The Noble Lord

I was in my teens when I first began to take an interest in horse racing. Watching it on television was something of a law at the stables where I worked as a Saturday Girl. Once the jobs were done there was a sprint to the television to catch as many races as we could before settling the horses in for the night. Back then, there was no catch up TV, and no Channel 4 +1 so if the boss had gone Hunting, I had the task of pressing the “record” button on the VHS to ensure the races could be viewed that evening.  At that time on Channel 4 Racing, one of the presenters was this lovely trilby-wearing old bloke who the infamous “Big Mac” (John McCririck) used to call My Noble Lord. One Saturday afternoon I watched The Noble Lord stand on top of a crane, remove his glasses and perform a bungee jump to raise money for The Injured Jockey’s Fund. It turns out that this old bloke was a gentleman called John Oaksey, or to give him his full title, John Geoffrey Tristram Lawrence, 4th Baron Trevethin and 2nd Baron Oaksey OBE.

And to put it mildly; he was quite something.

Born on 21^st March 1929 he was the son of Geoffrey Lawrence, 1^st Baron Oaksey and his wife Marjorie. John attended Eton College, did his National Service at Catterick, went to Oxford and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics and then went to Yale to study Law.

Having ridden since he was a child he had his first ride in a Point to Point aged 24 and enjoyed his first winner a year later. He went on be to British Champion Amateur Jump Jockey twice in 1957-58 and again in 1970-71. He rode in the Grand National 11 times, completed the course on 4 occasions and was close to winning in 1963 on Carrickbeg, having led over the last fence only to be beaten by ¾ of a length. In 1958 riding Taxidermist, he won the Whitbread Gold Cup and the Hennessy Gold Cup and when he finally hung up his breeches after being injured in a fall at Folkestone in 1975, he had ridden 200 winners in total.

Riding as an amateur jockey the rules state that you must have another occupation; and Lord Oaksey was a journalist, writing as a racing correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and also as a columnist for Horse & Hound. Once after being knocked out in a fall in the Grand National he insisted on filing his copy for the Sunday Telegraph before being carried off on a stretcher.

Enough, do you think? If you had achieved the catalogue of achievements listed above, would you be happy? I certainly would.

Lord Oaksey did something else too; he founded the Injured Jockeys Fund.

The Charity began as the Farrell-Brookshaw Fund in 1964 after John Oaksey’s fellow jockeys Tim Brookshaw and Paddy Farrell suffered falls on the racetrack which resulted in paralysis. It later became the Injured National Hunt Jockey’s Fund before finally becoming the Injured Jockeys Fund (IJF) and thus embracing all areas of the sport. Lord Oaksey was the President and Figurehead of the Charity and there is a statue of him outside the Lambourn rehabilitation centre which is called Oaksey House. The IJF has helped over 1000 jockeys and their families since it began and it celebrated the opening of Jack Berry House (another rehabilitation centre) in Malton on 20^th April this year.

Although Lord Oaksey was a charming and charismatic television presenter he was no tipster and he once received a letter from a disgruntled punter which read “Dear Bastard, I am writing to tell you that you could not tip more rubbish if Channel 4 bought you a forklift truck.” I am sure he would have laughed long and hard at that.

Up until a few years before he died he was often on the racecourse, wrapped up against the chill of the English Winter, selling Christmas cards and calendars in aid of the Injured Jockeys Fund. His health was not good in later years and when he penned his autobiography in 2003 he was already suffering from the early signs of Alzheimer’s. By 2011 John was very ill and in an emotional win, his horse Carruthers who he had bred and partially owned, won the Hennessy, 53 years after John had piloted Taxidermist to victory in the same race.

Lord Oaksey died on 5^th September 2012, he was 83.

So why am I telling you all this? Because I watched some lovely old bloke do a bungee jump, it took about 30 seconds and it was on television 20 something years ago. And I remember it most vividly, to this day. Perhaps even as an ignorant teenager, I had an inkling that he was a very special man.

Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus

The man who converted our house installed a log burner in the lounge. And the lounge is upstairs. People love our house and I personally think that there is a lovely feeling of security when the main hub of the home is on the first floor. However, the gentleman who decided to put a fire source upstairs clearly hadn’t considered the logistics of a log burner. For one, they need logs. And the size of the burner that sits in our lounge belching out dust onto my carpets and furniture is the size of a student flat. One of the mammoth sized logs that it takes would keep a small Scottish village in firewood for a year. Consequently I have muscles in my arms that would rival those of a German Shot Putter due to carrying the fuel for the sodding log burner up the original, steep and downright dangerous stairs. I challenge myself everyday that I can carry more logs than I did the day before. I even bought a proper log bag from one of those catalogues that come free with the Sunday papers. I used to scoff at items such as this. “Bah” I would think, “why not use a Sainsbury’s bag for life instead and you could save fourteen quid?” But the purpose made log bag can carry so many more logs than the Sainsbury’s bag for life. So much so in fact that when it is full my knees are shaking by the time I have staggered to the top of the stairs and I am cannoning off the door frame as I enter the lounge.

Thankfully my Chimney Sweep is always so busy that I have time to organise the loan of a defibrillator before he arrives to undertake the job for which I pay him. When he does arrive (early) with his brushes and home made vacuum created from an oil drum, he always pauses at the bottom of the original, steep and downright dangerous stairs, raises his eyes to the heavens before looking at me with a sigh and a shake of his head. And when it comes to the moment that he needs to check that his brush has popped out the top of the chimney, he asks me to go and have a look from outside as it would take another three hours for him to get down the stairs and back up again. He earns his money does Mr Swimney Cheep, just by carrying all his gear upstairs. I mean, how in the name of all that is holy did the bloke who built the house expect a log burner upstairs to be practical?

I was thinking about all this the other day when I was waiting at the level crossing. I had waited a year and a half for the barriers to lift (Steve Wright had played two songs) and I rang to see why the barriers were still down. It turned out that there had been a power cut and that was the reason that all the barriers in the local vicinity had failed in their down positions. As I found an alternative route around a field and under a bridge, I suddenly realised that a man must have devised the level crossing. Why? Because a woman would never have thought to make the barriers come down and stay down should the power fail. I suppose that's what you would call teamwork.

Riding and Road Safety

Last August a lady called Lauren De Gruchy began a Facebook Campaign to encourage people to slow down when driving past horses on the road. Since then a petition has collected almost 85,000 signatures, asking for it to be made law that drivers must pass horses on the highway at no more than 15mph and must comply with any signals the rider gives. Now I’m a horsey girl and I absolutely applaud this but are we missing something here? Where I live the roads are pretty quiet and 99% of drivers coming past me slow down, not many to 15mph, but they do slow down and in return, I lift my hand and give them a wave to say thank you. And as I was taught as a child if you are riding a horse that is so naughty that it makes it dangerous to lift one hand off the reins, give the driver a nod, a smile or say “thank you” out loud. It’s an easy and courteous thing to do and it might make the driver who drove past you at 50mph slow down a bit more the next time they pass a horse and rider. It’s just good manners and exactly the same as thanking someone for holding a door open for you. Obviously many people are riding their horses on much busier roads and I appreciate that it is very hard to thank every car that slows down when it is a steady stream of traffic. The other thing we idiots on horseback can do is to make sure the drivers can see us. And I mean really see us. I always ride in a high visibility jacket and I feel like a muppet in it. It’s bright yellow with reflective strips across it and I look as though I have just walked off a building site. People possibly assume that I am on day release from some Mental Health institution or I have just finished my community service, but I have to say I don’t care. Drivers can see me from a mile away (maybe more) and I dare say most low-flying aircraft do a double take as they fly over me. I do have a slightly more elegant (if bright yellow with reflective strips can be classed as elegant) jacket, which is slightly fitted and therefore a bit more flattering, but to get to my phone I have to unzip the whole damn thing and the phone pocket also leaks if it’s raining. Not only is it important to be able to get to your phone in case of an emergency it is also vital to enable me to take those all important “between the ears” photos that I put on Fabetube. So I wear my builder’s coat most of the time as it has a lovely phone pocket tucked away under the storm flap. It is lined with lovely warm quilting and was sold to me at a Vintage Tractor Rally by a Pakistani Glaswegian gentleman, so there is a degree of sentimentality to the jacket as well.

