Paws for thought
'And they're off!' the race commentator announces, as eight assorted terriers tear up the field after a stuffed thing on a piece of string. Junior wins by default, as Mullet, Holly, Rascal and Rivet get two feet past the starting line and decide to have a fight. We're at the terrier races, an event that's been going for 37 years and just up from the road where I was born. Now I've completed my OU studies, I have time on my hands so I suggest to Mr Grigg we head for the hills to find out what it's all about. Amazingly, this is the one event not to be featured in any Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall programme. And in amongst the plate smashing, the hoopla and tombola, and a commentator who is wearing a red jacket, top hat and a new pair of teeth for the occasion, I see glimpses of my past. People who were at school with me stroll around with cobweb tattoos on their elbows, baseball caps at jaunty angles and gobble up fat hot dogs washed down with a ...