I delve into an old box of memories

I’ve been wondering when would be the right time to light a bonfire under my teenage diaries – or whether I should keep them.

This ‘shall I? shan’t I?’ debate has occupied my mind this week after a snatched hour delving into an old box in which I keep ephemera dating back to childhood.

I’d been on a mission to find the two Premium Bonds that I have owned for decades, each bought for a precious £1 in the days when a young Ernie did the honours. I wanted to check the numbers and see if belated celebrations might be in order.

Of course I became hopelessly distracted. When I eventually emerged from the cellar, my brain soupy with nostalgia, Geoff asked “Did you find them?” I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.

But no, I didn’t find the Premium Bonds, so I remain in suspense: I’m either a millionaire or still a pauper. The answer is beyond doubt, but it’s always fun to play the game of ‘what if?’.

In the box, among the bundles of old love letters (my serious dating and early married life was a long series of aching separations) I found several crushed, half-desiccated rose corsages. These had been gallantly presented for wearing on nights of glamour when everything sparkled with an electric excitement and the port was unquestioningly passed to the left.

How dusty and distant that life seems when nowadays we all happily sit with our feet curled up on the sofa to snaffle what remains of any old bottle of hooch that happens to be available, and if it gets passed to the person on the right no-one faints in horror.

Before that buttoned-up, starchy period, my life was filled with horses. I squashed a bit of school into small gaps, but really it was the smell of hay and Propert’s saddle soap, Elliman’s embrocation and a summer-warm neck-of-horse that enriched my soul and ensured I always had grubby fingernails.

In my box of memories I found a large envelope crammed with some of the dressage score sheets that I had kept from Pony Club competitions. Those columns of numbers and judges’ written observations remind me of all my training, all my eagerness, and all my dashed hopes.

I can tell from the scores for each movement that most judges were unimpressed by my ability to ride in a straight line, marking me down for wobbly approaches and erratic halts. From what I can recall, they had a point, since I expended most effort in keeping my horse within the several acres of field, let alone in the confines of the tiddly little dressage arena.

As well as horses there were hormones to be wrestled with through the teenage years, and boy trouble of varying intensity features in far too many of those diary entries.

The ‘trouble’, I note from skip-reading a few months’ entries here and there with increasing embarrassment at my naivety, may not have amounted to more than a pitiful, unrequited longing from afar or ‘a look’ in my direction, but I agonised over every nuance.

If only I’d written it all down coherently instead of part-coded in a messy pencilled scrawl, interspersed with ‘had toad in the hole for lunch’. Instead of fretting about my two Premium Bonds I might now be cocooned by fame and wealth from a giddy career as a romantic novelist.

I suppose there’s still time, so I won’t burn the diaries just yet.

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We’re all winners in a day at the races

One of the great things about going to the races, as far as I’m concerned, is the opportunity to stare at horses. It is what racing is for: to study and scrutinise thoroughbreds and then, if wished, to bet money on whichever one you eventually decide is most likely to run fastest and stay upright longest. Then you can fantasise about how you would have spent your winnings if only your chosen one hadn’t fallen at the fourth while six lengths behind the field.

Geoff and I went to the opening fixture of the season at Wincanton racecourse last week. It was a lovely day. Six races, plenty of runners, warm sunshine, and the delight of bumping into friends after a long summer all combined to make it one of those “only here, only in this bit of England” occasions.

As with so much of life nowadays, there were sights and sounds that transported me back to childhood, or certainly to the BC Years (Before Children), when I’d join a carload of pals to head across the Tamar for a day at Newton Abbot races or to be wind-blown to smithereens at the Devon & Exeter course on the top of Haldon Hill.

At Wincanton, inevitably, the elements turned from balmy and benign to briefly hostile, when a sudden sharp downpour reminded us that discomfort and inconvenience should be part of everyday outdoor sporting experience.

Except, of course, nowadays there is no need to suffer either of those things. Racegoers can be as pampered as the thoroughbreds that parade before them – a far cry from the rigours of flood, ice and tempest that I’ve battled in the past.

There may be thousands of people here, but the horses are the stars, and they clearly know it. They strut around the paddock looking magnificent, straining and fussing at the bit, longing to be away from our gaze and off on the track.

I’m unable to take my eyes off them and can’t be bothered with the business of picking winners. A lifelong lack of success, with the exception of a thrilling half-crown to win on Red Vale in the BC years, means I leave the study of odds and form to Geoff. He doesn’t fall into my trap of picking the horse I’d most like to take home.  It doesn’t work like that, I know, and yet my heart cannot allow a stunning dark bay, that I am sure would be very happy to live its days in our cellar, to be usurped in the betting stakes by a brown horse with a less than kind eye and behaviour that places it firmly on the naughty step.

