On my tenth birthday my Nan came in and handed me a small box. When I opened it, I had the surprise of my life. Inside where three little balls of yellow fluff. My Nan had got me three little ducks for my birthday.
I fell in love with them right away and I knew right away that they loved me too. I made them a little pen out the back garden with a small pond and I fed them everyday before I went to school.
Whenever I had the time I would take them for walks around the field at the back of our house they would form a line behind me and me and my Brother Derrick would walk them around the field
Just beyond the field was the canal and when they got older the ducks would waddle down to the canal in the mornings and waddle back home in the evenings for their tea.
They turned out to be two ducks and a drake - that's two females and a male - so I guess he turned out to be one happy drake and for the many years they were on the canal they became very well known in my part of Cwmbran in South Wales.
Eventually they stopped coming home and they stayed on the canal all the time but I always went down to see them every morning before school and give them their food. They would see me coming and waddle up toward me and I'd sit with them and have a chat. I'm sure they looked forward to it as much as I did.
Then one sunny summer morning I made my way down to the canal but for some reason there was no sign of my ducks they could not be seen anywhere. I looked all over that canal then at last I found them, hidden in an hedge. Someone had killed the three of them with an air gun and hidden their bodies in the bushes. I'm sorry to have to say I grew up on that day. The world was now a very sad place for me
by Dennis T Baker
Last Modified on: 05-12-2018