To complete this stylish collection, I also have a wide reflective strip that my horse wears around his neck and a reflective strip that he wears on each leg. If it’s gloomy I also have flashing reflective strips and one that wraps around his tail and a bright yellow sheet that he wears underneath his saddle. I’m not saying that I like “Hi Viz” stuff but I also have a pair of yellow gloves with reflective strips on and a reflective band that I wear around my hat.

There’s no excuse these days for not wearing reflective gear as there is so much really good stuff on the market meaning that you don’t have to look as if you are on day release if you are willing to spend a few quid. You can buy a reflective tabard for £1 on the internet and for £4.95 you can even have your own wording printed on the back of it. (I wonder if “Slow Down for feck’s sake!” would be within the law?) Wearing a tabard might make you look even more of a muppet than me in my builder’s coat but at least you’d be seen.

I’ll keep my builder’s jacket until I find a more flattering jacket with a better phone pocket, but then I won’t want to get it dirty so I bet I’ll still be out riding looking like I’m on day release. I’ll give you a wave and a smile if you pass me. You’ll see me a mile off and to all of you who ease off the accelerator upon seeing someone on a horse – my most heartfelt thanks. We really do appreciate it.

Jodhpurs on The School Run - Literally

I hate doing the school run. Hate it, hate it and hate it. I have worked to crushing deadlines and have walked out on stage in front of almost 300 people and have felt less stressed. I know that I am not alone in this hatred and as such I thought I would give you all a few tips and tricks to make the School Run go more smoothly. I appreciate that I am no professional in this area but I’m sure that you will find these “hacks” incredibly useful.

So firstly, get EVERYTHING ready the night before. Lay out your own clothes, your child’s clothes, the cat’s clothes, lay out everybody’s clothes, all members of your household must have their clothes laid out, ready to be grabbed and thrown on in the horror of the morning panic. I have been known to go to bed fully dressed as I find this can save as much as 47.8 seconds in the morning. I also find that putting toothpaste on the child’s toothbrush the night before saves approximately 3.8 seconds. It does go a bit hard overnight but if you distract them by pretending there’s a spider in the bath you seem to get away with it. My daughter has long hair and by plaiting it before she actually goes to bed, I estimate I can save another 53.2 seconds in the morning. If a packed lunch needs to be made, make sure it is prepared the night before and placed in the fridge. You may need to use half a pack of Post-it notes writing reminders to yourself and sticking them all over the house and car in case you forget it, but it does save around 2 minutes and 12 seconds. On second thoughts, if it’s winter time, you could just pop the packed lunch in the car the night before. Now, breakfast. Isn’t it annoying that children need to eat breakfast? Mine refuses to eat green gloop from the Nutribullet, so I find it useful to have a box of Aldi’s Breakfast biscuits in the glove box of my car. Lifesaver. I also make sure that my car is facing the correct way for us to jump in, slam the doors and speed off scattering gravel. There is a terrible feeling of despair and impending doom when I run out the house in the morning and realise that I am going to have to turn my car around. This takes 29.3 seconds and is enough to make us hit the time slot where we have to follow Old Bob along the road in his Suzuki Swift (I think Suzuki were trying to be ironic) on his way to collect the daily papers. There are no overtaking opportunities on country roads and even if there were, you wouldn’t be able to get past Old Bob as he never uses his mirrors and thinks his “Swift” is the same width as static caravan.

Another thing I have learnt about the school run is that it is important that your child goes to bed early and is therefore not like an extra from The Walking Dead in the morning. You on the other hand will be knackered before you have even left the house. I hadn’t realised this until I became a parent but apparently anyone under the age of 16 is physically incapable of hurrying prior to 9 o’ clock in the morning.

We did try sleeping in the car one night to see if that would enable us to make it to school on time. I had a terrible crick in my neck for days afterwards and my partner got very angry as my head kept hitting the steering wheel whenever I dozed off and thus kept setting off the car horn, so I really wouldn’t recommend it.

The only way I can see through this problem is to either buy a house next door to the school or to become really good friends with the school caretaker and sneak in at 5 o’clock at night when she is just about to finish the cleaning. There; sorted.

