As a young lad of 14 living in Batley West Yorkshire is where i really got into hunting, my first lucher a bedlington x whippet greyhound was bought with money i earned doing a milk round in the morning and peeling spuds in the local chippy at night, i already had ferrets and was desperate for a lurcher, but being the eldest of six, eight with my perants and living in a three bedroomed house and already having a family dog the answer was always no, so i put my plan into motion, we had an allotment about half a mile away my farther had got me, where i kept hens some ferrets and english eating rabbits well thats what the old pollish fella in the next alloment told me they were when he sold them to me, the plan was to keep Molly there. I finally saved the money and picked her up when she was about 10 weeks old the guy had kept her for me and if my memory serves me right i paid £15 for her she was all black and smooth coated. She settled in well at the allotment in a large shed with a large bed of hey and i was with her there most days as school was only a half hour job, in get my mark and away to the allotment, where i would set up shop in the shed ready to get the ferrets food for the day i would get my relem tornado out, and sit and knock maggies off the fence with Molly by my side, i had quite a little enterprise going, selling live chickens to the asians and the odd rabbit to the locals and then i sold the eggs to my mother and the neighbours, i would spend most days walking over the moors shooting and ferreting and just generally doing my own thing untill one day i had an unexpected visit from my dad who was as shocked to see me and the dog as i was to see him, after the obligatory telling off for not being at school followd by a clip around the ear, i then had to set to explaining how, where ,when who and so forth about the dog, expecting the worst i was suprised when he told me you better not let your mother find out. So the next six months or so past in much the same way as the six before only now i had an alley my dad, who should have really known better, he use to come down the allotment on the days i had promised to go to school(but they were few and far between) and see to my animals. He helped me train Molly although looking back now she would not have made the grade for many, but i look back with fond memories and she will always be my best. My mother who seemed to know everything i got up to, or thought she did, was now starting to get suspicious something was wrong my dad was down the allotment with me too much and going out more than usual, i think she thought he was having an affair, well in the end my dad cracked and told her about Molly,Its got to go she said you cannot keep a dog in a shed and its not comming here well that was it my younger sisters and brother all wanted to see Molly and yes with a seven to one vote she got the ok to come home with several conditions applied, you no the usual, you feed it, you walk it, you clean up after it and if it does anything in the house it goes. Well in full agreement to said rules off i go to collect her, what a day, i have won and home she comes my lurcher, but with in the hour she has peed in the kitchen STRIKE ONE and after a lot of begging and crying (by the young uns ) she is reprieved and settles down on the couch with my sisters, I remember this day as if it was yesterday, it was a sunday, Molly is laid on the couch probably thinking she has died and gone to heaven with two of my sisters, when she commited the cardinal sin she put her head up yawned and stretched, calmly she got off the couch and S*it right in the middle of the living room then jumped back on the couch, all hell broke lose mother sceaming, kids crying and Molly getting her marching orders religated back to the allotment where she lived quit happly untill the day she was stolen. One morning after finishing my milk round i headed off to the allotment only to find that some B**tards had broken in, they had stole Molly, my ferrets, nets and gun and killed some of my hens and rabbits, i never saw her again and just hope she had a good life, after this episode my mother relented and let me keep ferrets at home, but it was many years before i could bring another dog into the house. (who will feature in another tale).