Benjamin Myers pays tribute to Cliff — the ultimate writer’s dog.
Photo by Kevin McGonnell
Barack Obama had recently become US president, Hilary Mantel just published Wolf Hall and Wild Beasts’ newly released Two Dancers was on repeat play when we drove through a suitably wild night to a farmhouse just outside of Haworth, West Yorkshire to meet a beast of our own.
It was the autumn of 2009 and only couple of months earlier, while the valley was still choked with nettles and the heady scent of invasive balsam, Adelle and I had moved back to our native North after fifteen years in London. Our new home was a small rented cottage built in 1641, a squat dwelling whose old stone walls were a foot thick and whose water came from a spring supply up the hill, when one day I saw a notice pinned to wall of our local MOT garage advertising for a fresh litter of Patterdale terriers. Days later and here we were arriving to pick up the sole male from a pen of chaotic puppies. Actually, he picked us by casually separating himself from the chaotic melee of his scratching, barking sisters to calmly sit by our side, as if he been patiently awaiting us all along.
This being deepest, Brontë country we called this small, dark charismatic stranger Heathcliff – Cliff for short – and drove him home over the dark moor that led from one valley to the next.
Photo by Adelle Stripe, 2009
And so began endless adventures of explorations, epic walks, scrambles, games, holidays. Up mountains, through bogs and across moors, Cliff was by my side for almost every day that followed. And just like that I was “a dog person”.
There are far too many shared tales to recount here – some near-tragic, even more comical and a few that are utterly absurd. The list of diabolical things he found and put in his mouth is an article in itself (a soiled nappy frozen stiff; the decomposing head of a cat; a used condom in Skipton Market car park, to name but three). But as we trained Cliff to slot into our lives as writers it soon became apparent that he was changing us too. Now I was living a little more feral, seeing things from a ground-level perspective and just generally revelling in the freedom of endless roaming, exploration and fairly frequent acts of wanton trespassing. Food, sleep, shelter fresh air and a little love – these are all things a dog needs, and I was beginning to suspect they were enough for humans too.
It took a few months to lose my ‘city head’ and integrate into life on the edge of small, steep-sided small valley, and this was entirely down to Cliff. Soon people were stopping me in the street, as this small, scrappy ball of mischief became well known in the area. Others called out from across the road as we passed by – “Hi Cliff!”, as if he had been out leading a secret life that we were not privy too. Don’t talk to strangers? That’s all I did, every day. I had to – Cliff just wanted to meet everyone who crossed his path. I had no say in the matter. My guard quickly dropped and life became full of a new array of fellow dog-owning associates, from all ages, backgrounds and walks of life. Along the way I learned the history of our new home area and quite a lot about the people who lived there, for dogs are the key to unlock conversations. They break the ice. They pull us out of ourselves and keep our egos in check.
Cliff’s personality seemed formed from day one – he was stubborn, mischievous, sociable, energised and often ridiculous. For every mile I walked, scrambled or stumbled he must have done three. He seemed adept at fitting in anywhere, at various points resembling bat, badger and bear cub. When sopping wet he resembled Gnasher, which suited me fine as I was always drawn to the mischief-making Dennis The Menace as a kid.
And in time he shaped my career too. Out of our explorations came ideas and stories. Years trudging the Calder Valley uplands inspired me to write my novel The Gallows Pole – Cliff led me to every location in that book which, in turn, led to working with Shane Meadows on the TV adaptation. A shack by the sea in which the three of us could fit for several hideaway holidays led to me writing a novel, The Offing, set in that very place. All the scenes in it were found by Cliff. The book became a bestseller internationally and is being filmed next year. He would have made an excellent location scout.
I wrote the non-fiction book Under the Rock too, in which Cliff featured and soon enough he was being approached by more readers who recognised him from it. He probably should have had his own agent at this point. Then when Cuddy was published in 2023 I dedicated it to “Cliff – my canine co-pilot” because I consider his input into my writing career as vital as any humans’. He shaped it, steered it, made it happen. He willed me on and made me a different person too, a better person, someone who was open to allcomers, just as Cliff was. He once spent a day walking with presenter Julia Bradbury for a TV show and was in close proximity when I was a guest on Countryfile.
There were illnesses, injuries, disappearances and many mini dramas – on more than one occasion I’ve had to take on bigger, more vicious dogs who decided to attack Cliff, and fireworks were never less than traumatic – for him and us. A sensory overload that made the whites of his eyes turn red. But he always recovered to prevail once more, right up until the end, here and now, 15 years later.
Cliff is the ultimate writer’s dog, though I have often wondered if perhaps I am, in fact, merely the dog’s writer. After all, with charm and charisma, he ended up ruling our lives. And we were happy to let him. As he aged he embraced his quiet time; like a writer he needed space and silence and for the last three years followed the sun around our new house, spending long hours on a chair next to mine as I typed several million words.
Photo by Adelle Stripe, 2024
And now as I clatter the keyboard again, Cliff is curled up in his bed by the radiator, his belly full of the finest ribeye steak that money can buy. He can barely walk now; his balance has gone, and he has to be carried into the garden for his ablutions. I keep telling myself that Cliff has had so much fun his body just can’t take it anymore. His sight and hearing have suffered too, and Adelle and I have spent the last week camped out in the living room with him, rising to reassure him when he wakes at 4am, confused and lost in his own home, lost in his head.
Yet his appetite remains voracious as does his need for close contact. I make sure to remember the beautiful pink marbling of his mouth, his tendency to smile at people he recognises, the smell of him. I repeatedly think of a line by Christopher Isherwood in his novel A Single Man, in which the protagonist, mourning the loss of his partner and their dogs, remembers his hounds’ ears smelling like ‘hot buttered toast’. It’s true. They do.
Today as I type there is another US election — and the dreaded Bonfire night, when the sky is split with light and noise, and the valley echoes to thundercracks. But Cliff won’t be around to experience either.
The vet is coming round for one final visit this afternoon. Then that will be it. It’s almost fifteen years to the day since we found Cliff and he found us, in a farmhouse kitchen in Haworth. We have come a full circle, and I am a changed person because of him.
I do what I always do in these situations, the only thing I can do: I light some candles, give him a cuddle and thank him for everything he has given to me, to us, to others.
Then I write about it.
It will take me a full month before I can even bring myself to read these words back.
Heathcliff ‘Cliff’ Stripe
10/09/09 – 05/11/24.