Smokey the Donkey, who passed away after more than 40 years with John and Yvonne Bryce.

by Alex Claridge

aclaridge@thekmgroup.co.uk

For 40 years Smokey was the beloved companion of John and Yvonne Bryce.

He came into their lives in the year of their marriage, 1971, and has been their pet until his death this week.

The devastated couple from Maydowns Road in Chestfield are now learning to live their lives without him.

“It’s amazing that whenever we have moved we thought about him and it was really him that ruled where we lived because we bought places to suit him,” Yvonne said.

John, 62, even become known as the donkey man and people from as far away as Canada and Australia have asked about Smokey’s welfare.

And with a donkey so central to their lives the couple necessarily have a mass of stories to tell – not least the one about how they acquired Smokey. The couple were living in Hatch Lane, Chartham, when they were considering buying a donkey.

They heard about a donkey living at a horse breeder’s next to Folkestone Racecourse which had been bought as a foal for a little girl who had outgrown him.

A newspaper advert in this paper brought their attention to a man-and-van who proclaimed he could move anything. He agreed to move Smokey after the Bryces bought him for 25 guineas.

Yvonne said: “He said he had to move this piano at 1pm that day and so we said we would move Smokey in the morning.

“We turned up with some carrots, but it ended up taking us all day to get him into the van and the man lost his piano job.

“Then Smokey kept putting his head on the seats at the front of the van so all these people passing the van would have seen a donkey’s head where the driver’s seat was.”

Smokey also defecated in the back of the van.

The next time Yvonne glanced at a copy of the Gazette, she saw the advert for the man-and-van except this time it read: “I will move anything except donkeys”.

After living in Chartham, the Bryces moved to Herne where their adventures with Smokey continued.

They wanted to move him from their first address in the village to another and a neighbour suggested they could simply walk Smokey from one home to the other.

All was going well until they reached the centre of the village and the roundabout outside the butcher’s shop when Smokey decided to stop – and nothing could move him from the middle of the road.

“All the traffic was backed up,” said Yvonne, 60.

“People were coming out of houses because they thought there had been an accident and even the police turned up to see what was going on before we eventually persuaded him to move again.”

John, who works renovating old buildings, said: “I suppose that's where the saying 'stubborn as a mule’ comes from.”

For the last 20 years, Smokey has had a companion in Candy the Shetland pony.

The Bryces have lived in Maydowns Road for 12 years and their garden has a paddock, shelter and stables for Smokey and Candy. In the last few months, Smokey had started to suffer from arthritis and cataracts.

Yvonne said: “He had stopped eating and we had to call the vet out.

“We decided that because of his age and his other complaints that the kindest thing was to have him put down.

“Smokey is now buried in the garden.

“But we don’t know what do and whether we should get another animal to keep Candy company as she has always been with a donkey and they were inseparable.

“Losing Smokey is devastating as he has been a part of our lives for 40 years. We knew it would happen eventually, but it is very sad.

“He was certainly a character.”