Judith Summers - The Badness of King George

Although this is a true story, some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. The dogs, however, appear as themselves. I hope they dont sue.

Many Tears Animal Rescue does an incredible job on a shoestring budget. It would not have been possible for me to write this book without the support and co-operation of owners Sylvia and Bill VanAtta, and the dedicated team who work at the Llanelli centre, among them Liza McLean, Yvonne Watts and James Muir. Im sure I wasnt the most capable dog fosterer theyd ever had on their books, but they proved as patient with me as they are with their canine charges. Anyone wanting to find out more about the centres work can find it online at http://www.freewebs.com/manytearsrescue/. And those wishing to support their sterling work should contact the very active Friends organization at http://manytearsrescue.webs.com/friendsofmanytears.htm/

Many thanks to Penny Varney, Malcolm Lunn, Jean Cooper, Pawel Krzus and Ania Dzioba; and very special thanks to Heather Brown.

My brother-in-law Philip Norman came up trumps with the title, for which I am very grateful. Hazel Orme has yet again been a terrific copyeditor. Clare Alexander, the best of literary agents, was, as always, a fantastic support throughout the writing of this book, and so was Katy Follain at Penguin UK. Many thanks to all of them.

Thanks to my friends and family for letting me write about them again, in particular Elizabeth Meakins; my sister Sue; my mother Honey; Barbara Lambert for her picture of Murphy; and my step-daughter Hannah, who generously shared her exploits with Billy.

Showing great stoicism and remarkable good humour, George has put up with having his beds taken over, his food stolen from under his nose, his beauty sleep ruined and his various thrones usurped. Id like him to know that, though there have been some serious contenders along the way, in my eyes hes still the best dog in the world.

Huge thanks to my son Joshua for throwing himself into the spirit of dog fostering so wholeheartedly, and for keeping me focused, and laughing, as always. And very special thanks to Paul for rolling up his sleeves and sharing this unforgettable experience with me and for still being here at the end of it.

It was a Sunday morning in September 2008, and George and I were standing in the doorway of Joshuas room, watching him pack his things.

Id always known that my son would leave home one day because hed told me so when he was five years old. After spending half an hour bent over a sheet of paper at the kitchen table, a pencil gripped between his little fingers and his brows knotted in concentration, the diminutive apple of my eye had finally handed me a note hed been labouring over. His face had been one big beaming smile.

On reflection, perhaps it was a smirk.

Is this for me, darling? Id cooed, ever the doting mother; he was, after all, my only child and this was the first thing hed written for me.

Yes, Mummy.

Thank you, my angel! And you wrote it all by yourself? Hed nodded solemnly. How completely brilliant of you!

My heart bursting with love and pride, Id read the note. This was what it said:

To mum I which

I kud lev my Famley!!

from Joshua.

the same to you

dad.

And I will.

YES!!!

Appalled that our adored son couldnt wait to cram his Pokmon card collection into his Bart Simpson rucksack and put some distance between us, Id rushed downstairs and shown the note to his father. Udi had burst out laughing. As a psychotherapist, he was used to dealing with people who suppressed their negative feelings towards their families, often with disastrous consequences for their own emotional well-being. Now his son was expressing in the plainest language possible the natural, healthy, love-hate feelings that all children have for their parents. When it came to speaking his mind freely, Joshua was clearly a chip off the old block his, not mine. And Udi couldnt have been more delighted.

However, always the pedant when it came to spelling, as people for whom English is a second language often are, my Austrian-born partner did feel the need to add a few corrections to the message a pencilled-in wish above Joshuas which, a could above his kud, and the word family spelled properly at the bottom of the page.

When Id got over the initial shock of being rejected by my five-year-old I, too, found Joshuas note so amusing, if in a bitter-sweet way, that I framed it and gave it pride of place in my bedroom, where it has remained ever since. As well as making Udi and me laugh it served as a constant reminder that, however much our life revolved around him then, one day our feisty chick would spread his wings and fly the coop. He wasnt ours for keeps, only on borrowed time, so wed better make the most of him while he was still around.

As it turned out it was Udi who was on borrowed time. Unknown to any of us, he was already suffering from a rare and extremely hard to detect form of stomach cancer, which was diagnosed in July 1997, when Joshua was seven years old. His only chance was to have a life-threatening operation, and even if he were to survive it, the prognosis was terrible. It was shattering news.

In dire need of something to light up the bleak horizon in front of us, we decided on the spur of the moment that wed get married at long last; though wed been together for twelve years, had a child and owned a home, we hadnt yet got around to tying the knot. Doing so now was the most positive gesture we could think of. I rushed down to Camden register office to book an appointment, only to be told that the earliest available slot was in nine weeks time. I burst into tears and told the official that my partner had just been diagnosed with cancer. He reopened the appointments book, ran his finger down a few pages, then said, How about next Monday?

With only three days to organize the event, there was no time to fret about details or even the essentials. I borrowed a cream trouser suit from my sister and, to add a touch of glitz to the occasion, hired a white stretch limo to ferry us and our seven guests Tabby and Hannah, Udis grown-up daughters from his first marriage, Tabbys four-year-old son, Nathaniel, and his father, Carlton, my sister and brother-in-law, Sue and Philip, and their six-year-old daughter, Jessica to the wedding. The limo made the day. The driver couldnt have been more accommodating, or the car a bigger hit with the children who, on the drive down to Euston Road, drank Cokes from the built-in fridge and watched cartoons on the in-car television while we grown-ups larked around and sipped Champagne.

In the register office, Udi experimented with the music on the PA system while the rest of us, including the female registrar, giggled and laughed. During the ceremony (if you can use such a word for the short formalities) he gave me one of my own rings as a wedding band, while I produced a plastic prisoners ball-and-chain that Id stolen from Joshuas toy box and proceeded to shackle him with it.

Catering the wedding breakfast couldnt have been easier: on the way back to Hampstead our driver stopped outside a local deli, and Udi and I went inside and bought whatever we felt like. Back home, we ate in the kitchen, while the children picnicked in the limo, which, to their delight, remained parked outside for several hours. Then some good friends arrived with a Sacher-Torte to serve as our wedding cake. I think everyone must have made the same wish when Udi and I cut it together: that he would survive.