Ann Storey
In some ways this period of the early rat fancy gives the appearance of robustness, with lots of new fanciers and several new varieties as I explained before. The fancy no longer looked to Mary as the only person who could help them out although there were still the usual moans about no help and low entries.
It would be wrong to underestimate the effect of the War on the Fancy. Several young and enthusiastic fanciers joined up as would be expected, including Mr Tilling and Ralph Blake. There were also occasional tales that come back from the front about soldiers befriending rats who would suddenly turn up in their trenches or were obtained locally as pets. One of these concerned a white rat called Billy (who was in fact, female). The story appears in F&F 27 November 1918, entitled ‘In the Firing Line: A white rat in the Battle of Mons. Billy was given to corporal Johnson by a local girl in exchange for a portion of his coat. When Corp Johnson was invalided back to Blighty – Billy went with him. The full story appeared in the Daily Express on 14th Nov and was reported in ProRata No 48 Nov/Dec 1988.
In 19/2/15 MD writes about a letter that she had received from Dr Hagedoorn, a dutch animal breeder/geneticist more widely known from a livestock breeding textbook called Animal Breeding that ran for many editions in the mid 20th C. The showing of Rattus rattus had just begun and Dr Hagedoorn had been doing a lot of breeding with them, obtaining a number of mutations. He sent Mary several skins for her opinion. (This was quite normal, I also remember Roy Robinson doing this, there was also no colour photography at this time). MD says ‘The skins arrived with the letter, that of the rattus (Old English Black) was similar to the specimens exhibited by Mr HCB, as also was the Alexandrine (agouti). Others were specimens of Rattus tectorum, which is like the Alexandrine on the upper parts of the body, but white, instead of grey bellied. The white fur is clearly and sharply defined and does not shade off into the colour. The yellow rattus is similar to our fawns, but there’s a bluish shade which is not present in the yellow or fawn decumanus (norvegicus) variety. The new colour which Dr H calls silver is hardly to my mind expressed by this term , although it’s possible that the silvery shade is more apparent in life. In the dead skin the colour is, I think, better described as dove or biscuit. It is a beautiful soft colour, darker on the back than elsewhere and a real eye opener.’
She also adds that HCB had shown that it was perfectly possible to tame rattus.
As we give out the Bronze rats, the NMRC gave out spoons and medals, one of which the NFRS has and a couple of which I own. They were made of gold, silver or bronze, depending on the class of win. During the war however, MD said that these had become difficult to obtain, presumably because the factories were all engaged in munitions work. In a letter written in F&F 7/4/16, T. Patterson Riddle, then secretary of the London Mouse Club, reports that Ralph Blake who was then working in munitions at Woolwich SE London had joined. Ralph Blake was to become an extremely influential fancier, not just for the Longtails but also for the rabbits and cavies. He was to write a much reprinted and popular book for Cassell’s Pet Library entitled Mice and Cavies which included one chapter on Fancy rats.
In 1917 there was some rumblings going on in the NMRC about ‘ratters’. They were generally accused of being ‘slackers’ a label that MD took on herself , saying that she had been so tied up with the Blue Cross that if she hadn’t been so fond of the Longtails she would have given them up. (I’m sure that many of us can relate to that).
The solution given by some mousers was for the ratters to split from the mice and go their own way, a proposal that MD firmly rejected. She also pointed out that as most classes were guaranteed there was no need to cancel them. Bear in mind that there was no way the early fancy would’ve countenanced our system, with many its classes, most with only one or two rats in them or even none at all. Six rats in a class were considered an unsustainable entry. Although the NMRC was meant to be for both longtails, a lot of shows only catered for mice. Of course, like the BRC now, the NMRC did not put on its own shows. When the mouse secretaries wrote to have classes included in a small livestock show, rats often seemed to get left out, although why this happened is not clear, seeing as rats were meant to get equal billing. However, the rat breeders were very bad at putting their stock on the bench, so maybe they only had themselves to blame. As was pointed out ‘it was up to us, one and all, to do our bit to keep things going and to help the whole fancy, not only to the particular species that is our chief personal interest.’ Amen to that.
Some clarification on this proposed split did appear in F&F, whether this was true or just backing down is hard to know, but it was reported that it was proposed just to ‘buck the ratters up a bit’.
MD Seems to have been secretary again in 1917, although I can’t find any record of this in the NMC records. However she writes:
‘Here I may say that for months past I have had so little spare time that it has been almost impossible for me to arrange shows, which as secretary of course, I ought to have done…also here in Cornwall, I am quite out of the track of shows and longtail fanciers – Mr Tilling and I are the only active ones in the County.’
