Vet in Green Pastures

Book excerpt: As a fresh young graduate from Glasgow Veterinary College, Hugh Lasgarn could not have made a worse impression when he fell over a doorway on arriving at his first practice in the Welsh Borders. He came as a locum for thirty days and he stayed for decades. In Vet in Green Pastures Hugh Lasgarn looks back at his memories of those early months, when he was faced with patients from a giant champion Hereford bull with corns to a budgie with a swollen crop, in a heartwarming book that blends humour and tragedy in generous measure. Hugh had wanted to be a vet from childhood, when his much loved cat, Boggy, died and when, running home, he came on Old Thundertits the cow in the throes of calving. He quickly fell in love with the changeable, rich countryside of the Welsh Borders and with the eccentric, quirky characters who provided as much entertainment as their animal charges. There is the eyelash-fluttering Mimi Lafont with her French poodle and her French accent that disguised a Birmingham twang; Miss Millicent, whose moral rectitude would not allow her to accept that her cat George could be responsible for the pregnancy of his little sister, Sybil; and Tom Blisset who learned to control his failed guard dog when Hugh demonstrated that the dog would respond to orders if accompanied by the word 'please'. And everywhere are the farmers, often rough and ready, almost always kindly, with their lumbering herds and their sturdy sheep. Vet in Green Pastures is a captivating book, conveying the joy and laughter (and sometimes the grief) that are part of a life devoted to the well-being of animals.