The Deniable Cost of the Equine

I’ve just returned from a fabulous weekend at Aintree. No, wait, that’s not right. In truth I’ve actually just had a fabulous weekend at Aintree in my mind.  I think I may speak for many people who live in the countryside when I say that holidays are far more bother than they are worth. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to head off somewhere hot and sunny for a fortnight, but by the time you’ve organised who the hell will come and feed the cat, chuck the horse a bit of hay and generally check the house hasn’t been burgled, I would just rather stay at home. Already I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking: “This woman has a horse, she must be loaded. Why doesn’t she just ring one of those pet sitter people who charge more than the total cost of your holiday to move into your house while you are in sunnier climes and look after the menagerie and the house?” Unfortunately, there are two kinds of horse owners in this world. There are the type who are rich and can therefore afford to keep and a horse and there are those who have no money to the point of destitution due to the fact that they have a horse. I hereby hold both of my hands aloft and confess (in case you couldn’t guess) that I fall in to the latter category. Horses are damned expensive creatures. They are so expensive to keep that whenever anyone (from my family to total strangers) tell me that horses are expensive, I immediately forcibly deny that they are not. So not only am I flippin skint I am also in denial. I have tried over the years to justify the cost. I inform people that they are only costly to keep when you have to pay a livery fee each week to keep the horse in someone else’s field, with access to a stable. I keep my horse at home so not only do I appear loaded to the uneducated eye but this is surely the nearest that you can get to keeping a horse for free, yes? Actually no. Aside from the Farrier who visits your property every six to eight weeks, drinks coffee at lightening speed and nails on another set of shoes for your horse to wear out over the next six to eight weeks, there’s the Vet. If you are lucky and don’t have an accident prone equine, there is still a flu booster every year and a yearly check and rasp of Dobbin’s nashers. Again if you are fortunate, Dobbin will be a model patient and stand quietly while the Vet flattens and smooths his teeth with a big cordless rasp. However, if Dobbin turns into a wet shaking dishcloth when he sees anyone climb out of a 4 x 4 in a boiler suit with the word VET emblazoned across the front, he will need of a large shot of neat gin (sedative) to enable the Vet to complete the dentistry appointment. This in turn costs yet more money. And it doesn’t end there. “Paddock Maintenance” is not cheap. Grass seed costs slightly more per kilo than cocaine and you can’t use ordinary fertiliser that you could buy from the Farmer next door. You have to use special fertiliser that makes the grass grow slowly so that Dobbin doesn’t end up eating grass that is too rich for him and ensuring another call out fee from the Vet. There’s also nice soft bedding to buy so that Dobbin has something cosy to lie on when he comes into his stable and hay; which unlike the neatly packaged plastic bags in pet shops, comes in enormous round bales which work out cheaper than the handy little square ones that would stack very neatly underneath a tarpaulin. There’s the cost of Dobbin’s worming, his insurance and that’s all before we get started on the fun bit of buying things for you and him to wear. It’s astonishing that you can buy a large plastic bucket for use in your garden for £1.99 in the local tat shop but if you were to stick a heap of these plastic buckets underneath a sign that says “Mucking out Tools” they are suddenly £8.99 and selling like hot cakes at a garden fete.

You could buy a horse or you could buy Beluga caviar and feed it to your cat. Everyday. And then there’s the time it takes to take (good) care of a horse. Okay, you can chuck the beast out in a 10 acre field and forget about it until you want to go for a ride, but it’s not really fair on Dobbin. He, his field fencing and water supply should be checked twice a day. He should have the mud plucked from his feet every day and be groomed to keep his coat looking glossy and shiny. This all takes time and why do we horsey types do this? Simples. For the feeling of sitting on this brave and trusting creature, for the gallop along the beach with the bracing wind squeezing tears from our eyes. For the red rosette and the words of praise from the judge, for the moment that Dobbin does the right thing at the right time and you remind yourself that you and you alone taught him to do that. For the moment that the combine harvester passes you on the other side of the hedge and Dobbin remains motionless; because he trusts you. For the moment that you let him go in the 10 acre field, with his mane still crimped from the freshly removed plaits after today’s competition and he waits for you to rub his forehead in thanks before he trots off to eat grass. Then and only then do you know why you do it.

