How I lost a dog and found inspiration
For seven days I trampled 140 acres of a hidden London, 'met' Tony Hancock and Rex Harrison and discovered a network of people whose selfless love left me in awe. Here's my and Ziggy's Christmas story
‘Stone me, what a life!’ I love brevity and Tony Hancock’s assessment of his chaotic, extraordinary journey from comedy genius to tormented has-been, is one of the most succinct. A story in five words. Here’s mine – not as succinct – telling one of the saddest episodes of my year, during which I encountered warmth, love, joy and tenderness. In the shadow of Hancock’s well-tended grave, nestled in a corner of London that most people don’t even know exists. It’s been an unforgettable experience that showed me how powerful a great story can be. In this case, that of our family pet dog, Ziggy. Don’t worry, it has a happy ending…
A few days ago our beloved seven-year-old cockapoo bolted for no reason, in one of London’s most beautiful and mysterious green spaces. Cranford Park is that mass of greenery you speed past on the M4, midway between Heston Services and Heathrow. He’s chased rabbits and squirrels here for years and this time he just ran. He was spotted once, maybe twice, roaming near and around a concrete intersection linking Hayes, Hillingdon, Heathrow and the M4. He literally stopped the traffic before diving into an underpass and (we thought) back to the Park. In reality, he wandered down the motorway and criss-crossed the service station, eating leftovers at Burger King on one side and lapping up water at the car wash on the other. A week after he disappeared, we found him cowering beneath some bushes near some sleeping container lorries.
That’s the happy ending but it’s what happened in the previous days that most moved me, in particular the kindness of strangers. Within a couple of hours of Ziggy’s disappearance, a hitherto secret network of people and groups who devote their entire lives to finding lost dogs came to our rescue.
Bruce Forsyth’s daughter spearheaded a social media campaign that included scouring the dark web for sales of unbelievably cute cockapoos. The wife of Ed Sheeran’s manager descended on the park with her sniffer dog, having been supplied with some of Ziggy’s favourite scented toys. They were corralled into action by Debbie who refuses to allow her dodgy hip to stop her doing what she most loves – puppy-whispering.
We met local woman Angie, a mother of five who, despite being scared of dogs, was in Cranford at 5am and still somewhere in its 144 acres 14 hours later. I know that because I was too, along with Phil, Rhaoda, Shona, Mark, Gaurav, Karen, Lisa…and 32 others who kept us up to date with their every movement on a WhatsApp group.
We sat with middle-aged Martin, homeless since losing both his parents and job within a matter of weeks, who sleeps on a bench and kept an eye out for Ziggy whenever he could. The bench is in the gardens of the disused St Dunstan’s Church, founded by Edward The Confessor in the 11th century, used by the Knights Templar, and where Martin now helps tend the graves of Hancock as well as My Fair Lady’s Sir Rex Harrison.
A couple of crack addicts cheerily greeted us and provided an update on their non-sightings before passing the mornings away. Some very hairy off-gridders who’ve made a home deep in the undergrowth could not have been more hospitable. I also accidentally discovered a small group of adventurous people who enjoy meeting in their cars at night to, erm, get to know each other better. Wandering around with my torch, I was invited to join and received some incredulous looks when I insisted that, ‘Thank you very much but I’m looking for my dog,’ which I now realise may have been some kind of sexual euphemism that I wasn’t aware of.
Close by, every business, pub, school, supermarket, industrial centre, community and dog walker spent the entire week either helping or enabling our search, no questions asked. It’s not just Ziggy’s cuteness that motivated everyone. I think it was the story that we told, of him and us, of his personality. The humanness of what was happening. How that story made them feel. People responded to the way we told that story and how we pictured it in hundreds of posters nailed and taped across a three-mile radius, making him London’s most famous pet.
One night, sat in the car watching for the movement of two piercing eyes across Cranford’s vast green spaces, I listened to the radio headlines about political divides, global terror, leaders unwilling to find common ground. And I thought of our familial experience. Here in this wild corner of London, I found a city of people who will stop at nothing to do what is right, whose capacity for selfless love shames all of us wrapped up in our soulless pursuit of more. Money, possessions, titles, triumphs, stuff.
People care. They care about doing the right thing, they care about each other, and they care about a great story. Or maybe they just care about a mischievous dog with a fondness for tummy tickles.
Merry Christmas!
READ THIS
Sometimes the best stories lurk right under our noses and this one has been under mine. For the past six years, just around the corner from where I live in West London, former footballer Allan Cockram has been coaching the Brentford Penguins, a team of children with Down’s Syndrome. Allan played with Glenn Hoddle at Tottenham and then at Brentford but was plagued by depression, and a chance meeting with a Down’s child when he was driving a taxi sparked a personal mission. This is his extraordinary story, which has been turned into what I’m sure will be an award-winning documentary, about the incredible bond he’s formed with an inspirational group of kids.  https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/nov/28/kids-with-downs-have-no-filter-i-love-it-allan-cockram-the-man-behind-the-mighty-penguins
WATCH THIS
I’ve been a little underwhelmed by this year’s Christmas ads in the UK but my faith in the power of seasonal advertising has been reignited by this beauty from Germany’s online shopping emporium, Galaxus (you’ll need to switch on translation).
90 seconds of warmth, wit, a bravura one-shot performance, Biblical references and loads of shameless merchandising. Dear ad creatives, can we try and tell a better story next year please…
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One of the most compelling aspects of the BBC’s brilliant Planet Earth documentaries is the way it tells the stories of wildlife. It’s not just extraordinary images that stay in our minds but the way David Attenborough and his team construct individual narratives. And that’s especially true of the current series, Planet Earth 3, which uses storytelling to explain how the natural and human worlds collide and interact. This is a wonderful radio documentary about how the team finds, makes and tells those stories. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001slf6