Joyce Stranger
Freelance Writer specialising in Dog Subjects
Member of the United Kingdom Registry of Canine Behaviourists
Member of the Institute of Journalists & Society of Authors
About Joyce Stranger
Regrettably, after a short illness, Joyce Stranger passed away on the 20th December 2007.
Joyce Stranger was President of People and Dogs Society and also of Canine Concern England.
"I grew up in an area that was borderline between town and country, where animals of all kinds were far more prevalent than they are today. There were foxes, hares, rabbits, stoats, weasels and so many birds that it was impossible to sleep through the dawn chorus.
We spent holidays and weekends in the remotest areas of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland where I watched wild life; foxes, hares, rabbits, deer, seals, ospreys, amongst others. I have always been fascinated by the human/animal bond. I also wanted to write and tried many times without success. Until an article on animals did succeed in 1949 and I decided to devote myself to that, as there was less competition. Gradually, without realising it, I wrote more and more about animals, as those got published and more general articles came back.
I knew from my own observations that many authors did not know enough about animals to write about them, as they got facts wrong. Often dogs and ponies in children's books are given the oddest motivations, the reasons for their actions being nothing like those quoted. The authors were not writing about a field in which they lived, but one they had read about.
I spent all my spare time with farmers, and horse and dog breeders. My first book The Running Foxes had been published by then and was an outstanding success both here and in the USA where I went on a very exhausting month long publicity tour. The book was based on the place where we spent a holiday, where there was a flourishing foot hunt, which we followed in the car, able to watch the whole field from above as we were in the Lake District.
The Breed of Giants followed, based on the Lymm Shires, in Cheshire. Jim Gould, who bred them, gave me his cuttings book to examine, and everything that happened in that book happened over the years to his horses. I met them; wonderful black animals, that had triumphed over and over again in the shows.
By now I realised that I was writing about a way of life that was dying; and hoped that my books might be a small history of the men and women who worked so hard with so little financial reward, all over Britain. People who did not have the luxury of nine to five lives. Animals need them seven days a week, and often in the night as well.
There was another influence on the types of books I wrote. Our family home was totally destroyed by a land mine in 1942. There was very little left; a few books, a picture of my mother, and that was all. No memories of childhood. No place to go back to. Our roots had gone. So, many of my stories are concerned with those who have had to make new beginnings, and have triumphed over disaster. The farm lost to a motorway. (Never Count Apples). The man blinded in an accident. (A Walk in the Dark which appeared as a Reader's Digest condensed book). The young woman who was widowed due to a car accident. (Perilous Journey).
My latest book, not yet published, is about a farmer's wife whose husband disappears when he is delivering aid to a country like Bosnia and his lorry is hi-jacked. Just after she has been told he is missing, with no news at all of him, she discovers she is pregnant, and has to run the farm by herself.
The theme of them all has probably come from my father... so what, we're alive. It's the future that matters. We can't change the past.
In my own life, since my own family left home and married, my dogs have often helped me through traumas; the death of my parents; my husband's two strokes... the dogs were there to distract, needing care and attention, offering consolation in their own way, providing stability and affection. The animals in my books have always an important function, often changing the way in which people live.
As did my own dog, Chita, who provided material for five books (Three's A Pack, Two for Joy, A Dog in a Million, Dog Days, Double or Quit). She completely changed my direction, as she was so wild, being what one of my own clients described as "a headache on four legs." I had to learn to change her, and in doing so changed myself. She ended up as the 1000th PAT dog (Pets as Therapy) and came to schools, bookshows, and the hospital until a stroke ended that part of her life, as she could not stay still for long afterwards, though she lived another two years.
As a result of all the knowledge I gained through her I ended up as a canine behaviour counsellor, helping other people with dogs of all kinds. I also have a class for pet owners, and teach them advanced work with their dogs.
Through Chita, and the dogs that preceded her, I found myself with an alternative occupation that has been very good for me, getting me out of doors, away from my word processor. There is so much more to learn about each new dog that comes to me, revealing his or her character, and inspiring yet more stories.
Animals have always been part of my life, now more than ever before, and they add a dimension of their own that is impossible to explain to those who have nothing to do with them."
©Copyright 2007 Joyce Stranger
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