Whisky in a Phone Box

When I was a lad my step mother decided she wanted a dog. We had had cats for a while, in Preston we had 3 Sylvester, Sukie and I can’t remember the other one. The longest serving cat was Charlie which lived with us in Leyland. But a dog was something else. My step mother fancied a Yorkshire Terrier which she named ‘Brandy’. I’ve never liked little dogs and this did nothing to change my mind, in fact come to think of it, it is probably the reason why I don’t like little dogs. Not that there was anything particularly wrong with it, it was just a bit crap. At least Charlie used to come and see what I was doing and would occasionally come for stroke, Brandy just looked rubbish and was crap.

For some reason she decided to get another, a poodle called whom she named ‘Whisky’. I don’t like poodles either, I think I’m just not a fan of the perm. Whisky had more of a personality than Brandy, it was a little more playful and fiery but it got on my step mothers nerves, to the extent that she made my step sister and I ‘get rid of it’! I feel guilty for it nowadays but at the time I must have only been 10 or so and I was just doing what I was told. We took it for a walk to the shops, 300m away but around 2 corners and we locked it in an old red telephone box and then ran away. I feel even guiltier now having written that! I promise I wouldn’t do that nowadays. It probably got found by a very wealthy family (who obviously didn’t have a phone and had to use the phone box on a council estate!!) who befriended it and gave it a magnificent life. Even though I’m still not a fan of poodles I am a big fan of whisky.

Any road, we have a red phone box in Sedbergh with an actual phone inside, not a defibrillator (or a poodle!).