Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer, Moo

From Captain and Sergeant to Bluebell and Buttercup, iPad and Snapchat, the names given to animals are a sign of our times.

- Jeremy Hobson

WHEN heavy horses were the tractors of the day, their names were an indication of the times in which they lived. Captain and Sergeant would pull together when the British Empire was at war—their difference in rank notwithstanding—but, in periods of peace, farm ploughs were pulled and brewery drays drawn by Bonnie or Diamond.

Long-time fans of The Archers might recall that Dan Archer’s last pair of working horses were called Blossom and Boxer and devotees of BBC sitcom Steptoe and Son will no doubt remember that the horse pulling the rag-and-bone cart went by the name of Hercules—a nod towards Classical mythology.

In the farmyard, long before cattle were required by government legislation to wear ID numbers—and thereby become known only by their number to those in the dairy— they had far more charming names, often connected with the flora of the meadows in which they grazed. Thus it was that the ubiquitous Daisy would respond happily to her name when it came to milking time, along with Buttercup, Bluebell, Eglantine (an old French name for sweet briar) and Jasmine.