By April 1917 Ralph Blake had joined the Army as a gunner. Other ratters to join up in 1917 were Mr T Robinson, Mr Baker and a Mr Hailes all of whom were very keen to get letters from the fanciers at home. Lieut Robinson (of fawn fame) wrote ‘weekly I scan the pages of F&F for mousey and rat notes. We in the trenches are looking forward to the days when peace will be with us. I, for one, immediately I’m free shall start again with rats’. Unfortunately I have no idea if he got back, I hope so.
Mary mentions in her notes of 27/4/17 that ‘The other day a pair of wild rats continued to get into my rattery and made a nest at the back of the cages. They kept so quiet that their presence was not discovered til they had reared a fine family and bought them up to an age when they could just feed themselves. At this stage of the proceedings I captured the whole lot of the youngsters and put them with a doe having a couple of her own. They are doing well and are as tame as any youngsters I have ever had. The odd thing is though, that one or two of them have white feet and white on the belly. Now, ye students of hereditary, where do they get that white from? The parents certainly had no connection with my rats and mine were, I believe, the first fancy rat ever seen in the district. In fact they are such a curiosity that numbers of people come to see them’. This point about white marked rats being found in wild rats always causes confusion. This is normal though. The white spotting locus h has been around for about 20,000 years, long before humans were breeding them.
On 25/1/18 MD writes that ‘Rat Resume (her column), has not often appeared of late. I have been corresponding with the editor on the matter and he complains that ratters don’t advertise much. The more advertisements the more space, is the idea. I hope that my fellow ratters will note this. Since I’ve been running a standard advert I’ve often had more applications than I could supply.’
I’ve got no other information from Mary after this. My next available letters are announcing her death. Mary died on the evening of the 26th November 1921. According to her death certificate that I have seen a copy of she died of Cancer of the Pancreas and was attended by a friend. On 9/12/21 Ralph Blake, then secretary of the NMRC wrote the following:
‘It is with unfeigned sorrow that I announce the passing of the staunch supporter of the Longtail Fancy, Miss Douglas, whose death took place at St Veep, Lostwithiel, on Nov 26th. Little did we think, when we were all so happy together at Gloucester on Nov 5th three weeks from that day she would no longer be in the flesh. The telegram conveying the sad news came as a stunning blow to me, inspite of the fact that I knew that she was ill. Ten days before her death I had a card from her saying that she was ‘utterly crocked’, to use her own words, and would be unable to undertake any club business for some time…Although she is no longer with us her name will never die. It will go down in in Fancy history as one who was a true friend and pioneer of the rat fancy. Her entries in that section will be greatly missed at shows, for she used to enter liberally, regardless of any returns in prize money. We who are left to mourn our loss should do our best to carry on the rat fancy that she loved so well… I have before me as I write. A copy of F&F of June 19th 1914 in which our dear friend wrote an article on ‘My duty to the Fancy’. The last paragraph reads thus:
‘Then there are the novices. The time must come when the old hands will pass away and I, for one, should not like to think that my hobby will suffer because I am gone. Nor would the rest of you. The novices of today are the old hands of tomorrow who will carry on the fancy when we lay it down, and who in their turn, will hand it on with its traditions to others.’
After writing this, I did wonder how people feel now. When I started in the ‘70’s no one would have argued with this but I’m not so sure now if people wouldn’t somehow think of such views as ‘quaint’. However all clubs and especially fancies, do require people in it for the long haul, or too much information gets lost and forgotten.
As expected there were a number of eulogies for Mary, not least from the editor, all expressing the hope that the rat fancy would survive. Ralph Blake reported that he had ‘sent a beautiful wreath from the club and expressed the deepest sympathy from the President, officials and members of the NRMC’.
Mary was buried in St Veep Church, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, St Veep being an obscure early Christian saint of unknown gender. Many years ago Nick Mays and his first wife Janice spent part of their honeymoon looking for Mary’s grave. Despite the help of the vicar they were unable to locate it and it appeared that the grave was unmarked. This seems strange, as Mary was from the minor aristocracy and had many nieces and nephews, although I have no idea what her relationship with her family was like. It may seem sad that someone who had worked tirelessly for many charities alongside the NMRC should have ended up this way.
However, in the end, people who lie in the ground are rarely remembered once all of the people who knew them are gone. Mary though, left a legacy greater than a tombstone in her writing and in the idea and spirit that it carried. Despite the long gap between the early and later rat fancy her name was not forgotten . The 100th Anniversary of her death is 26th Nov 2021 and I hope that what I have written has passed her memory down to a new generation of fanciers.
Would there be a rat fancy now without Mary? I don’t know, possibly, but certainly the writings of both her and her fellow rat fanciers were passed on and survive, not least in many of the standards and probably more importantly their influence on the mouse fancy which ultimately kept the idea of a rat fancy alive.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants and to write off history as irrelevant would be a mistake. The NFRS owes the early rat and mouse fancy a debt and Mary most of all. To forget her would be wrong, so on the Anniversary of her death; Thankyou Mary, we owe you one.