Malcolm Welshman - Pets in a Pickle

review by Malcolm Martland on show 29th September 2011
From the cover:
Drawing on his own experiences of working as a vet, Malcolm Welshman brings to life a wealth of colourful characters - including the formidable practice receptionist, Beryl, with her one steely eye - and an ark's worth of marvellous animals. As enchanting as it is funny, this wonderful story will delight any animal fan. When Paul Mitchell arrives for his first day's work at Prospect House Veterinary Hospital, he never expects this...Oh his very first day, he is bitten by a feisty hamster...but this is a mere prelude to a cavalcade of hilarious - and often painful - encounters with fish, flesh and fowl etc.
My review.
This is just the sort of book I wish I had written and I wouldn't mind writing something similar either, but will I ever get round to it? The author qualified just three years before I did so we are almost contemporaries and both of us entered practice at a time when a lot of the old methods had not yet died out but modern techniques were flooding in all the time.
It is a collection of linked short stories about pets and their owners and the amusing predicaments they get into, very much along the lines of James Herriot, but with differences. I found it quite hard not to imagine that the clients were from Yorkshire and not the lush South Downs that are portrayed. But the stories are so similar to those that most vets could relate from experience that they awoke many memories which I hastily wrote down for future reference. I'll just have to avoid plagiarism! There are tales of sick cows, cats, horses and monkeys but it is the owners that bring the humour to the situation.

There is also the underlying romantic element, with the new vet falling in love with one of the veterinary nurses while at the same time fending off the amorous advances of his buxom divorced landlady. There is clearly scope for more.

I'd definitely recommend this book if you like James Herriot and it would make an ideal stocking filler for Christmas. I hope Malcolm Welshman writes many more.

Malcolm Martland broadcast on RadioScilly 107.9 FM 29 September 2011