HISTORY

A DOG NAMED SERGEANT

By Barbara Elsmore

There are many varied requests for help received at the Somerset & Dorset Family History Centre but one of the more unusual concerned a medallion with the name of a dog ‘Sergeant’ followed by his owner’s name and address - Symes, Graythwaite, Highmore Road, Sherborne. On the reverse was the motto ‘I help my pals’ - The Tailwaggers Club. The medallion was found amongst the belongings of a member of the Symes family but by now mystery surrounded both the identity of the owner and of their dog named Sergeant.

The medals are dug up regularly by metal detectorists in fields up and down the country. The Tailwaggers Club was founded in 1928 and more than 200,000 dogs were enrolled enabling £20,000 to be donated to help the work of the Royal Veterinary College. On enrolment, the medallion, together with a certificate, was issued to each dog. The medallion would be attached to the collar and was an excellent form of identification. By 1930, the Tailwaggers Club was able to offer financial support to the newly-formed Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Finding out who might have owned Sergeant and lived in Highmore Road proved problematical. Highmore Road is on the northern edge of Sherborne, right next to open countryside. It is a road mainly of bungalows but none of them still bear the name ‘Graythwaite’. All local enquiries drew a blank until an old directory of Yeovil and the surrounding area, dated 1938, came to light and there was ‘Miss Winifred Symes, Highmore Road’. Margaret Winifred, known as Freda, was the youngest daughter of Constance and Frederick Symes. Freda was born in 1884 at Nether Cerne, a tiny dot on the map deep in the Dorset countryside, where her father was a farmer. He died when Freda was 12 and her mother took her four daughters to live in Ealing in Middlesex, a complete contrast to rural Nether Cerne. Freda began nursing at Frimley Cottage Hospital in Surrey and went on to train at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford becoming a state registered nurse in 1921. It seemed likely that perhaps she might have taken up a nursing post at Sherborne’s Yeatman Hospital. By searching through old newspaper reports, it came to light that she did nurse in Sherborne, though not at the Yeatman, as supposed, but served the town for seventeen years as a health visitor. She began in 1921 and on her retirement in 1938 she was presented with an ‘up-to-date suitcase and hatbox in recognition of all the good work she had done for the children and babies of Sherborne’. However, with the outbreak of war she went back into nursing for a further nine years, as a tuberculosis health visitor for New Holland in Lincolnshire. By studying old family photographs belonging to the Symes family, it appears that West Highland terriers were a favourite breed within the family - so was Sergeant a ‘Westie’? It does seem most likely.

Nature

From time to time we like to share some special moments in nature happening around us and we couldn’t resist this beautiful photograph of the Silver-washed Fritillary photographed at Alners Gorse, Haselbury Bryan, Dorset. Photographer Colin Lawrence took this striking image of the male and the very rare female aberration which is called Valesina!

The Silver-washed Fritillary butterfly is our largest fritillary and gets its name from the beautiful streaks of silver found on the underside of the wings. The bright orange male is quite distinctive as it flies powerfully along woodland rides, pausing only briefly to feed or investigate anything with an orange hue that could be a potential mate.

The rare female variant Valesina is a spectacular form that occurs in a small percentage of females, where the orange-brown colouring is replaced with a deep olive-green. The legendary lepidopterist, Frederick William Frohawk, was so taken with this form, that he named his only daughter after it.