Town Mouse to Country Mouse

I live in a rural area and I love it. The thought of living in the City makes me feel quite claustrophobic but at least if you run out of cigarettes or gin at 8pm on a Sunday night in the town, you don’t have to endure a trip of 15 miles to replenish the supply.

Many times over the years I have watched with bated breath as the City-dweller moves from the Big Smoke to the quaint little village in the hope of starting a new life and getting out of the rat race. These people have images in their mind of a beautiful thatched cottage peeping out from behind a veil of twisted wisteria. Behind this beautiful façade is a beautiful garden with a lawn mown in stripes and produce growing in neat lines in a weedless vegetable patch. The pond is covered in lily pads and the water is as clear as Evian, there is a beautiful wooden henhouse and the Black Rocks are laying an egg a day. The Town Mouse is even considering getting a pig to be fed on kitchen scraps and be killed and butchered to ensure their freezer is chock full of home reared pork to ensure that they survive the cold and snowy winter in the county. Now I’m not for one moment suggesting that this lifestyle transition cannot be done. I mean, Her Majesty the Queen does it with effortless ease. From wearing a frock on the Balcony of Buckingham Palace one day, to a head scarf, Barbour and a pair of wellies the next and she fits in a treat. Her Majesty however, has something that the majority of us don’t have and that is Staff. Personally I would kill to have Staff between the months of November and February as this is when the days are at their shortest and living in the countryside is damn hard when the days are short. Usually in the month of October when the mornings are crisp and the days are still bright, I suddenly develop a hankering for leek and potato soup and shepherd’s pie. For me, this signals the onset of winter and I look forward to cold days when I am snuggled next to the log burner, with Channel 4 racing on the television and we are warm and safe in the house while enormous snowflakes float down and land on the Velux windows. Now once winter has truly arrived and I have taken off my rose tinted spectacles, I remember that there is rarely snow of any merit. What there is of course is rain, more sodding rain that you would believe. And as for the garden, well, you just don’t go in it from November to February. I don’t care what Jobs for the Weekend Monty suggests on Gardener’s World, for those bitter cold and wet winter months I want to be beside the log burner watching the racing with a gin & tonic at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon. As such I would advise any Town Mouse to just forget about the beautiful garden, chuck down some bark chippings or just concrete the whole thing. This will be a help during the Summer months as when you return from your hour long commute (there are no jobs in the country) all you will want to do in your garden is sit in it with a gin & tonic. Actually, you won’t even be able to do that because as soon as the weather hints at it being Spring, the organic Farmer next door takes great delight in spreading hen shit all over his fields in the name of fertiliser. You will learn to recognise the signs – the hen poo is dumped in great big heaps in field gateways, the smell then goes away until they crack it open a few weeks later and begin to spread it. And my lord it stinks. It smells as though something has died and I have been known to do the school run with a scarf tied across my nose and mouth. My second tip to the Town Mouse is to assume that all Game Keepers are psychopaths. Approach him with a bottle of whisky, caution and do not be alarmed when he answers his front door with 4 terriers, 5 Labradors, a Spaniel and a shotgun. Cross him at your peril and always keep your dog on a lead. You may consider working from home to save the long commute and to enable you to spend more time trying to get your wisteria to survive the biting Northerly winds. This is a no-brainer, as the internet speed in the Country is so slow you can make a cup of tea, go back to your desk and the damn email still hasn’t sent. On the upside it makes your children incredibly patient as they are forced to endure constant buffering while attempting to watch anything on iPlayer. They will also become very tough children. My child has to be reminded to wear a coat and stays playing in the North Sea until I force her to come out as her lips are blue and she is shivering uncontrollably. If I’m wearing a tee shirt, jumper, fleece, coat, scarf, hat, jeans, 2 pairs of socks and a pair of thermal over trousers, my daughter is wearing a dress made by Disney and a pair of sandals. In short; there is a feeling of contentment available from the Countryside for those who choose to seek it and it’s not available in the local Londis shop. Oh and the pig at the bottom of the garden? You need a holding number to have one of them and I’m not going to even start trying to explain about pig movement forms.