Last week I was quite perturbed by the news that reached me concerning Barry Jewel's finger. Apparently, the legend, as he has become, in local ferret racing circles has lost a finger. He is the North Devon's ferret racing answer to Henry Cecil and year in year out he always manages to breed sure-fire winners from his yard out at South Molton. My first thought was that one of his charges had turned nasty on him, a narky hob gone a bit mixxy and bit off the aforementioned digit. However that would have been highly unusual as from my own experience I know all too well a ferret can give you a fair old nip but it would have to set itself to a good old gnawing before it could get through your finger. Anyway it turns out that Barry was doing a bit of work in his shed and lost the finger, his little finger, when he fed his hand into a band saw by mistake. Barry's plight caused a right old forore in South Molton as he'd picked up his finger from the shavings on the shed floor and walked around with it to his neighbours asking them to call an ambulance. Due to the nature of the injury, bleeding like beggary, it was the air ambulance that came for him and that really did cause quite a stir in sleepy S'Molton on a weekday afternoon as in no time at all quite a crowd had gathered at the Rugby Club to see old Barry being whisked away in the big whirly bird up to the NDI in Barum. However, once he got to Barum he was no sooner up in the air again this time being conveyed directly to Exeter. Not that old Barry seemed to mind this one bit as he later told the Journal that despite the pain he was quite distracted by the lovely views he was getting of the Taw Valley, priceless they were. Fortunately, up at Exeter they were able, using state of the art technology, to rebuild his finger. Bleddy marvelous isn't it, what they can do these days.
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| Not Barry's missus with favourite ferret but Leonardo da Vinci's |
Trouble is Barry has now been signed off by the doctor until the end of August and due to this being high season for ferret racing he is finding it quite frustrating being unable to compete until then. So far, all told he has already missed the Braunton fair and the Royal Bath and West up at Shepton Mallet. I would have given him a call and see if I could lend a fully fingered hand to enable him to take part in the races down at the Royal Cornwall show but the Hiace is still off the road. Although, I did give my ex common law brother in law Michael Tanton a call, him being a fellow ferret fancier and breeder. I just thought he may be able to help out but I could sense he wasn't too keen on the idea.Thinking about it now, I reckon there could be a bit of history between them, bad blood. Besides, he said from what he'd heard Barry seemed happy enough to give racing a miss this season and had decided to concentrate on his fancy ferrtets for showing in the autumn. Michael also told me that this wasn't the first time that Barry had lost a finger as he had managed to slice one off a few years ago when he was working out at the chipboard factory.
Well all I can add is that I wish Terry a speedy recovery. By the way, that's from me and the rest of the Marshal's Thursday lunch club and when he feels up to it maybe he could pop by one afternoon and tell us all about that helicopter trip.
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