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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 2. 1966.

Thur bage

Thur bage

A Column Of Freelance Comment

An extraordinary little news item appeared on the back page of the Post last week. It was headed …

Bottle Joins Battle To Save Bagots

and stated …

Nancy, Lady Bagot of Blithefield Hall, Staffordshire, has been keeping three abandoned baby goats alive with a feeding bottle, writes a special correspondent from London.

This is understandable. Because the three little kids come from the Bagot family's famous 600-year-old goat herd, the death of which, according to legend, also means the death of the Bagots.

There used to be 100 of these black goats.

Now there are only seven left in an enclosure in front of the hall windows where she can see them.

The item was surrounded by an article on mutilation murders and one can only be puzzled by the motivation for printing this tantalising information about the fate of the Bagots. It appears that the Post has a special correspondent who spends his or her time (I suspect her somehow) assiduously recording the quirks of Britain's aristocracy.

Picture the scene in the sub-editor's room as deadline approaches. The teletype chatters, cub reporters cower and the editor bursts in: "What can we put on the back page to go with the mutilation story. Hurry men."

Sub-editor turns to sub-editor in consternation. Then:

"What about Nancy, Lady Bagot and the goats?"

"Nancy, Lady Bagot! Of course! How silly of me."

"Run Nancy, Lady Bagot!"

Certainly Blithefield Hall isn't as dear to us as the apes of Gibraltar, but even so it's comforting to hear that Nancy, Lady Bagot isn't breast-feeding her goats. Perhaps Indian Army colonels stir uncomfortably in leather armchairs all over Wellington, pour stiff whiskies and mutter, "Bagots, eh. Dashed pity," and offer silent prayers.

I want to thank the Post for the opportunity it gave us to sympathise with the Bagots of Staffordshire, and to pause and consider how unfortunate are the lives of others. I suppose it is preferable to little filler items about the gold price on the London market or those little fillers on Women's Pages: "How to stuff olives," or "thoughtful things to do with used Chianti bottles."