The Billy Goat

How stinks that goat on yonder hill,

When all it eats is chlorophyll?

That’s an old poem that my mother had never heard before we moved to England, when I was a child. Our first house in England was a beautiful cottage in Barrington, Cambridge. The house was beside a river with a large garden and for some reason three thatched train carriages in the yard. It was probably the coldest house we ever lived in and the family joke was that the fat on the bacon congealed before it made it to the breakfast table. Having come from a 2,000 acre farm in Maryland, USA, with lots of animals, my mother tried to make us feel at home in our new environment by acquiring a few pets. The first was a miniature apricot poodle to try and replace my lamb that I had to leave behind and the second was a male goat. She brought a male goat home thinking it would be great to keep down the undergrowth alongside the river and for us to play with. Someone saw a sucker when they saw her coming. As adorable as it was as a baby it grew into a very smelly, willful animal that just stood most of the time on a small pillar, with all four feet, that happened to be right outside the front door. Every time you would open the door this increasingly large and stinky goat with horns would knock you down in the rush to get into the house. It became such a menace that my mother tried to find a home for it with all of the local farmers. Everyone of course knowing that you don’t want a male goat, except my mother, who, give her her due, was a fast learner. One day the Vicar passed by, collecting items for the church fete to be held in the common gardens in the town. While drinking his obligatory glass of warm sherry, the vicar was surprised to see that my mother had donated the goat to the cause. After much discussion about her generosity, the Vicar left with the billy goat in hand. I am sure that its ghost still perches on the narrow stump outside the door at the parsonage to this very day.

You see no one wants a male goat, a sad fact but true.