Donkey business:      Albert Lamb (step-father) writes (Feb 2008): Anna has had one goal in mind for months now, almost since she moved in with us last summer, getting a couple of donkeys to live in our orchards and eat the grass. (donkeys need company or they get distressed and bray.) Someone leaning over the hedge while she was clearing land for her potential donkeys had an idea. Why not let our donkeys carry things up to all the people on Rack Hill, where it is too steep for cars? There are still all the old donkey tracks up there just waiting for a donkey or two. Donkeys used to carry bread and wood and groceries. Why not do it again? > > Anna figured that putting a sign-up sheet in the Post Office, for people interested in helping, might help her to get a small grant from the Parish Council. Thirty people wrote comments, on her adorable clip board sign, about the different ways that they could personally use a donkey, carrying things and pulling a plow and rides for kids. One mother even mentioned that her kids needed a
donkey to learn about "Animal Husbandry." Then Anna went to the Stroud News and Journal to see if they would write a story about her quest for a donkey. > > The small page-three article came out yesterday and since then the phone just won't stop ringing. Yesterday afternoon Anna did a radio interview up on Rack Hill for Radio Gloucester. Then last night she was on The World Today on the BBC World Service. This morning she did the UK's most prestigious radio program, the Today Show and tonight she was on TV, on the BBC Six O'clock News. Five or six other outlets have had interviews or will have them tomorrow. The story is even on the Guardian website. > > The Daily Mail have offered to buy us a donkey, but they can't get it here in time for Saturday's paper so they wanted Anna to find a different donkey locally, one that she can pose with, and then their donkey will come later. Then this afternoon (not being able to wait) they sent a crew up Rack Hill with a donkey, brought here in a horsebox (complete with panniers), for a photo shoot. > > Later this afternoon ITV News called and they also want to buy Anna a donkey, as long as the Daily Mail don't get to do it as well. They both want exclusive donkeys. ITV
	seems to be making the better offer so it all could happen soon. They are coming tomorrow lunchtime with two donkeys, to film them walking up and down the Rack Hill paths. > > Right this minute, ten to eight at night, Anna is down at the Post Office talking to Chalford people about it, including a local PR man who is advising them all about how to handle the media. A donkey sanctuary today offered to sell us two donkeys, one of them just a teenager, for a cut rate price. They just want their name mentioned in any future media. And an old lady from somewhere called to offer to just buy us a donkey outright, for nothing. > > Popsy saw Anna on the evening news and said she looked great and did the whole thing with charm and style. And the radio interview that she gave yesterday was also really very well done. She's filled pages of her address book with media names and numbers. > > So, if you ask me, this silly story has all the elements that could make it run for days. > > And then suddenly we'll all wake up and Popsy and I will be left holding the donkeys. At that point animal husbandry will be the least of our problems. > > But in the meantime it all seems a lovely, harmless, and very British, bit of fun.