I WAS born and raised on the Curragh, with training yards such as Mick O’Toole, Con Collins, P.J. Prendergast and Liam Browne on our doorstep.

I remember when Maddenstown Lodge was a mushroom farm, before Liam Browne purchased it. My siblings and I had summer jobs there picking mushrooms.

Ted Curtin also trained from the same stables. My father, Peter, was a great Curragh racegoer and I would go to the odd meeting with him.

I went to school with the Presentation Sisters in Kildare town. I finished school and did my Leaving Certificate in 1979.

Two weeks later I was asked by my friend Ruth’s father, who was a vet in the DVO in Naas, if I would go and work for a veterinary surgeon called Ned Gowing who had set up a veterinary practice in 1976 and had just built an office with stables. He was looking for someone to help with filing and general office work for six weeks.

I remember the morning I started work my dad saying to me to “mind that job as you are going to work for a very nice man.”

Ned was a very hard worker and worked literally from dawn to dusk. There was one other vet, Chris Heffron, working with Ned and a lady who did accounts work. There was no training in the job, I just had to get on with it and learn the ropes.

While I knew names of trainers etc, veterinary terminology was completely alien to me. I remember finding a book that Ned had purchased called Equine Stud Farm Medicine by P D Rossdale & S W Ricketts.

It was written in layman’s language and I read it over a few weeks and began to piece things together. It gave me a greater knowledge when speaking to clients.

When my six weeks were completed, Ned asked me to stay on and I was happy to do so.

The work was tough at times and the hours long but Ned was great to work for. He worked very hard in those early days to develop the practice.

The work was really interesting and varied. It was the age before mobile phones and all calls came through the office and then the vets were contacted by two-way radio.

Apart from the telephone and daily diary there was a lot of typing of all the various veterinary certificates. Equipment was basic – telephone and typewriter.

I remember when we got a fax machine and I can still see Ned standing looking at it and asking “has that cert really arrived in America?” He could not get over this piece of technology.

PARTNERSHIP

Around 2000/2001, Ned formed a partnership with two other vets who were employed in the practice. I was asked to take on the role as practice manager. By this stage we had built up a team of staff from vets/nurses/administration staff/laboratory and yardmen.

I was 26 years in my job at this stage and because I did not have any formal third level education, I decided to do a two-year diploma, with the National College of Ireland, in Management. This involved attending lectures one evening per week and most Saturdays.

It was tough at the time as I was still working full-time and had three children at school. Receiving my diploma gave me a great sense of achievement and an acknowledgement that I could take on the manager’s role and develop it.

My husband, Michael, was always on hand to pick up the children in the evening and get dinners ready. Without his support in those early years I would not have been able to do this job.

Over the years, Ned purchased land to develop the practice to what it is today. Along with two partners, Mark MacRedmond and Thomas Austin, we have 21 employees, with extra interns who work with our surgical staff.

SOLID FOUNDATIONS

We have built upon the solid foundations laid down by Ned Gowing to a level now where everything is now gone digital.

Digital X-rays, portable digital scanners, dynamic endoscopy, computerised practise management systems on everyone’s iPhone and iPads and our latest venture of a shared digital bone scanner machine located up the road at our neighbouring hospital, Sycamore Equine Hospital.

All the technology is up-to-date and the images and data are all up in the Cloud but we still have our boots on the ground servicing our clients, both local and referred.

Sadly, Ned passed away on October 1st, 2015. However, we have a great staff here at Anglesey Lodge Equine Hospital who all contribute on a daily basis to keeping his legacy alive.

A day does not go by without someone mentioning Ned, or ‘Mr G’ as the staff fondly remember him.

Catherine McAvinney was in conversation with John O’Riordan