'There is no censorship in this book': Supervet Noel Fitzpatrick on childhood abuse and bullying

In his new book, Supervet Noel Fitzpatrick shares his experience of sexual abuse. He tells Edel Coffey about facing the shadow that haunted him until now

Noel Fitzpatrick has decided to tell his truth in the hope of helping other people who might also be struggling. Picture: Marsha Arnold

Noel Fitzpatrick is best known by his nickname, the Supervet. He holds a Guinness World Record for his pioneering animal surgery. He is a beloved TV celebrity. When people look at Fitzpatrick, they see someone extraordinary. Even on a phone call he oozes charisma and yet, in his new book Beyond Supervet, he writes about having hated himself, having felt worthless, a fraud, and having had no self-esteem. 

This is his most personal book yet, detailing the sexual abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of a farm worker employed on his family farm, and the horrific bullying he suffered at secondary school, as well as how these things affected his adult life so much that he even thought about suicide.

Now, at the age of 54, Fitzpatrick has decided to tell his truth in the hope of helping other people who might be struggling like he did. “This was the diary I never got to keep,” he says. “The confidante I never had, and it was the catharsis that was necessary to move on from running away from a shadow. I needed to shake that to get on with the best of what I can do with my life; which I really hope will be productive and I hope that shadow, rather than just fuelling me with pain, will fuel me with the enthusiasm that I can make a difference.”

He doesn’t remember exactly how old he was when he was abused, but he knows the last time it happened. He must have been 10 because he was wearing the Timex watch he had been given for his 10th birthday. His parents rarely went out — maybe five or six times a year — but it was on these occasions that the farmhand took his opportunity to abuse Fitzpatrick. At one point, desperate for help, Fitzpatrick went to confession and told the priest what had happened. The priest told him that God would punish him, that he would be sent to hell and that he was a bad person for bringing such words into God’s house and gave him penance.

“It’s a deeply raw book,” Fitzpatrick says. “I wrote it as if it was just coming out of my heart. There is no censorship in this book. I felt it was really important to get it out now because I told Mammy that I would. I went to ask her permission because I didn’t want her to get hurt or feel any shame that I had some things that I needed to get off my chest and move on from, because it wasn’t her fault.” The abuse stopped when Fitzpatrick was 11, just before another form of torture began — bullying.

Noel Fitzpatrick: “This was the diary I never got to keep."

In one section of the book he writes: “Most days they kicked the shit out of me one way or another; either pummelling me with fists, ripping my clothes, or throwing me in the slurry pit in the quarry behind school. They poured milk on the copybooks I had worked so hard on and trampled my reading books in the mud. They broke my bike in a cattle grid, wrenching the wheels. If I could, I ran away and hid. And I have been running and hiding ever since — from the past and the pain, from people who tried to get close to me with the very best intentions, from talking openly about what happened. For years the pain churned like barbed wire inside me, eating up everything that was good or that brought me joy.”

Fitzpatrick says the book is an attempt to “reach out” to people who might be having a similarly difficult time. “Having met some people that had been through abuse and bullying and who had found themselves feeling alienated, I felt that maybe I could help them. I’m one of the people kids dress up as at school and I’m thinking; if you’re an 11-year-old child and you look up to me thinking I have it sorted and you’re going through all your own personal problems and you think you’re going through it alone, is it possible for me to write something for the teenagers of today, the people of today, who are going through a tough patch? Can I help them? That is why I’ve written the book.”

Did he have any qualms about revealing such personal experiences? “Yes I did have reservations about it and I did think long and hard and one thing that overwhelmed everything else was this — it was time to be completely truthful with myself and everybody in reciprocity for the trust and truth that people place in me. I got to a point where there was only one way: Absolute honesty, absolute integrity, absolute transparency.”

Noel with Keira, Ricochet and Excalibur

Honesty and truthfulness are huge themes in the book, from the practice of veterinary medicine and the difficulties his industry faces around money versus ethics, to the need to be honest with ourselves. “In my field, people don’t typically think a surgeon is going to be totally honest with people about his inner feelings and demons. I thought it’s really important that somebody like me tells the absolute truth because to look in that mirror and to be honest with oneself can go one of two ways: Sublimation and self-destruction, or ‘OK, I’m not perfect, I have very few of the answers, I’m just a bloke trying to do his best and can I help others do their best in a difficult situation?’ That’s the origin of the difficult album number three,” he laughs.

In the book, he concedes that his adult relationships have been affected by his childhood experiences with abuse and bullying but he says he would still like to have a family of his own one day. “It is something I hope for. It is self-evident from the book there were a number of reasons why I had trouble with trust because of my childhood experiences. And that has reflected in my later life. But, yes, I’m 54 years of age, I do think I’m capable of being in a loving trustworthy relationship and creating a family environment that would be helpful to a child so the direct answer is yes, I’m hopeful that at this stage of my life that can happen.”

How does he feel now that the book, and his very personal story, is out in the world? “I feel deeply blessed that I had enough time and enough nights till dawn to get it published on time at a time when I think the world deeply needs truth. I don’t think the world has ever needed truth more than it has today. I feel the sorrow of the world deeply. However, I do have hope because I see the light in the eyes of the people who come to see me. Do I feel a sense of unburdening? No. Do I feel a sense of sharing? Yes.”

Noel Fitzpatrick pictured with his mother

The book ends with a hint that there is a new challenge on the horizon for Fitzpatrick, beyond Supervet. “The next stage for me is going to be something to do with saving the planet. I don’t believe in ego, I’ve gone far beyond that. I want to use what I’ve learned up to this point to try and translate the love that I see between a dog or a cat and a family into a love of each other no matter what colour, race, religion, and into a love of animals in their homes, not just in our homes.

“I spent a long time trying to find the truth of who I am through my purpose, through my vocation and through thinking, ‘If you achieve this, do that exam, become that professor you’ll make a bigger difference’. But really it’s the tiny things that make a difference; the hand on someone’s shoulder, the simple act of texting someone when you know they’re in trouble. At 4am one morning, towards the end of writing the book, I wrote this sentence: ‘You can’t find your truth through your purpose; you can only find your purpose through your truth’. So for me, from now on it’s all about truth and I know that the purpose will come from that. So I don’t ever develop a sense that I can stand as a dam holding back the river of time or the river of mortality but what I can do is create a ripple in that water that will hopefully spread out across the world.”

— If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please click here for a list of support services.

• Beyond the Supervet: How Animals Make Us the Best We Can Be by Prof Noel Fitzpatrick is published by Orion in trade paperback. Noel is signing copies of his memoir in Easons O’Connell St, Dublin today (Saturday) at 12pm.