Open Writing

Recently I was asked, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” According to Google, “Eggsperts agree that the egg came first.” My answer was another question. “Did you ever see an egg with a stupid look on its face?”

Why am I rabbiting on like Victor Meldrew? Well it so happens that this tale is about rabbits. Breeding rabbits.

It appears that rabbits first appeared on the Isle of Wight round about the same time that William came over from Normandy. 1066 and all that. In those days the rabbit was the young of the coney. How the coney arrived we can only speculate. Most of the island's manor houses then had walled coney enclosures. Presumably the lords of the manor imported the creatures from the mainland, or directly from France. Some of them escaped into the wild where they bred like...well, like rabbits. You would think that the appropriate collective noun for rabbits would be a burrowfull, but it is in fact a nest according to some, and I others call a collection of rabbits a herd.

Coneys, or rabbits if you prefer, soon became so plentiful on the island that we started exporting them to England. The London gentry sent a man down at regular intervals to buy rabbit meat. He became known as the Coneyman. In addition to the rabbits, he also took letters from the Isle of Wight up to London.

All this changed when half way through the nineteenth century, the fox arrived on Wight. Myxomatosis, a severe viral disease, took over where the fox left off and almost annihilated the population of wild rabbits on the island in the mid-1950s.

Now this story happens to be about a rabbit family called Foot. The Foots realised that urgent steps needed to be taken if they were not to become extinct. A plan was devised. A team of family members would be sent to England, there to establish a breeding programme. Grandfather Foot had an old map of the warren passed down to him by an old coney. It showed that the warren went north, under the Solent. He gave this map to one of the younger Foots. “You’re a lucky rabbit Foot,'' he said. "Take two bucks and come back with some doe.”

In case you get confused as this story progresses I will name the three rabbits concerned as Foot, Foot Foot, and Foot Foot Foot.

So the members of the expedition to the mainland hopped down their burrow, making their way through the warren dug by coneys in Norman times. They encountered a crab with a candle on its back. Foot followed the crab. Foot Foot followed Foot. And Foot Foot Foot brought up the rear. They travelled all the way under the Solent. It was very damp in that long tunnel. Imagine their joy when they emerged into bright sunshine. Foot, Foot Foot and Foot Foot Foot dried their coats. Then, having found some food and feeling refreshed, they set out for Watership Down.

When they reached the brow of the first hill they halted in their tracks. Ahead was a busy motorway with six lanes of traffic. The rabbits had never encountered anything like that before. The roads on the island were no wider than the motorway's central reservation, but they had more grass on them than the reservation.

Foot could see a field beyond the motorway. A field in which there was sure to be cottontail rabbits. The motorway would have to be crossed if they were to get does to take back to the island.

Foot was the leader of the expedition. He was the one who had to make the decision. So off he went, hopping across the motorway.

There was no honking of horns. No screeching of brakes. But it was obvious what had happened. Foot did not emerge on the other side of the motorway.

Sadly Foot Foot Foot asked Foot Foot if they should go over and retrieve Foot’s body.

“No point,” said Foot Foot. "Let's go back home. We already have one Foot in the grave.''