The Sheep Have Had The Most Fan Mail!

Polluy puller looks back at 30 years of writing for the "Friend"...

THIS year, my son Freddy will be thirty. Our birthdays are a day apart and I shared my birthday with my grandmother, Bo.

It was her ninetieth birthday in 1987 and the pair of us were desperate to get the hat trick and have my baby born on that same day.

She was also hoping I would be at the celebration tea party Mum arranged for her. I almost managed it, but Freddy arrived at teatime the following afternoon.

Bo lived to nearly ninety-one. She was the kindest, most wonderful person I have ever met and I still miss her dreadfully. I was so lucky that she lived long enough to see Freddy.

It was in 1987 that I first began submitting material to “The People’s Friend”. The first tentative stories I sent were about my owl, Sage, my kestrel, Sorrel, and my sheep, Bean, who had been bought in Perth Market for £2. She lived to the ripe old age of thirteen and was an enormous character.

Sheep have been opening doors for me ever since and as readers of these pages will know, there have been many great characters and lots of hilarious and heart-rending tales and exploits involving them.

I will be the wizened old lady with a stick that keeps a fat pet sheep in the back garden right to the end, along with a collie and a pet owl or two, of course. Sage lived till he was eighteen.