Home And Away: 'You don't have to be barking to be British – but it helps if your pet is'

We run two holiday cottages out here in Herefordshire, which offers a marvellous insight into the psyche of the Great British Public, not least as it concerns pets. We decided from day one that we would accept dogs, which was an unwittingly shrewd commercial move; we'd lose about 40 per cent of our business if we didn't.

We would also lose 40 per cent of our laughs. I have fond memories of a charming couple, the Claytons, who arrived with their West Highland terriers, Crawford and Finlay, and were thrilled to find that their stay coincided with the village fete, held these past three years in our garden. Not only that, but there was a "waggiest tail" competition at the fete that year, and Mrs Clayton felt sure Crawford and Finlay would be prize contenders, so in her enthusiasm she arrived half an hour before the fete began and waited patiently on the drive for the ticket office, a small, mock-Tudor structure, to open.

Eventually she pushed open the door half-expecting to find a stout village elder wedged behind a trestle table, only to be greeted by a faint whiff of urine and the realisation that the ticket office was a portable lavatory. Still, the afternoon ended happily. Crawford and Finlay won second prize jointly and Mrs Clayton said it was the proudest day of her life.

The British love affair with dogs never fails to delight me. Last week, we had a middle-aged female guest staying without any human company but with two immaculately groomed dachshunds, and a few days ago my wife, Jane, took a phone call from a man calling on her behalf.

"You had a lady in your cottage last week with two dachshunds," he said.

"Yes, we did," Jane said.

"She left behind two furry lobsters when she checked out."

Jane, who was trying to keep half an ear on The Archers, misheard him.

"I'm sorry, she left behind two prairie oysters?"

"No, two furry lobsters. They're the dogs' favourite toys. They're probably still in the cupboard under the stairs."

"Oh dear, are the dogs bereft?" asked Jane, trying to stay respectful, while suppressing a rising tide of hysteria. After all, it's not every day that one has a conversation about furry lobsters, or confuses them with prairie oysters.

"One's OK, but the other one is missing his terribly," he said. "I'll drive up to get them if you like."

"Oh no, I'll just put them in the post," Jane said. It transpired that he lived miles away, in Dorset, yet was perfectly willing to make a six-hour round trip to retrieve his friend's dogs' furry lobsters. Some might think that slightly mad. I think it's the spirit that put the Great in Great Britain.

Our daughter Eleanor is 15 and often brings friends home, but until last week they have been exclusively female. Last week, however, she asked whether she could have a Saturday-night gathering for a group of mates from school, three of them... boys! And not boys from her year – which in my sepia-tinted day would have been called the Upper Fifth – but from the Lower Sixth!

This begged all sorts of questions, not least of which concerned alcohol provision. I try not to be too fuddy-duddy as a parent, but on the other hand I remember all too clearly what I was like as a 16-year-old boy, wandering around in a cloud of testosterone. Therefore, I felt a short fuddy-duddy lecture was in order. We would put a limited number of beers in the fridge, which they were welcome to drink, but on no account was anyone to raid the antique Chinese cabinet (made about 10 years ago in Worcester), wherein lie my spirits.

Eleanor looked at me as if I were mad. Even Jane scoffed at the notion, so I decided that pencil marks on the Glenfiddich might be a little excessive, and sure enough, alcohol consumption seems to have been limited to a couple of beers. Still, I maintain that I was right to worry, especially after Jane raised the topic with our friend Kim in north London, who reported that after her daughter's 15th-birthday party a few years back, they found enough empty bottles in the sitting room to build a partition wall. Maybe teenagers grow up more quickly in London. Or maybe we just haven't found the empties yet.

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