Geoff’s admirable concentration on what’s required to make the day a financial rip-roaring triumph means that he places a bet in each race and we end up £2.43 in profit. Note that it’s “we” who end up in profit for, as I remind Geoff more than once, we wouldn’t have come to the races if I hadn’t nagged. I mean, urged. Strongly.

Now I’m wondering how soon we can go again. Wincanton is a lovely venue with facilities that cater so well for every type of racegoer – from the deeply committed majority right down to the few who come to be seen. And horse poo-coloured clothing is only optional, which is another bonus.

The horses aside, it’s a great place for people-watching. Their chat and banter make for a happy soundtrack, too – at least until each race gets under way and then it’s all eyes on the track and fingers crossed.

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Best laid plans go astray at the show

ON my way to the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show last week someone asked if there was anything in particular I wanted to see. “Absolutely everything,” I said, “but I doubt I’ll get round to see it all.”

As it turned out, I really did see everything, but it was more by misadventure than design.

Even the first part of the day didn’t go according to plan. I met up with my sister at the appointed place but long after the due time because her bus travelling in from the east got held up by an incident at Ludwell. I forgave her late arrival in exchange for a remarkably good coffee, which fortified us both for the rigours to come.

Our mission, we agreed, was to see as much as we could but with horses the priority.

I had hampered myself with a catalogue. It had seemed a good idea at the time, to study while waiting for the Bus From the East, but now it presented difficulties of the juggling kind. Sunglasses one minute, reading glasses the next, fumbling, delving, one pair perched on head, the other skidding off nose, not enough hands, hang-on-a-minute I can’t read it, I say that sun’s bright – all the inconveniences that come with the inability to read without glasses or be out in bright sunshine without UV eye-protection. I know – get a pair that deals with both problems. I will, I promise.

But in the meantime I’ve this catalogue to fathom, numbers to match with riders, horses’ breeding to study in the small-print, a commentary to keep up with, conversations to be had, all the while keeping an eye out for the horse I’d like to take home with me.

It was while I was deep in a fantasy involving a beautiful part-bred grey mare and my imagined pleadings with Geoff about turning our cellar into a stable that my sister and I became separated. One minute I was behind her (story of my life), the next there was no sign of her at all.

Thus it was that, in my search for her, I tramped every blade of grass, every square inch, every tent, every stand, every display, on the entire showground. And that is how I got to see everything, absolutely every single thing, from coffee cakes to beagles to cattle, from eggs to rabbits to stunt cyclists.

I had a whale of a time, forensically criss-crossing the ground, stopping where I wanted, going back for a second or even third look at something that intrigued me. Of course, I’d have much preferred company, an ear for my wittering and a chance to share observations and thoughts, but since Fate had rent us asunder I had no choice but to go solo.

Being on my own meant I was more aware of other people’s conversations and that was how an eavesdropping came my way. I was transfixed by some leeks about the size of a heavyweight boxer’s thigh when a woman’s voice reached me from the home-baking section.

She was beside the display of ‘Best Plate of Biscuits’ and was stabbing her finger towards one. “Look at that!” she ordered her companion, in a voice that conveyed both horror and contempt. “Look! Those biscuits have been put on a doily instead of straight on to the plate. That is just not allowed, you know.”

In that split-second I became supercharged with insider knowledge. Imagine, I might never have learnt that life-changing nugget of showmanship if I hadn’t got separated from my sister. Absolute proof that every cloud may not have a doily but it certainly has a silver lining.

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When a picture can be worth a thousand words

A LITTLE introspection doesn’t do any harm, as long as it is brief and not taken too seriously. I indulged in a small splurge of it after I’d been to visit a friend in her new house where she has hung on her landing a wonderful portrait in oils of her late father.

It’s a painting that was subscribed to by colleagues on his retirement some 30 years ago. He was an Army padre during the war and, later, a rural parish priest.

He had a wife and four daughters, not to mention queues of women parishioners handing him compliments, scones and unswerving commitment. Hen-pecked and adored he undoubtedly was, by all accounts, but it is also apparent from the portrait that he was a handsome, strong-featured man with a kind face, exuding warmth.

What interested me most was what the portrait featured other than the avuncular priest and his impressive chestful of service medals and decorations. Hovering in the background, close to his right shoulder, stood a racehorse, while to his left was a section of a bookcase stacked with heavy volumes. Sure enough, his daughter confirmed that this was a man whose twin passions and focus of interest away from work were racing and books.

