25. DOG ENDS

IT’S AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO GOOD

Two years ago Jackie McNabb received a desperate call from her husband. It transpired to be the last time she heard from him alive. For he was in his last moments, being savaged by the hounds as he communicated, as best as he was able, with her via his smart phone.

Jackie McNabb could have gone to pieces, like her husband literally soon did. But no, she was determined not to bleat or subscribe to the grouping of victimhood. No, she resolved to make something positive of the harrowing experience. To show a true British grit that wouldn’t engender pity but admiration in all those who would thereafter encounter her.

‘I thought back to that last call,’ Jackie explained, ‘and tried to think of how I could transform it into a force for good. I don’t know where everyone stands on the issue of manhunts. Although, obviously those being hunted don’t stand around for long, but the moment my late-husband Abe was chosen to be slain we considered it a bad thing. So how could that dreadful last phone call, hearing his pleas and screams be used as a force for change?’

Then this resourceful young woman thought outside the box, probably at the same moment her deceased spouse was being gathered and put in one. His cries for help, she concluded, were reminiscent of numbers.

‘Hell, even… ahhh f*****g knee,’ Became 11 and 33. While the coup des gras in the final moments as the hounds bit deep into his neck as he lay prone on the cold tarmac in a Doncaster car park, ‘Ahhh them sick o’s … ahh, hurting plenty.’ Became And 10, 6, oh and 13, 20.

Jackie used the numbers on that week’s national lottery. And sure enough they won her £12 Million.

‘It was like an omen, like Abe’s death had to mean something. So, I determined to use the proceeds for good. My Abe was totally unprepared to become the prey of the elite and be hunted to his death. Schools prepare kids for the adult world of work, leisure pursuits and relationships. But there was a distinct lack of educational establishments committed to preparing working class kids to be hunted as adults.’

Thus, the Abe McNabb Academy of the Chased opened its doors for the first time in Rotherham this week. With a full intake of 850 pupils, consisting mainly of the erstwhile students of the former South Yorkshire School of Technology. Little, apart from the signage, has changed in the buildings except in the grounds beyond the Academy gates there is now a statue of Abe McNabb which converts into a fountain when water is added, the H2O exiting from the many bite holes punctuating it. A striking reminder to pupils and parents of where their aspirations should lie. Although some who have heard that their sons and daughters have been collecting water from bite marks near the statue’s genitals have espoused the belief that they are just taking the piss.

‘The overwhelming majority of those selected for prey in the manhunts derive from working-class areas such as this,’ remarked the Academy of the Chased Principal Audrey Gui-Dellow. ‘It’s just as well they embrace that fact and we provide the environment that makes such a prospect less daunting. Abe McNabb would be proud.’

The National Curriculum is followed for the most part in the school but there are significant deviations.

‘In History,’ Mrs Gui-Dellow explained, ‘we no longer focus on how many wives Henry the Eighth had but on how many hunting hounds a future King William the Fifth is likely to have at his disposal. In Geography the capital of Outer Mongolia is no longer of relevance, but the capital of all the landed gentry in the UK and what percentage of it they put towards their hunts is.’