A never to be forgotten Christmas lunch

One never knows what triggers memories – some sound, some scent, the shape of a tree or the curve of a path, noticed while walking.

For no reason that I could discern a long forgotten memory of a certain Christmas lunch, in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) came to mind the other day. My grandmother was still alive, so this lunch would have been over forty years ago. She lived in a cottage about fifty metres away from the “main house” on my parent’s farm, which my brother used as a poultry farm – he sold eggs, and to grow feed for the thousands of chickens he had.

Now my grandmother had a very large dog, a German shepherd called Toby. This “new” Toby replaced a similar dog of the same name that had died of old age some years before. My grandmother at this time would have been over eighty years old and to have a young dog of this breed at her time of life was not a wise move. But she was stubborn. As a result the dog was totally undisciplined and became very possessive and protective. After a few years it refused to leave her side.

To cut a long story short, on this memorable Christmas my father went to the cottage to help his mother walk to the main house for lunch with the family and as he reached forward to help her out of her chair Toby bit his hand. This greatly distressed both, but particularly my grandmother. After some drama everyone arrived at the festive table with Toby whining and barking outside at the front door.

The fact that Toby had bitten her son made my grandmother realise that having an untrained and undisciplined dog was not a good idea and that it was now too late to do anything about it. So she made the momentous decision to have the dog destroyed – for this she looked to my brother and I to do the deed. Being on a farm, particularly a poultry farm, we had a twelve gauge shotgun to kill the snakes (particularly cobras) and jackals attracted by the chickens.

My brother and I proceeded to carry out my grandmother’s wishes. I don’t know if you have ever seen the results of a shotgun blast on an animal – believe me it is a very distressing sight. My brother actually pulled the trigger, twice, because the first shot only injured the poor creature.

It was bad enough for us outside but just imagine the effect on those inside the house listening to all this - Toby’s whining and barking, then the thunderclap of the buck-shot hitting both the dog and the solid teak, front door. Then the sounds of the injured dog (I can hear them still), then the second shot – and then silence. And the silence that accompanies death is always a profound silence.

I volunteered to clean up the mess and bury Toby – which took quite a while. In mid-summer it was necessary to do it straight away.

After all this I had to rejoin the ‘festivities’. That was a Christmas I will never forget.