An Afternoon With Paddy Sweeney

I have just spent an afternoon with Paddy Sweeney and his dog Charlie.

Anyone who lives in Beverley will know who Paddy is and without question he is one of Beverley’s characters.

This morning I received a phone call from Jerry O’Connell who had been called by his wife, Christine, relating to Paddy who along with Charlie was holding a protest outside the Tesco store on Morton Lane, Beverley.

Paddy was protesting due to an incident that had happened when he last tried to shop at Tesco. In a nutshell Paddy was told he could not tie his dog, Charlie, inside the porch of Tesco, something Paddy has done on a regular basis.

I am unable to find out both sides of the story, I did approach the staff in the store and we spoke though despite wanting to tell their side of events they were unable to do as any response to questions is handled via their press office. Right now I do not want to call someone 200 miles away for a comment and frankly I do not see why I should.

From the information I have is this how I understand what happened to lead Paddy to protest today;

Tesco have a policy which is no animals in the store and this includes the porch areas. However Paddy has for some time been allowed to leave Charlie tied inside the porch so the security guards can keep an eye on him, basically a little bit of common sense and the human touch has been applied by staff.

After a trip Ireland of around three weeks Paddy returned to Tesco to do some shopping only to be told by a member of staff he could not leave Charlie tied inside the porch. An altercation then took place which left Paddy feeling somewhat unwelcome in Tesco.

This incident which took place a few weeks back prompted Paddy, armed with two posters to hold a protest outside the Tesco store today. There were a lot of people passing by who offered their support to Paddy, in the time I was there people were bringing him various items and indeed the cafe staff in Tesco brought him some toast. Some looked on and could not really work out why this 90 year old man was sitting outside Tesco with his dog, one lady while I was there offered him some spare change!

Let’s take Tesco and whatever happened between Paddy and the member of staff out of the equation for moment and also remove all the emotion from the situation. What you left have is a very well liked and respected elderly man sitting outside with his dog, and for what? The answer poor communication and lots of assumptions.

There are no signs anywhere on the doors that state animals cannot enter the porch of the store, if there are I struggled to find or see them, they could be there. However my concerns are not with signs but with Paddy and why he felt he needed to go to such lengths to get his point across.

After speaking to the staff inside the store I spoke with Paddy, I did my best to explain to him that it is impossible to fight an organisation like Tesco. I wanted to understand what would make him feel better about his experience and to find a solution, remember Paddy is 90 years old so sitting outside a supermarket on a wet day could not be much fun for him. All Paddy wanted was an apology and he was eventually prepared to apologise for any upset he caused. He also suggested a sign be put on the door to help avoid any repeat of what happened to him, but more than anything I felt he just wanted someone to listen.

After a chat I managed to convince him that the best place for him and I was the Angel Pub where we could have a beer, not sitting outside a super market in the cold. He did not look best pleased as I explained that the reality was he could not win. I could not help but think that everything I was saying would have sounded much better coming from one of the customer service managers at Tesco and not from me a bloke with a camera.

The winner today was not Tesco nor was it Paddy, it was me. I got to spend time with a man who has 90 years of life experience, yes he is by his own admission stubborn but he is no fool. He explained to me that when in Australia many years ago there were signs everywhere with the words ‘Do What’s Right’ and since then has try to do just that, maybe at times showing a little too much passion.

Needless to say I walked back home with him and when we got there I got to see a tiny insight into his life. In room he himself described as untidy I did not see a mess I saw walls covered in history, his history. There are pictures of Paddy when he was young man and a picture of his wife from when he first met her, the pair of them looked like movie stars.

However the one thing that’s stands out most of all for me today is that as you look as his life laid out before you it is his love of animals and especially dogs. Paddy specialised in helping physically and mentally injured dogs recover, it is something he is very proud of and rightly so.

His body maybe tired and worn but his mind is works perfectly well. It saddens me and makes me very upset to see someone of Paddy’s calibre sitting on the doorstep protesting. Yes he probably gave as good as he got during whatever exchanges happened if not more, more than likely he made a nuisance of himself, but you know what, with 90 years on the clock he has earned that right.