Mexborough and Swinton Times, May 31, 1929

Death of Tom and Jack’s Accident

Tom, the little white pony which for years has trotted about with his mistresses’ milk float in the Wombwell Main district, has passed away this week. To grown ups the loss may not be obvious but the children will notice it. In. the death of Tom they have lost a good friend, one who would always appreciate a kindly word and prick up his ‘ears approvingly when he heard the rustle of paper. Tom has earned his corn if anybody has, for not once since he first learned to pull a cart has he had a day out of harness. A knowing animal he was too, his knowledge of the geography of the district being almost uncanny. He knew the ins and outs of the Council housing scheme better than any human being, and would walk from one street end to another in anticipation of his mistresses’ footsteps, with a preciseness and solemnity that suggested he had scaled off the whole scheme with a tape measure.

Did he show any disdain for these modern new fangled garden thoroughfares? Not a hit of it. It all came in the day’s work to Tom, but he had sufficient horse sense to know that the downhill slopes of life are best. Did you ever see Tom cutting across Hough Lane from King’s Road into the Summer Lane section? Not in a thousand years would he have been trapped. To watch him one would think he looked both ways before scampering across, but if he didn’t he certainly used to listen. He had the wisdom of the ancient and no amount of urging and driving would have got Tom mixed up in a broadside with a motor vehicle. But poor old Tom has gone to rest and there will never be another Tom quite like him.

Speaking about about Tom, it should be added that he had a friend. A gentleman of colour he is and Jack by name. Jack also possesses the knack of wheedling his way into human society and again, like Tom, he has a sweet tooth. This got him into trouble recently. It happened that in his peregrinations over Tom’s ground, Jack had found a particular friend, a friend who used not only to stroke him affectionately on the nose but would pamper him to the extent of slipping into his mouth a choice chunk of cake. Jack came to regard this as his rights and would even follow his friend into the house. He would have taken the cart in too if space and his master had permitted.

One day, alas, Jack’s friend fell sick and when Jack found that neither his friend nor the cake were forthcoming he was bewildered and decided to make an investigation for himself.  Pushing his head through the window he received  a nasty cut for his pains as it were. So now the children know why Jack carries a scar on his head as he goes about the streets of Wombwell.