Detailed Memories

[jacey]

So heleninwales and the pony photographs set me thinking...

Funny how much detail you remember, isn't it? I was (almost) seven in 1957. My parents had scrimped and saved to buy me six riding lessons for my birthday (no mean feat because they really didn't have much money in those days.) The lessons cost 7/6 (old money) which was a lot in 1957. I can distinctly remember the butterflies in my tummy being driven down to the stables for the first lesson with my friend, Janet, who was almost 2 years older than me. I remember the clean dung/hay smell of the stable yard, breathing it in and feeling 'right'. (And Janet's Dad laughing at me when I sniffed appreciatively and said, Smell that'.) I can't remember getting on the pony (Prince), a 12.2 hand bright bay, but I can remember being led out of the yard and up the hill by the side of Locke Park (Barnsley), Janet and I on a lead rein, one on each side of the instructor. Janet was on a pony called Mandy, another bright bay, which was a bit bigger than Prince (maybe 13.1) and which I ended up riding most of the rest of that course of lessons.

I remember trotting for the first time and trying to post because I'd read about rising in your stirrups. The instructor said I was getting it but it felt awkward and then I slipped into the rhythm and 'got' it, but for some reason Janet didn't and I felt smug because Janet usually did everything better than me.

Those six lessons were all my parents could afford until the next summer; another birthday and another six lessons. And so on until I was ten and that stable closed (it's a country house restaurant now) and we found a cheaper, scruffier more DIY one and I started to go more regularly and get my hands dirty.

The pic is me with a horse called Brigadoon at the scruffy stables. I guess I'm about eleven and I'd started volunteering to saddle up and muck out in return for getting to ride the horses down to the field bareback.

By the way, yes I am entering for the worst jodhpurs competition. In those days there was no stretch fabric and johds were corduroy with the big 'bag' from hip to knee to allow for movement...except they didn't because there was still no vertical stretch in them. I hated those johds with a passion.

A year or two later and I'd moved on to a better stable, started to do even more work and managed to get quite a few free rides in addition to my one paid-for ride a week. The ponies in the pic to the right are Chess,  Arab and dangerously evil tempered; Tommy then aged 35; Biddy, a Welsh-Connemara cross and my favourite; Mealy, the Exmoor who is personally responsible for my lumpy leg (soft tissue damage from a fall and kick) and Teal a placid but sweet bay cob that I had a real soft spot for.

I'd probably have been riding there still... but the council put a compulsory purchase order on the home paddock to build a new school and so the stable closed and by that time I was starting A-Levels and already hooked up with Best Beloved (yes really, still the same Best Beloved) so riding became more sporadic. Though I did teach Best Beloved to ride and we continued riding into our twenties until babies and life got in the way.

Never did get my own pony. Best Beloved still fancies a pony and trap, but as he's just converted the barn and stable block we no longer have a ready made stable. I like those sit-and-ride chariot thingies that green_knightfound last week. Maybe one of those and a donkey. That'd be cute. I love donkeys.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I love donkeys too, I find them very calming. I don't see why you couldn't have a donkey and drive it in a saddlechariot. Here's a picture of a small mule in one... They don't do so well in the wet as ponies though, so for the Welsh climate, I'll probably stick with a small pony.