A Half-Century Of Donkin’ It – One Good Hoof Turns Fifty
by Bev Wilkins
Gribley, 1975. The pungent fumes of an iconic local landmark start to fill the morning air. The local rendering plant and knackers yard, known affectionately as Ole’ Stink, flares into life for yet another day of operation.
A young Donald Brick finishes his morning cuppa, and starts his backbreaking shift of cutting and tearing. Then his close friend Ronald Brack approaches, pulling a heavy metal wagon behind him.
“They want us to put her down,” he says. “But we can save her.”
Donald turns from his work. He gasps. Upon the wagon is a young white donkey. Three of her legs are missing. He sighs through his teeth. “Well… I suppose she still has one good hoof.”
They hide her in a pile of newspapers, and keep her going throughout the day with sandwiches and bovril, which she demurely sips from a chipped china teacup. That evening they attach the wagon to the back of Brick’s car, and together they tow her home.
They name her Lollipop. “Cause’ she’s sweet, and she only got one leg,” Brack would go on to say in an iconic 1981 TV news interview. “Don gets her home and we tell his wife to fetch us the hacksaw. An’ we cut three legs offa’ his own kitchen table at put them on her with sticky glue. From there she was hobbling about just fine.”
For her first year, Lollipop splits her time between Brick’s garden and the bowling green of the Grunton Bowls Club, where she makes a meagre living of £1 a week keeping the grass neat and trim.
One day, she acquires a friend. A local riding school surrenders a sickly donkey to Brick and Brack, whomst they name Treacle due to his problem with “thick wee.” Lollipop is delighted at the company, but the garden starts to feel rather crowded.
Then, a twist of fate. Brack’s uncle passes, leaving behind a one acre field with a crumbling barn on the Gribley-Grinton border. The sanctuary is born! With the money they make from charging admission, Brick and Brack quit their jobs at Ole’ Stink, and start their most fruitful venture yet; the iconic local charity shop Brick and Brack on the Gribley high street. From there, the sky was the limit for the fledging charity. In the next few years One Good Hoof becomes the leading tourist destination in the greater Grinton area, and gift shop T-shirts bearing the iconic visages of Lollipop and Treacle become the most wanted gifts of the 1982 Christmas season.
This new attention allows them to adopt a flurry of new faces. Pound Cake, rescued from an animal cruelty situation where he was kept chained up behind a bakery and forced to eat leftover pastries until he became hideously obese. Windy Wendy, a retired beach donkey who was fired from her position after her flatulence-based acceleration caused her to run too fast and scare children. And Dougie, who had PTSD from serving in ‘nam.
The organisation has even outlived the organisation that spawned it. Ole’ Stink stunk its last in 1988, when it was promptly converted to the Gribley Museum of Working Life; an iconic school trip favourite. It is said that on hot summer days, when crowds of children gather to ooh and aah at the hall of meat hooks or the old glue boiling vat, a familiar stink fills the air and the sound of faraway braying can be heard.
So what is next for One Good Hoof? Well, after the whole recent “mucky pants” debacle, the charity have found themselves a little bit strapped for cash. “We couldn’t even give the donkeys a Christmas last year cause’ of all the decontamination fees,” says Derek Brick, second-generation managing director. “We told them it was because we were all converting to be Jehovah’s Witnesses, but they didn’t believe it.”
Luckily, a rush of donations allowed the current roster of donkeys to celebrate a bumper Easter to make up for the Christmas they missed out on. “They had Easter eggs, novelty toys, and a proper roast Easter supper,” says Brick. “No matter what, you can always rely on the charity of good Gribley people.”
Comments
BUCKSFIZZFAN1981
BEV DID U EVER GO TO THE OLE’ STINK MUSEUM ON A SCHOOL TRIP I WENT WHEN I WAS 14 TOTAL HORROR SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
BevWilkins1987
Ha ha, yeah. I went a couple of times in I think ‘96 and ‘98. A bit of an odd place, but very interesting. There was always at least one sobber in every tour group though. The exhibits back then were a bit… graphic.
Clifford Head
Great story! Did Dougie really serve in Vietnam? Seems a bit implausible to me.
BevWilkins1987
Probably not, lol. But it was a running joke at the time, so I thought I’d include it in a tongue-in-cheek way. He came over from the states with his American owner, who actually was a Vietnam vet iirc, and when his owner passed he came to One Good Hoof. Dougie is actually still around. He’s ancient now.
Les
wow. nice to see that the donkeys had a good easter! i gave them all of the money in my moneybox and i am glad it went to good use even though i couldnt afford my prescriptions this month.
GrahamCrumb2
What prescriptions were these, Les? Are you alright?
Les
just got a bit of the old rotty leg. dont need the cream it is going away on its own.
GrahamCrumb2
Rotty leg?