The brass nameplate had slipped when three of the screws holding it had corroded away several years ago. It slewed diagonally and reclined upon the base plate of the brass doorbell with an air of decayed elegance.

The doorbell was answered by Margaret, friendly and efficient, with a request to take a seat. There was a range of wooden chairs, vintage rather than antique, in a variety of different styles arraigned around the Victorian hallway.

Voices of a sultry teenager and a firm grandmother drifted down the elegant staircase. The partners' family lived upstairs.

Called into the consulting room, passing the plastic folding screen partially detached at its upper edge, that flopped across the entrance to a passageway, you entered a room of massive proportions. The high ceiling and ornate plasterwork reverberated with birdsong.

The room was edged with an assortment of tables covered in birdcages. Budgies and canaries vied to out-sing each other. It was holiday season and the vets provided accommodation for caged birds for 25p a day.

The large sash window looked out on a yard where several dogs cavorted about. Patch, the collie, was up on her back feet staring in through the window to check on what her mistress was up to. She had been brought in for euthanasia by uncaring owners and adopted by a member of staff.

Sasha, the grey-muzzled German Shepherd Dog, had arrived with a broken leg but once it was fixed the owners had refused to pay the £50 bill.

She had been adopted by the partners and lived at the surgery. Several years previously her owners had reappeared demanding her back. Presented with the bill for two years of boarding they left without her.

Sasha was playing with Helga, another German Shepherd who had been acquired in a similar way. Several in-patients lay in the sun or pottered about. Ginger, a stray who had somehow never been re-homed, watched from the roof of a very tatty brick lean-to at the far side of the yard.

Another uniformed girl appeared at the door of the lean-to. Sandra had been cleaning out the in-patient kennels and was detaching two kittens from her legs before she closed the door.

The surgery took litters of kittens in for re-homing (free of charge) and kept them loose in the kennel block' until suitable homes were found.

Attending to canine in-patients always involved ignoring the kitten claws climbing up your legs and on to your back. This certainly honed my skills of focused concentration.

Kittens were kept in the kennel block to prevent cross infection to, or from, the feline in-patients that were kept in a separate lean-to. This was one of the few practices in the country with entirely separate dog and cat accommodation.

Sandra had come out to clean up the yard. Once pooper scooped and hosed, the nurses would lay out clean dog blankets, change from their uniforms and sunbathe while eating their lunch. The yard was a suntrap and served in lieu of a staff room during the summer.

Had you been called to the (even) larger consulting room your pet would sit on an antique table topped by a rubber mat.

Your change would be taken from a disintegrating cash drawer in the beautiful roll top desk. A till was acquired only after someone found the temptation of a drawer of cash too great to resist.

You left the surgery unaware that you may have consulted one of the rising stars at the local university veterinary school who worked at the practice part-time.

Professional contact between the practice and the academics ensured the best up-to-date treatment for the pets from all the vets.

The cupboards contained equipment that would have been the envy of many practices and the pets received the most excellent care.

The academics gained from the contact with the ordinary dog and cat in the street. One of the team who identified canine parvovirus when it emerged as a new killer infection in the 1980s worked at the practice, as well as several other now eminent veterinary academics.

You just cannot judge by appearances.