I love this tradition, the way a portrait references the things that gave the sitter their individuality.

I talked about it with Geoff when I returned home and we discussed what we might choose to have in our portraits when they are commissioned to hang in the National Portrait Gallery. Well, if not there, then maybe the Hill Towers downstairs lav.

Geoff quickly came up with some modest suggestions to represent his hobbies and interests, but I disappointed him by attempting to veto his suggestion for a large plate of chicken madras and Bombay potato. That doesn’t sum up your personality in any way, I said, other than to suggest that you enjoy the occasional ill-advised blowout.

Yes, he responded, indeed I do, and so why shouldn’t the world know about it?

I gave in because it was time to make the suggestions for my own portrait and we couldn’t have Geoff in a sulk.

I said there would definitely have to be horses in the background of my portrait, preferably a couple of three-day eventers because there was a time, I think it was between 10.20am and 10.35am one Thursday when I was 15, that I decided on eventing as a career. At 10.36am the same day I changed my mind, meaning that the course of Olympic and world championship equestrian history was irrevocably altered.

What else would be in the picture? Assuming this is an opportunity to show off for the benefit of my descendants, I think they would be impressed by my armful of Girl Guide badges and by my life-saving medal – earned, I vividly recall, by treading ice-cold water for what seemed like four days and flailing around blindly at the bottom of a pool to pick up a brick while wearing my friend’s pyjamas because I’d forgotten mine.

I would like there to be large tracts of sunny countryside, my favourite walking boots and running shoes, several slices of apple flapjack with my name on them, a stack of books and a pot of Dorset honey.

I realise it won’t be easy to cram all those into the background, but I don’t mind shoving over to the side a bit to make space. In fact I would even duck out of the frame completely if it would help, because I do hate being in pictures.

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Olympic riders steal the show

FROM the age of dot I have wanted to see the Spanish Riding School of Vienna in action. Those white horses, those liveried riders, all that history, not to mention the stunning spectacle they create.

As a Thelwellian child, inspired by their equine gymnastics, I would try and make my mount of the moment do something, anything, remotely dressage-like. Just walking in a straight line would have been a start, especially when the mount was a barrel-bellied Dartmoor with a serious mud-rolling habit or a hard-mouthed skewbald whose buck was worse than his bite.

But I tried, oh how I tried, and eventually, a few horses later, I achieved some degree of understanding with a black beauty who gave a good impression of sharing my enjoyment in the pursuit of perfection. Not that we ever achieved it, but there was a lot of pleasure and fun in our endeavours.

I never got to see the graceful white Lipizzaner horses in all those years, in spite of my longing. Life and other animals got in the way, time whizzed on and the very idea of such a joyous treat receded into the “Oh well, never mind” category of my mental filing system.

Then, out of the blue, my sister contacted me to suggest we went together to see a performance in Birmingham by the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. How could I refuse? All my childhood passion and excitement bubbled up as I counted off the days and prepared myself for the thrill of seeing, at last, the very highest calibre of classical dressage.

So that’s where we went last weekend, to the National Indoor Arena where the dancing white horses were in action on three nights.

Of course it was wonderful, and of course the horses stole my heart with their beauty and intelligence and utter perfection of movement in all paces. Like a perfect combination of Pegasus and Olga Korbut, they flew, twisted, turned and leapt with breathtaking brilliance.

And yet. Yes, there’s an ‘and yet’. And yet, they weren’t quite as dreamlike as I had expected. Why? Because their performance followed a truly thrilling display by three of our gold medal-winning dressage riders from this year’s London Olympics. Not just preceded by this trio of glittering riders, but, truth be told, overshadowed by them. After the dressage masterclasses given by the Paralympian, Lee Pearson, and the two Team GB dressage supremos, Carl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin, really nothing could hope to shine more brightly.

Although I had watched these three riders on the telly back in August, I couldn’t get the complete picture of their individual skills. Now I could, and I could see just how magnificent they were. No wonder they covered themselves, and their country, in a glorious golden glow.

My sister and I shared our thoughts on what we’d seen: dressage of the highest standard from the GB horses and haute école (or advanced classical dressage, including ‘airs above the ground’) of the Lipizzaners of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. All of it a true privilege to watch and none of it deserving comparison with the other, but we quietly agreed that we’d give anything to see dressage like that again, whereas we felt we’d ticked the box of the dancing white horses.

It was odd that after all those years of longing, it was an impromptu addition to the night’s big-name attraction that has got me obsessing once more and wondering how soon and where I can catch up again with Lee, Carl, Charlotte and their dancing bay horses.

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