IT IS, perhaps, the most disappointing two hours of my life. I am sitting in a cafe in Bedlington, the old Northumberland mining town after which the eponymous terrier and scourge of the rat community is named. While the full English is excellent, I am actually waiting for what could easily be mistaken for a lamb on a lead to walk in.

Or walk past. Even one disappearing round a distant corner would be enough. But no, not today. For the ardent Bedlington terrier groupie this is like Michaela Strachan going to Puffin Island and finding out it is the one day the puffins are all at sea.

The place to which I have made this particular pilgrimage and that even boasts a many times life-size cut-out of the terrier’s unique shape as a welcome sign is, I am told, usually crawling with Beddies. But today they are all at home with the curtains closed. The town, I am assured, remains a stronghold of this originally northern breed of working terrier. Apart from Bedlington on this particular morning, Bedlingtons pop up everywhere. I’ve seen them in