1969: Britain's Complex Relationship With Pets | Love of a Kind | BBC Archive

Why do you keep a pet? What do you demand from your dog, your cat, your budgie in return for feeding it and teaching it to be clean about the house?

Is it companionship you want? Do you keep a dog to protect you? Is the bird you keep behind bars simply a living ornament or an essential member of the household, just like one of the family?

The relationships between human beings and animals, particularly domestic animals, are sometimes simple. But often they are as complicated as the relationships that exist between people themselves.

Love of a Kind follows some of Britain's pet owners and animal lovers: The schoolgirl who fawns over a giant, grumpy cat; the men who share their house with a monkey; the anxious woman taking her sick dog to the vet; the lady incubating a chicken egg in her bosom; the people visiting a psychic medium to check up on their pet in the afterlife, and many more.

Lord Snowdon and Derek Hart's wonderfully offbeat documentary is equal parts funny, sad, moving, dark and surreal. Prepare yourself for an emotional rollercoaster.

Clip taken from Love of a Kind, originally broadcast on BBC One, 28 October, 1969.

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