Hawthrone - The Animal Victoria Cross: The Dickin Medal

The first thank you is to Alison Doran who spent six months valiantly editing each story by working on two or three each week. The editing comments were invaluable but so too was the emotional reaction Alison would write at the bottom of each one, without her prompting I would not have sent the book to Pen & Sword. On one occasion Alison had a few minutes free before she was due to collect her daughters, Ellie and Myah, from school so began reading the three animals for the week. Unfortunately, Alison became so engrossed in the stories she was late collecting Ellie and Myah who, when she arrived at the school ten minutes late, were standing outside the school gates wet through due to rain. It was this type of comment and encouragement from Alison that gave me the confidence to approach a publisher.

Over the years many people gave their time and expertise generously to help me with the research of the subject. A particular thanks to Lesley Catton at my local library who, along with the other staff members (Mary Cooper, Fiona Hayward and Hayley Tranter), continually managed to locate books and articles at short notice and they never refused to help me despite being very busy! I would also like to thank Heather Bayne and Maureen Bozdech for their kind help and guidance. A particular thank you must also be mentioned to Claire Bennett whose relentless pursuit of the slightest clue on pigeons was priceless! The wise council and advice of Henry Wilson, John and Doreen Hughes, Chris Waters, Roger Hack and Julian and Jenny Maslin was invaluable.

Gill Hubbard, of the PDSA, in Telford provided some newspaper cuttings and press releases that were very useful and helped fire my interest in the Dickin Medal. From this small beginning I became fascinated by the subject and attempted to leave no stone unturned when researching each animal.

Thanks also go to Lizzie Keen for her charming illustrations of the animals and Lisa Bialek, Richard Doughty, Rita ODonoghue, Patricia OGorman and Stephanie Saville for their kind help with the photographs. Matt Jones, of the Pen & Sword production team, worked extremely hard to fine tune this book and it is much the better for it, I greatly appreciated his advice and support. The final thank you is for animal lovers everywhere, including you, for only an animal lover would buy such a book as this.

P.J. Hawthorne