Matty Doolin

Matty is fifteen and, in his Tyneside home in the 1960s, this means it is time for him to leave school and follow his father into the docks and get a job in ship building. All Matty really wants, however, is to work with animals, tend them, help them and care for them. But he has no qualifications and his parents have no real understanding of his ambition – they won’t even let him keep Nelson, the old stray dog he befriends and takes home.

Matty Doolin

Catherine Cookson

Oxford University Press

2000

Abstract

What do you want to do when you leave school? Be a pilot, a doctor, a footballer, a teacher, a pop singer? It’s a question that everybody asks young people. Some of them know what they want to do, others don’t.

Matty has always known what he wants to do. When he leaves school, he wants to work with animals and get a job on a farm. But he lives in a town in the north – east of England, a long way from any farm. He’ll have to get a job in ship – buiding like his father. He’s only fifteen and his parents say he can’t leave home yet. They also say he’s too young to go on a camping holiday with his friends Joe and Willie.

Matty is very unhappy. And he’s in trouble about hos dog Nelson, too. ‘That dof has got to go!’ his mother says, when Nelson tries to eat her hat and his father’s best shoes. Poor old Nelson! He barks a lot, has a bad leg and can’t see very well in one eye. But Matty loves him dearly.

Contents:

Story Introduction

1. Matty and Nelson

2. Camping

3. Blisters and storms

4. Helping on the farm

5. A night on the hills

6. A new life for Matty