My one ambition and goal was a career working with animals

My Story: Jenny Fensom describes a life with pets – and her new book about them

For the last twenty years I have written a number of articles for various publications and also several short stories and poems, mainly as a therapeutic exercise. At this time I belonged to writing groups in East Devon where my brother and I have made our permanent home since 2008.

My roots, however, were in Bedfordshire where I was born in 1949 in a small suburb of Luton called Leagrave. I lived there for the first twelve years of my life until 1961. We then moved away to Streatley, a nearby village, where I finished the last four years of my secondary modern education.

Pets and animals have figured largely throughout my life and date from my first pet, a blue budgie named Toby. Up to the present time of writing, sixty years later, when the current family of dogs, cats and tortoises number fourteen in total, I cannot imagine life without them – in fact they are our family.

But my latest book is not entirely devoted to animals.

People and places are all woven into the pages.

It begins with my father’s early farming background roots in a small hamlet called Thorn near Dunstable in Bedfordshire; my mother’s humble origins living with her family of five sisters and one brother, their father, my maternal grandfather, working on Leagrave Station as a railway foreman; my early memories of the kindly neighbours who lived in and around The Avenue, Leagrave, all of whom played important roles during my formative years; growing up in the 1950s; and fond and sometimes amusing recollections of grandparents, great-uncles and aunts, my own uncles, aunts and cousins.

The final section of the book contains several articles and poems I have written over the years since belonging to a writing group in Exmouth and as a member of Sidmouth Poetry Readers.

I left school in 1965 with one O-Level in English Language and with just one ambition and goal in mind: to have a career working with animals. I had one employed job after leaving school, as junior trainee in a canine beautician’s salon in Luton. This lasted for nine months and from thereon up until my retirement in 2007 I remained self employed, running my own boarding kennels and cattery, Good Companions, from my home in Sundon Road, Streatley.

Sidmouth in Devon is where I live now with my brother

Anthony, a retired biochemist, and the aforementioned menagerie. Since our first visit here with our late mother in 1982 we returned every year for holidays to this lovely Regency town, and always dreamed of residing here for our retirement years.

The dream came true in 2008 and we now lead a busy life looking after the animals, belonging to various organisations, doing voluntary work, and making a number of friends with interests in common. There is a life beyond retirement if you are fortunate enough to have the good health to enjoy it and I can honestly say I have no regrets of moving to Devon, although I still have very fond memories of life in Bedfordshire where I was born, educated, earned a very modest living and formed long-lasting ties.

Some of the articles have been taken from my earlier books, including Wag Tales, Cat Etudes and Tortoise Talk.

All proceeds of the sales will go

We always dreamed of residing here for our retirement I cannot imagine life without pets – in fact they are our family

to Sidmouth Hospiscare. The book is written in memory of my good friend of thirty years, Manuel Martins, a former restaurant manager at The Victoria Hotel in Sidmouth.

Manuel was a very popular and well known figure in the East Devon area.

I am hoping the book will be of interest to all pet owners, my own generation brought up during the 1950s, and to my family back in the Bedfordshire area. It is available direct from me at 79 Sidford Road, Sidmouth, EX10 9NJ, priced £10 plus £2 postage.