The Near Death Experience of Kevin the Goat
It was some time in the 1970s when a kind anonymous benefactor donated Kevin the goat to Downley Common Preservation Society (DCPS). Kevin, a large rangy horned bad tempered billy goat, became very useful in munching his way through wild blackberry bushes, thistles, hawthorn bushes and anything else with thorns and prickles. He was also adept at pulling aluminium decorative strips from the side of my much loved Renault 4, parked by the common where Kevin was then chained. Kevin had a house on the common, a curved corrugated ‘Ark’ in which he slept off his labours.
One weekend the DCPS decided to move Kevin from the Ark at the east end of Commonside where he had been for a few days- he’d finished clearing some small hawthorn bushes- to pastures new, a big clump of blackberry bushes close to the cricket ground. How to do this was the question. The DCPS had a small David Brown tractor, which was stored at Percy Hounslow’s Downley Farm. So, with a borrowed farm flatbed trailer behind we drove the tractor to Kevin, who was dreaming peacefully of the next meal of assorted prickly things. The team consisted of Mac, Harry and myself*. We lifted the heavy Ark onto the trailer, and with a long chain, attached Kevin to the back of the trailer, making sure he could walk comfortably behind when we set off.
It had been raining for days, the common was soaking wet. The route chosen was to head west on Commonside, then turn right in front of Prospect House, go down the slope, cross the end of Moor Lane, up the other side past the Chapel, then to the chosen blackberry bushes just below the cricket ground. Off we went. I was driving, with trailer behind, then came chained Kevin following the trailer with Mac and Harry* offering encouragement. All went well as we headed west along the rather wet and muddy common. The procession I think must have looked quite impressive, well, maybe interesting. Reaching the vicinity of Prospect House I turned the wheel and began to slowly head down the slope, knowing of course that there was a trailer with Ark and Kevin behind.
All went well for a few yards but then I realised that we were going faster even though I hadn’t, I thought, increased the speed at all. In fact, I was trying to drive very slowly bearing in mind that Kevin was chained behind. I then noticed that the big drive wheels of the tractor were nicely sliding on the wet grass, and we were being pushed by the weight of the trailer and Ark, in fact gaining in speed, down the slope, second by second. I then tried to steer down the main downhill path- the trailer decided to go one way, the tractor another, and we jackknifed. I thought I was soon to die, but fate was with us. Tractor, me, trailer and Kevin slid rather heavily into an old apple tree and associated hawthorn bush on the edge of the bank, below which was Moor Lane. Rather shakily I got down to meet Harry and Mac who had watched the event unfold, and also to find Kevin, who had been dragged on his back all the way down the slope, and was seemingly unconscious or dead.
Mrs Lanaman then appeared. She lived at 1 Commonside, and had watched the whole thing. “You should be ashamed of yourselves, look at that poor goat, you’ve killed him!” Then Mac, using supreme self-control, went up to recumbent Kevin and gave him a hefty kick. Kevin duly got himself up, shook himself, looked at us all for a couple of seconds, and started to munch on the hawthorn bush that had probably saved my life, and Kevin’s.
After a few minutes we managed to lift the Ark off the trailer, unhitched Kevin, gingerly drove the tractor along the edge of the bank above Moor Lane, using Kevin’s chain to pull the trailer onto firmer ground. The Ark was put back onto the re-hitched up trailer and Kevin continued to the blackberry bush near the cricket ground, which was then to be Kevin’s new home.
*John Willson at the time lived in; Mac Reid lived at St David’s (opp cricket pitch), and Harry Wheate lived in Littleworth Road