Page 74 - Eclipse - Autumn/Winter 2023

IN MEMORIAM

‘diggers for victory’ are getting down to He grows nearly every kind of
it again with a will. I saw some of them vegetable, from potatoes - of which
at it this weekend. One of the keenest in he had a bumper crop - to celery and,
THOMAS FRANCIS Norwich and one of the most successful as I could see for myself, he doesn’t
TUNNEY (1946) in his efforts during the past year, I waste an inch of land.”
should say, is Tom Tunney, a 17-year-old
By Peter Tunney schoolboy. I stopped to have a chat with Tom struggled with the qualifications to
him as he hoed between a couple of get into veterinary school but eventually
A family man who lived to work promising-looking rows of spring onions gained his Matric and followed his father
and brother into the profession entering
Tom was a proud Irishman although he on his ten-rod allotment. the Royal Veterinary College which was
lived all his life in England. His father, He took the land over, he told me, a evacuated during the war to Sonning and
Thomas Francis ‘Senior’, was from month or two before war broke out. Streatley in Berkshire.
Westport and trained as a vet in Dublin It had been allowed to get a little out
where, through a fellow veterinary student, of hand by then, but he soon had it in Qualifying in 1946, he became an
Josie Ryan, he met Tom’s mother, Jane, good shape, and it was not long before assistant to Titch Margarson, a two man
who was Josie’s cousin, uniting two it was producing crops as good as any predominantly farm practice, in Stroud,
families who subsequently went on to of his neighbours. Gloucestershire, for which he always
produce a number of vets down the held fond memories. Indeed, we still have
generations in both England and Ireland. This year he has done so well that access to those memories through cine
not only has he been able to keep his films as Tom was a keen photographer.
After graduation, Tom’s parents moved own family provided with vegetables
to England and eventually settled in and eggs but he has had a surplus to In April 1949 Tom ‘put his plate up’,
Norwich where Tom was born. He had an sell to his neighbours. in opposition to the then only other
older brother, Peter, six years his senior. practice in Peterborough, at 89 Park
The result has been that so far this Road. It was his brother, Peter, who
Tom started school at the Notre Dame year, what with the vegetables and suggested that there might be an
Convent in Norwich and then moved on eggs he has been able to sell, as well opening and it was intended that Peter
to the Norwich School for Boys. He did as a few rabbits now and then, he has would eventually join him. However, it
not excel particularly at sports, preferring made a clear profit of about £10. was around this time that Peter died
to attend to an allotment provided by a suddenly in his early 30s, which was
forward-thinking school! The hens, he told me, cost about 1s a always a great sadness to Tom.
week to keep – he feeds them chiefly
An extract from the Eastern Evening News on household scraps and gets from a He would wait a week or more for the
confirms this passion and indeed is a score to 30 eggs a week. The rabbits first client to appear on his doorstep.
great insight to the Tom everyone knew: live off green stuff from the allotment In those early days, when advertising
“Schoolboy Gardener” With the second – old cabbage leaves and other was strictly prohibited by the Royal
winter of the war well underway, the vegetable waste. College, keen to get his name around
the local farm clientele he attended the
Peterborough Agricultural Show and
asked his landlady, who answered the
phone for the practice, to periodically
contact the show office asking them
to put out a message on the tannoy
system requesting that veterinary
surgeon Mr Tunney urgently attend a
visit outside the showground!
It was also around this time that Vet 89
car registration was issued in Rotherham
which Tom managed to obtain. The
Royal College, however, deemed it as
advertising and he had to give it to his
father to do the promotion for him!

In January 1951, the opposition
decided to sell their practice and Tom
bought his remaining goodwill. The
Tom and Jim Pengelly in the surgery at 89 Park Road practice developed and expanded into

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