OBITUARY FOR MOLLY COAKER
- By Bryan Mitchell -

AT TWENTY past eight last Sunday morning the brightest star in the Cavalier and Japanese Chin firmament went out when Molly Coaker died. Just a little while later that morning, exhibitors at the South and West Wales Cavalier Club championship show stood in shocked silence to remember their friend, their mentor, their guiding light, many of them in tears. Those tears would spread around the world wherever Molly and the Homerbrents were known, and they were known everywhere there are dog shows.

Only days earlier she and husband John had returned from a judging trip to California. And then there was Midland Counties to look forward to. “She had high hopes for Charlie’s third CC,” John told me. “He was back in form and looking well.” The last of Molly’s great favourites.

Staying in a motel on the way to the show with long-time friend Heather Wheeler, Molly was taken ill and thanks to Heather rushed to Walsall Hospital. Her children Alan, Anne and Steven sped to be with their mother, fearful of the worst. But Molly came out of her coma. In the days that followed she sat up in bed, recovered an ability to speak a little. Promising signs.

Just a week after Molly’s collapse, John, Anne and Heather took the latest winning Homerbrent, Accolade, to compete in the Cavalier Club ‘Pup of the Year’ contest and then on to the hospital. So John got to see his wife of more than 50 years one last time. Still the signs were bright. At least they were until 8.20 the following morning when Molly passed away in her sleep.

Only when one looks back is it brought home how quickly Molly came to make such an indelible mark on the Cavalier world. Bearing in mind her first championship show was Paignton 1967 with a puppy, Belmont Nell, from her first litter it’s remarkable that just three years later the first-born Homerbrent title winner, the tri dog Minstrel, was born. Himself a grandson of Nell, he was beaten to the place of first champion for the kennel by the blenheim bitch, Lindy Lou. Interestingly their sires, Chs Requiem and Rose Mullion of Ottermouth, were ex litter sisters.

And these two were just the start of an amazing run of success all through the 1970s and ‘80s. In that first decade Minstrel and Lindy Lou were followed by Homerbrent’s two greatest show and brood bitches, tri Ch Captivation and blenheim Ch Samantha, Captivation’s hugely influential sons Ch Andy Capp and Ch Caption (both Homarannes bred by Anne Coaker, now Reddaway), Samantha’s son and daughter Ch Samson and Ch Bewitched. Ch Heidi and Ch Pegasus followed.

The 1980s carried on in the same vein with the 1980 born Caption son Ch Carson with an early title and a group winner to boot. But that was after Molly made up the lovely Irish dog, Ronnoc Rhum of Sancem, who already had two CCs and quickly made his mark as a sire (ex Ch Samantha) of Ch Romeo.

It was during this period that Caption sired a record breaking 16 British champions. He won the Cavalier Club’s stud dog trophy for a phenomenal seven successive years. Add to that the two years previous when Andy Capp took the trophy and two years after when Caption’s double grandson Ch Carnival (by Ch Carson ex Ch Bewitched) was triumphant, you’ll see that this prestigious award stayed at Homerbrent for 11 successive years.

Not only did Homerbrent produce many more champion Cavaliers than I have room to mention, the kennel’s stud dogs were also responsible for contributing to glittering careers for other breeders, people like Betty Dowd (Tregarron), Di Fry and Tracy Jackson (Amantra), June Huggon (High Head), Mary Millican (Peatland), Alan Hall and John Evans (Alansmere), Brian Rix and Kevan Berry (Ricksbury), Leonard and Heather Priestley (Pinewood), Dawn Hurley (Hurleaze), Sheila Smith (Salador), Lorraine Higgins (Cottismeer), Bruce Field (Crieda), Stephen Goodwin (Lanola), Gordon and Norma Inglis (Craigowl), Sylvia Lymer (Lymrey), Marie McFarlane (Cotterlee), Mary Rees and Elaine Berwick (Merrylaine/Symra), Lily Stevens (Milkeyn), Pat Thirkell (Geronsart), Lisa Murray-Banthorpe (Tweedworth), Mrs P Wells (Moonglow), Roger Calladine and family (Tarquogans),  Gerard Connor (Ronnoc), Mr and Mrs Riedy (Brookanan), Veronica Hull (Telvara), the Fox-Shone family (Pamedna), Caroline Ackroyd-Gibson (Toraylac), Jim and Maurene Milton (Fontelania), and Ruth Boundy (Rubyfield). But this is just the tip of an iceberg because Homerbrent continued to effect an influence down the generations all around the globe. Not surprising when one remembers there were more than 100 Homerbrent champions worldwide.

Small wonder then that Homerbrent came to be regarded as the natural successor to earlier great kennels. In the beginning there was Amice Pitt’s Ttiwehs followed by the glorious Pargeters of Barbara Keswick. Both contributed hugely to Jack and Susan Burgess’s Crisdigs and Gertie Biddle’s Ottermouths. Look at any pedigree of those Homerbrents that made the kennel’s name and the inevitable conclusion must be that Molly Coaker was their natural heir.

It’s one thing to get to the top and stay there for as long as Molly did in Cavaliers, quite another to adapt when other breeders become bewitched by the tempting siren of a different type. Molly did this beautifully by concentrating on her Japanese Chin without ever letting go of her devotion to her first love, in which breed she was an unflinching supporter of all the health initiatives. Her interest in what were then known simply as Japanese began “at my very first championship show, Paignton in 1967 ... I was smitten there and then ...” Early disappointments decided Molly to concentrate on the Cavaliers but when her first Jap died many years later she was able to buy a champion bitch in 1987.

It could have been the Cavalier story all over again but just as the brake was to an extent put on Cavalier affairs with those title winners of the 1990s – Ch Tradition, her son Ch Illusion, his offspring  Ch Isadora and the very last champion Homerbrent Cavalier in Britain, Ch Expression – so the Jap juggernaut took off. And how. An early product was Ch Homerbrent Syakai who won the toy group at Crufts for Mrs Appleby, Geoff Corish handling. But he wasn’t the first champion. That was Sheila Vincent’s Ch Homerbrent Kiko of Yama. Just one small insight into how much pleasure Molly always got from selling good ones.

By cleverly combining the blood of Japanese imports with the best of British, Molly produced 18 British champion Chin. Her most spectacular win came at Birmingham National 2003 where Ch Yumeina won BIS all breeds under American Michelle Billings.

There were many other highlights: Ch Ryoryo being dam of three British champions by different sires; Ch Kimi and his son Ch Sikai as exceptional sires; Ch Ningyo’s 11 CCs, “the ultimate show bitch,” said Molly, and granddam of Ch Yumeina; success on the bench and as a sire for the Russian import (via Holland) Ch Hin Satori Yahoo.

This is just a small glimpse into Molly’s remarkable life, one in which she has had to endure great tragedy in the death of her son Andrew in a road accident and triumph in overcoming breast cancer in the usual indomitable Molly way. She has been an inspiration and she will continue to be just that, whenever her friends and admirers think of her, as they will for years to come. May that if in small part sustain John and their children knowing how much Molly meant to so many.