remains stubbornly hilarious. Yet as a rule, I abhor this kind of puerile name-calling. It tends to be the last desperate weapon at the bottom of a depleted arsenal and it carries more than a whiff of the playground. I don’t suppose I have been subjected to any sustained name-calling since I left school myself. But that was until I started to engage with Wakefield Family Services; last week I was shocked and saddened to find out quite how rampant their verbal abuse of me has been.

It is quite one thing to be labelled as “posh” or “Southern” – although I am not sure either adjective is especially accurate in my case. I took particular umbrage when I was branded a liar after one shocking episode with my father. I was also referred to as “that deranged woman” (I paraphrase, but you get the gist) in yet another inadvertently forwarded e-mail. The incompetence would have amused if the insult had not been so appalling.

Last week, via an official data protection request, I saw another e-mail exchange – coincidentally between the same matey pair of WFS colleagues – which implied that I was a violent individual, who habitually went round physically attacking the frail and elderly. This is not just name-calling. It is malicious defamation and, by any criteria, libel of the most serious nature.

Not long after Dad’s dementia symptoms first began to cause real problems and I had serious concerns about his welfare, I did manage to have a face-to-face meeting with a member of the relevant Social Work team and with the authority’s Adult Protection Officer himself. They openly acknowledged to me that I was seen as “posh” and “Southern”.

At the time, I was living near Oxford which is certainly south of Yorkshire; so I suppose that sort of made me “Southern” – it’s certainly not an epithet to which you can seriously object. However, the very idea that I was “posh” was hilarious. We concluded that my use of the Queen’s English/received pronunciation might not have done me any favours. Again, only an overly sensitive individual would construe “posh” as particularly defamatory.

I did, however, object vociferously, and in writing, to being labelled a liar. Lying is simply not in my nature. If anything, I have often sacrificed tact for the truth. WFS accused me of falsifying an account of finding Dad alone in his room in a respite home outside Doncaster on a steaming hot July afternoon the summer before he died.

I rushed up north after Dad called one night, in huge distress: he did not know where the hell he was, he was having embarrassing problems with his bowels. Could I come and get him? WFS would not tell me where he was; I was not considered next of kin. Nevertheless, I eventually managed to locate him – via a helpful uncle and Google Earth.

I smelled him before I saw him and the scent was not of elderberries. I found Dad sitting in an airless room, up to his waist in his own faeces. He had been suffering from the vivid hallucinations which came with his Lewy Body Dementia diagnosis and he didn’t feel he knew any of the care home staff well enough to ask for help getting to the loo in time.

The staff at the care home “disputed […my] version of events”. I didn’t press my case too hard. I knew myself full well how long it had taken me to clean Dad up and change his pyjama trousers and his incontinence pants. The sights and smells of that afternoon stayed with me for months. However, someone at the care home might well have lost their job over the incident and that is the last thing I would have wanted.

The latest developments are in another league however. As I write, I am awaiting a response from Wakefield to this latest piece of evidence that I was regularly and casually libelled in written communications between very senior Wakefield personnel. I have also submitted another Data Subject Access Request. Sincere thanks to all of you who have so warmly supported and encouraged me not to give up. You know who you are.

As I wrote to Wakefield’s Head of Legal and Democratic Services last week: “The saddest element of this entire saga is that, rather than use my father’s experiences as a real opportunity to examine its adult protection policies, Wakefield chose instead to “shoot the messenger”. Vulnerable adult abuse is rising as the population ages and dementia rates soar. What a pity Wakefield has no interest in improving the protection of the many frail and elderly council tax payers to whom it owes a duty of care”.