April 18th Monday. Very thundery, with rain this evening tho’ no actual thunder so far. Ray took Barny down to the vet, who said he is a splendid old chap for his age, but has a slight temperature. So has given him a shot of antibiotics. Diane came to wash my hair for me. Mrs B brought my dress for me for the Oxford dinner, which looks very nice, hope it fits.
© Anthony Lawton 2012
Barny (the dog) not well (Diary, 17/4/88)
April 17th, Sunday. Ray has put in an enormous day’s work in the garden aided and abetted by Sheila. Barny not terribly well.
© Anthony Lawton 2012
Barny was one of Rosemary Sutcliff’s two chihuahuas. (The other was Sophie).
Tony Bradman’s top ten father and son stories include Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth | Children’s books in guardian.co.uk
Writing at the Guardian Children’s Books site, Tony Bradman selected Rosemary Sutcliff’s 1954 historical novel The Eagle of the Ninth as one of the best stories ‘featuring fathers and sons’.
The Eagle of the Ninth was published in 1954, the year I was born, but I must have read it for the first time when I was 12 or 13, just after my Tolkien phase. Like many other Sutcliff fans, I was gripped by this story of a young man travelling from the soft south of Roman Britain to the wilds beyond Hadrian’s Wall where the Scots were still very independent indeed. Marcus Flavius Aquila is on a mission to find out what happened to his father’s legion, the 9th Hispana, which marched north into the Caledonian mists and was never seen again. Read More »
Illustrating Rosemary Sutcliff
Rosemary Sutcliff’s books were graced with the work of major British illustrators: Charles Keeping, Alan Lee, Victor Ambrus, C Walter Hodges, Richard Kennedy, Ralph Thompson, and Emma Chichester Clark. The books they, and others, illustrated included: 
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Diary, 16/4/89
April 16th, Saturday. Can’t remember what did
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 