The One, The ONLY......Mr Edward Brown (and The Story of The Rabbit)

I was short of blog ideas today when my memory was jogged by the local news at 6pm. It was a cutesy story about a mummy kangaroo at a safari park which died but staff had discovered a little joey still alive in her pouch, managed to rescue it and were now busy hand rearing the little critter.
Animal stories are always winners for reporters, particularly if they are happy ones. To that end, I always used to keep a supply of contacts who worked at animal hospitals, safari parks, rescue centres and the like. Because of my forethought, I got a call one day from a ranger at a country park. "We've got a little fox which has befriended a baby rabbit," he said. Ideal, I thought. That will make a nice, sugary, colour picture on an otherwise slow news day.
This is where I have to introduce you to the most fantastic photographer I have ever worked with. I say "fantastic" even though I am sure he was not the most skilled or the most diligent or the most nationally-acclaimed - but he was, to my mind, fantastic!
I shall call him Ted (although his real name is Eddie Brown). Anyway, having checked in with my news desk, I called over to Ted in the office to tell him about the photo and said that the news desk wanted it as a front page, colour picture for that day. Now, this was in the days when colour in newspapers was in its infancy and so if a picture was to go colour in the paper the production guys had to be warned hours in advance so that a space could be left for it.
Off Ted trotted and I got on with other work. Deadline approached and I had still not heard from Ted. I began to panic. "What if something has gone wrong?" I thought. "If there is no photo there will be a blank space in the paper and I will be signing on tomorrow." My then chief reporter told me "Fuck Ted! It's his problem. If he can't be arsed to phone in that's his problem." Just then the phone rang. It was Ted. "He's dead," he said. "Who's dead," I asked. "The rabbit, it's dead!" "No it isn't Ted," I countered, "I only spoke to the country park an hour ago and all was fine." "Well, it's fucking dead now. Don't panic.......I'll improvise." I shouted at Ted not to ring off but it was too late - he had gone (these were the days before mobile phones, you see).
Anyway, the paper came out at 1.30pm and there, on the front page, in colour, was a beautiful, cutesy photo of a fox craning its head down to sniff a little bunny which was standing on its hind legs to greet the kiss. An hour later Ted wandered back into the office. "What the fuck do you mean telling me the fucking rabbit was dead, Ted? You almost gave me a heart attack," I bellowed. "Funny you should mention heart attack," he said. "It WAS dead. It apparently keeled over with a heart attack just as I arrived. Still, I sorted it." "What the fuck do you mean, Ted? How did you sort it?" Yes, the fantastic Ted had indeed improvised. He found a garden cane at the park, screwed it as hard as he could right up the dead rabbit's backside until it penetrated its head, stuck the other end of the cane in the ground and, not unsurprisingly, the fox came over to investigate the poleaxed rabbit - Snap! Photo taken! Job done. Hurrah! If the public only knew.
There is so much more to tell about Ted but I shall save it for other occasions. In the meantime, Grantham can have the paparazzi, we shall have Ted.