Most of my friends and followers know that here on our thirteen-acre North Devon home, we have horses. Two showjumpers, Lexie and Saffie and two of Saffie’s offspring to bring on as competition horses – two-year-old Franc and five-month filly, Phoenix. My daughter (now in her thirties) has ridden since she was three, not counting the few times I had her sitting up in front of me when I was riding and she was only a couple of months old. I started riding when I was four.
My sister was
six years my elder and, in those days, ten-year-olds would happily take
themselves off (unsupervised) for the day during weekends and school holidays.
Big Sister, however, often got lumbered with Little Sister (me) so I would occasionally
be in tow when she went to Soper’s Farm, a riding school that was about a ten-minute
walk from our house. It had been a working farm for several centuries, but by
the 1950s times were a-changing and in the early sixties it was sold and became
a housing estate. Mr Soper had his horses and ponies and took eager people out
for rides in the Forest, and relied on eager youngsters to help with the tasks
of mucking out, grooming, tack cleaning and such – presumably in return for a
free ride.
I guess I didn’t go every week with
Big Sister as I have very few memories of actually being there, but I do have
one that is very vivid.
My first ride.
I was to ride Noddy, a
brown-and-white cob pony. Someone lifted
me into the saddle, my little feet were tucked through the loop of the stirrup
leathers because they could not be shortened enough for me to reach the
stirrups themselves, and I was shown how to hold the reins correctly between my
fingers.
Off we set, out onto the main road
(which, then, did not have much traffic). I think my sister walked along beside
us, but the pony was led by Old Mr Soper himself. To me, that glorious ride
went on for miles, but in fact, we only went about ¾ of a mile – although that
is a mile-and-a-half there and back, even so, about a half-hour ride.
What sticks in my mind, apart from
the glorious ride, is that Mr Soper was so pleased with how well I had
done, we stopped at the sweet shop next to the pub and he bought me a bar of
chocolate as a reward. Of course, it’s very likely that he popped into the pub
for a pint – which is why that short little ride took much longer than a mere
half-hour!
Absolutely none of that would
happen today would it?
© Hele Hollick
Website: www.helenhollick.net
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Hugs
Pauline
2 comments:
Thank you for inviting me Pauline - some memories of happy days!
What a lovely story! And, yes, a reminder of different times...
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