About Me

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Hi! I'm Eunice and I live in Bolton, Lancashire, with my two dogs Sophie and Sugar and an assortment of cats - well it used to be Sophie and Sugar, now it's Sophie and Poppie. I first began camping back in 1997 when my then partner took me to Anglesey for my birthday weekend. We slept in the back of the car - a hatchback - using the cushions off the settee at home as a mattress, and cooked and brewed up on a single burner camping stove. The site was good, the views were great, the weather fantastic and I was completely hooked. Following that weekend we got a two-man tent and some proper accessories and returned to Anglesey two weeks later, then over time we progressed to a three-man tent followed by an old trailer tent, then a new trailer tent, a campervan and finally a caravan. When my partner decided that the grass was greener on the other side of the street - literally - in April 2009 and I suddenly found myself alone after fifteen years, I decided there was no way I was going to give up camping and caravanning if I could cope on my own. This blog is the story of my travels, trials and tribulations since becoming a solo camper - I hope you like it

Friday June 5th 2015 - The story of brave Tyger

I woke that morning to a distinct change in the weather; the sunshine of the last couple of days had gone, to be replaced by a very grey and overcast sky. There was no point even thinking about photography on such a dull day so I spent the morning pottering about round the tent and watching a couple of quiz programmes on tv, but by lunch time I was beginning to get bored - I needed to go out, so I decided to drive into Beaumaris.

One of my quests this week was to find and photograph something which was featured in the 'How To Photograph Angelesey' book which I bought four years ago but I couldn't remember the directions to it and unfortunately I'd forgotten to bring the book from home, so a quick look at another copy in the Beaumaris shop I bought it from would give me the information I needed. By the time I got to the little town it was raining so as I didn't intend to be very long I only paid for half an hour in the car park and left the dogs in the van while I went on my mission.

I found the book easily and got the information I needed then had a look to see if there were any other books about the island which would be of interest to me - and flicking through one of them I came across the story of brave Tyger. It said that in 1819 a Liverpool-bound ketch, sailing through a thick mist, struck the rocks off the coast near Rhoscolyn and sank. Only Tyger, the captain's retriever, seemed to sense the direction of the shore and with the ship's boy clinging to his collar he swam half a mile to safety then swam back to aid the captain and the other two crewmen. Thanks to Tyger they all reached the shore, but Tyger himself was so exhausted by the ordeal that he died on the beach in his master's arms. The courageous dog was buried on the nearby clifftop and a memorial stone placed on his grave.

Of all the times I've been to Anglesey I'd never heard about Tyger before reading that, and I thought it was such a lovely, but sad, story that at the earliest opportunity I would go to Rhoscolyn and try to find that memorial stone. I'd been to Rhoscolyn a couple of times in the last five years but only to the beach and the village, so the search for Tyger's grave on the clifftop would probably give me some new scenery to photograph.

With the half hour in the car park almost up I returned to the van and drove back to the camp site; the rain had stopped and it was brightening up, and by the time I'd had a brew the sun was out so I took the dogs for a walk down to the beach and back. The rest of the afternoon and evening were spent reading, doing crosswords and watching tv, and when I went to bed that night it was with plans to visit Tyger's grave firmly in my mind.


7 comments:

  1. Wow. What a story! I hope you find that memorial stone!

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  2. I did find it, two days later, so keep reading :)

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  3. Very interesting story. Because the dog's name was Tyger, and it was in a boat with the young boy, it got me thinking of the movie The Life of Pi. There was no dog, but a tiger, which shared a lifeboat with a young man, the main character. The two finally ended up on a shore after many, many days on the ocean. Reading about Tyger got me wondering it the author of The Life of Pi may have been inspired by it.
    The View from the Top of the Ladder
    Take 25 to Hollister

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  4. I've heard about that film but never seen it; maybe I should get the dvd now you've mentioned it. I don't imagine that the author/scriptwriter has ever heard of Anglesey's Tyger - many of the locals don't even know about it - but there does seem to be a slight parallel in the stories.

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  5. Sarahsop - sorry, I deleted your comment by accident :(

    My post from Sunday June 7th will give you a rough idea of how to get to Tyger's memorial - it's a good walk but on a sunny day it's very pleasant.

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  6. I found my way here via a link on Ruth's Coastal Walk blog, which I am reading in order although a few years late.
    As a dog owner myself I found this tale especially sad. Poor brave and loyal Tyger.

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  7. Thanks for the comment Karen. You're reading Ruth's blog exactly the way I did. I was directed to it in 2016 - just after this Anglesey holiday - by another blogger and was amazed to find that Ruth had been on Anglesey at exactly the same time as me and would have actually walked right past the end of the camp site where I was staying, although of course neither of us knew about each other then.

    The story of brave Tyger was so touching and sad that I felt I just had to find his memorial stone.

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I really appreciate good comments - who doesn't? - but due to a recent tide of spam from anonymous readers all comments will now be moderated, and only those with a direct bearing on this blog will be published. I'm sure my regular blog readers/commenters will understand the need for this - and to anyone whose comment isn't published, you know why.