Riding
There were a number of ponies at Caldecott, and we were encouraged to learn to ride. The ponies were cared for by Miss Travers and Miss Diana [Howarth], with the assistance of the keenest of the boys and girls, who were designated grooms.
The ponies that I remember included Sheila, a comparatively large grey, and a number of bays: Mary, Bramble, and Puff. Tessa was lighter in colour and had a reputation for being temperamental, and was ridden by only the more experienced riders.
For me, riding began in the Study, and at first I quite enjoyed it, although I always found it a bit alarming to sit astride a fairly wide pony, only to notice what a thin neck stood between me and disaster should I begin to fall forward.
Once a week, we would follow the same route down though the Hornbeam wood and back. We would walk most of the way, and take it in turns to ride. After all this time I cannot remember whether Puff was the only pony to come out with the Study, or whether there were two or three. At any rate, I invariably rode Puff.
Puff was the gentlest and most docile of ponies. She [?] was very old, and very slow. She would walk most of the way, but could with difficulty be persuaded to break into a gentle trot. She knew the way, and knew where to stop, and could therefore be trusted with the least experienced riders. Once I had been put in the saddle, I could ride unaided, as I did not have to exercise any sort of control.
At the end of my first year at Hatch, we all left for the Summer holidays. When I returned in September as a member of the Senior Boys, I found that Puff had died. This was a great shock.
In the Seniors, riding took place, except in the depths of winter, every Saturday afternoon. Miss Travers would take four or five ponies, with a group of boys and girls, around the country lanes, usually accompanied by Diana Howarth’s little Dachshund, Hansel, who would struggle to keep up. Once again, there were more riders than ponies, and we would take it in turn to ride for a mile or so before dismounting and walking again. Ponies could do no more than walk and trot on metalled roads, but sometimes we would go through the Deer Park, where they could canter and gallop.
I had learned to sit properly [if we slouched, Miss Travers invariably came out with “sack of potatoes”] and to rise with the trot, but, along with some others, was not yet able to control the pony. While most riders were left to their own devices between changeovers, our ponies would be led by Miss Travers or one of the other walkers.
I never did reach the stage of exercising any control while riding, and gave it up altogether after a rather frightening incident.
When Miss Travers later spoke about this, she would confuse two separate incidents and run them together to create a more dramatic story than what actually happened.
The first incident occurred when we had been riding along a country lane with a wood to our right and emerged from the wood into a clearer area, when we heard shots, presumably from some of Lord Brabourne’s men. We halted until they had moved away, and Miss Travers made some very scathing comments about people who were so careless as to shoot in the vicinity of horses.
The other occasion took place a few months later. I was riding Bramble, who was being led by one of the girls, when we stopped for a changeover, and the ponies all began to graze at the side of the road. Not all the riders were changed at the same time, and on this occasion I was to continue to ride Bramble after other riders had been changed.
As usual, the girl who had been leading Bramble had left him free while he was grazing, and when the other ponies began to trot off she neglected to hold his reins again. Bramble saw his friends departing, and, with me on his back and hanging on for dear life, shot off in pursuit. On reaching the other ponies he was not content to join them, but burst straight through the middle of the group and left them well behind.
We were on a metalled road, and he could do no more than trot, but was trotting at a speed far greater than any trot I had experienced before, probably fast enough for a gallop. I was quite well used to rising with the trot, but he was travelling so fast that I could not keep up with him, and I was bouncing up and down in the saddle completely out of control.
With the benefit of hindsight, this should have been an excellent opportunity for me to pull gently on the reins and find out, for the first time, whether I was able to bring him under control. I was, however, afraid to take a step which might have resulted in my being catapulted over his head, and in any case I had to concentrate so hard on holding on to the pommel of the saddle in order to avoid falling off that I could do nothing else.
This seemed to go on for ages, but lasted probably only two or three minutes. Every few yards we would pass what appeared to be a soft grass verge, and I would wonder whether I could summon up the courage to throw myself off in the hope of securing a soft landing [I couldn’t]. Bramble showed no sign of wanting to slow down, but eventually somebody else, riding Sheila, caught up with us and grabbed his bridle and brought him to a halt.
That was the end of my riding career. I decided that bikes, having no mind of their own, were much easier to control.
If you had asked Miss Travers about this, she would have told you that Lord Brabourne and his men had fired their guns in front of our noses, frightening Bramble and causing him to run away with me.