A dog to remember (and the wine he inspired)

Meeting to taste wine, we started by talking about dogs. Roy Hattersley is good on the subject, which ought to be impossible. For he is opposed to shooting, and the partnership between gun and gun-dog, the dog’s tail-wagging joy as it luxuriates in its master’s approval, is one of the highest expressions of man’s commonwealth with the animal kingdom. Well, tot sententiae. But Roy understands one point. Human life is enfiladed by tragedy and the brief span of animal life is one aspect of that. In our relationship with animals, love and loss are intertwined.

There was a splendid labrador called Hector, bred in Lincolnshire by Sir Brian Wyldbore-Smith. A general, he was an equally formidable Tory fund-raiser a generation ago, partly because he exploited an asset. In those days, be it war service or national service, most senior businessmen had served in the colours. So General Brian often had phone calls with very important industrialists along the following lines: ‘What d’you mean sending me such a measly cheque? You were the idlest, scruffiest subaltern I ever came across and clearly you haven’t changed…’ Even though his interlocutor might well be a knight of the realm, it was as if the relationship had been frozen when the CO was handing out a roasting and a dollop of extra orderly officer.