Guinness

It would have been some time in the summer of 1985. My brother Paul was still living in Dublin with Josephine who later became his wife.  We were over in Ireland to see them. Two or three days in Dublin before moving over to County Clare on the west coast.

Quite a lot of Paul's working life was devoted to pest control. In London, he had worked for Rentokil before doing the same in Saudi Arabia. Next he moved on to a much smaller Irish company, mostly working on farms or within commercial properties.

They had a contract with the famous brewers - Guinness. In one of the oldest parts of the brewery, pigeons were becoming an issue in the roof space. Paul's company had been brought in to get rid of them. The night before Paul had been up there laying poisonous bait. He had invited me to go back with him and had full official permission for the return visit.

That roof space was above a vast warehouse area that was now totally empty with just a couple of strip lights hanging from the high ceiling on chains. We had entered via  a corner door and had to get fifty yards across to the opposite corner through which we took some creaky stairs up to the roof space.

All had been fine on the way in. We were up in the roof space collecting dead pigeons which we dropped into plastic sacks. I guess we collected around thirty pigeons that night. Then it was back down the stairs to the old warehouse space carrying our haul. 

Ten yards from the exit door, the door in the opposite corner opened. We turned round to see the silhouette of a man - the night watchman. He yelled something and simultaneously released his guard dog - a  bellowing Alsatian no doubt trained to bring down intruders.

It zoomed across the floor space like a cheetah. Paul and I dropped our pigeons and raced for the exit, managing to both get through the doorway as the baying hound's thudding claws scraped down the wood. It was a close escape. One second more and that bloodthirsty creature would have had my left leg in its jaws

Turns out that someone had forgotten to inform the nightwatchman of our visit. He was apologetic but of course it wasn't his fault. We were just happy to get away from there without being savaged. We picked up the pigeons and headed back to the suburbs.

The next morning the drive to Clare lay ahead of us and not an hour or two in an operating theatre. Confucius say - You cannot argue with a crazed guard dog when it is off its leash.

The last picture of Paul (1947 - 2010)