A car journey when I was four years old. I grew up in Orpington, Kent, and our family were driving back home after a visit to pedigree poodle breeding kennels near Tunbridge Wells. We had bought a miniature poodle pup. We called him Kimmings. He was officially a silver poodle, but when very young he was black. I have a vivid memory of sitting behind the front passenger seat craning my neck in excitement to look at my mother in front, with this tiny bundle of black wool on her lap - our new puppy. I was fascinated by him and couldn't take my eyes off him.

 

 

Yes, Kimmings went on to live for 15 years as our much-loved family pet. He came on every holiday with us and I have video footage of him barking at shadows, lying exhausted at the top of  Welsh mountains, and standing with his head out of an open car window, enjoying the feeling of his long ears streaming in the wind. He was put to sleep by the vet when I was aged 19 - he had cataracts in both eyes and kidney failure. I was told of his death by my father Ken while we had lunch together in the flat above our family toolmerchant shop in Woolwich High Street, A.D. Skillman. Dad told me that Mum had just rung to give him the sad news - she had taken Kimmings to the vet to be put to sleep. I was eating at the time, and then I knew what it meant for food to "turn to ashes" in your mouth. Later, I wrote an In Memoriam for Kimmings (which I still have amongst my juvenilia). I also refused to allow his bed to be used by our cat Sukie, and insisted that it be destroyed instead, because it belonged to Kimmings and we would be betraying him if we allowed any other animal to use it.