Scruffy - Softcover

Scruffy Edition: Reprint

4.19

286 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671410962 ISBN 13: 9780671410964

Publisher: Pocket Books, 1981

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The system was simple. Any stray dog found on a Tuesday was put into the Tuesday cell of the dog pound. If nobody had bailed it out a week later it took its last lonely walk to the execution chamber at the end of the yard. No wonder the local name for the pound was ‘Heartbreak House’.

Scruffy, a stray mongrel found wandering the streets, went into the cell on Tuesday, September 18, 1956. She was a hound nobody wanted until national newspaper reporter Jack Stoneley turned up and was struck by the loveable stray sitting forlornly in a cold cage. Jack’s story appeared on the front page of the Daily Mirror on the day Scruffy was due for execution – and the paper’s millions of readers refused to let the little dog die.

From being the pooch without a pal she became the most sought-after animal in Britain. Phone lines were jammed as 10,000 people called the newspaper to Save Scruffy. The Royal Air Force wanted her as a mascot and people travelled miles to queue outside her cell. When it was all over, Manchester miner’s son Derrick Davies, just 4 years of age, threw his arms around the abandoned mongrel’s neck and said, ‘Daddy - he’s really mine!’

Jack was so moved he wrote Scruffy: the Tuesday Dog based on her early life. It tells how an orphaned pup, struggling to survive in the city, is forced to run with a pack of strays – Solo, Hamlet, Sam, Collie and Butch – who know better than to trust the likes of men. Sure enough, their desperate adventures land them in the Tuesday cage of Death Row in the dog pound with only a week to live . . .

Dubbed a classic for catching a dog’s-eye view of the world, it was a bestseller in the UK and in America. Warner Brothers even made a film of it for TV, which can be seen today in 6 parts on YouTube.

Jack’s tale so bewitched children that its original readers – now of pensionable age – blog on the Internet about what an emotional effect it had on them all those years ago.

Inevitably the call went out to find out what happened to Scruffy and bring closure to a story which has touched so many lives. Editor Piers Dudgeon began the search for Derrick Davies, the miner’s son who got Scruffy all those years ago. And with the help of two newspapers, found him!

Now 61 years of age, living in Wythenshawe, up the road from where he was brought up as a kid. He was happy to tell how Scruffy had marked his life forever, and you can read his story too at the end of Jack’s book.

Perhaps the most moving part of Scruffy: the Tuesday Dog is when Scruffy and the other strays are awaiting their fate and one by one they are given their last meal. By then we have got to know them as well as any human.

Jack Stoneley’s daughter, Jane, remembers how close to her father’s heart Scruffy’s story was. ‘My father was not a business person, he was a very emotional person who loved animals as much if not more than he loved people. Making money wasn’t what his life was about. But Scruffy kept him going. Whenever things got tough a royalty cheque would appear like magic, almost like it was payback time.’

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About the Author:

Jack Stoneley was a dogged reporter and later national newspaper editor who loved animals as much (and sometimes more) than he loved humans. Scruffy, which is the basis of a cartoon film made by Warner Brothers for TV, and can be seen on http://tinyurl.com/kcmfdyh, was inspired by the real story of a dog Jack discovered in the Tuesday cage of a dog's home, as readers will discover at the end of this long-awaited new edition of the classic story.

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