Monkton Riding Stables

A Memory of Royston.

There was a young lad a year younger than I whose father was a bookie: not many lads liked him because of his spoiled nature. Anyway I was to meet him on the street where he begged and pleaded for me to go with him to the riding stables which were at Monkton some three quarters of a mile from Royston. He offered to pay for my ride, and on getting there, the proprietor Elaine Lodge asked me if I had ever rode a horse before: to which I replied that I had rode many horses! It was then that Elaine said ''Oh that's good, you can ride Target!". Not wanting to show myself up, I was to watch all the other riders get upon their mounts. There was Janet Shown, Linda and Diane Barlow and Elizabeth Wadsworth and some other girl whose name I do not recall. I was to watch them all mount their ponies where I was to follow on. Off we went through the yard gate which to me felt something of a doddle. But no sooner had we got onto the straight going down towards the field,the girls tickled their ponies with their crops where upon the ponies set of into a small trot. Target my pony must have had had his oats that day and wanted to take up the lead from back marker to front marker. I hadn't a clue on how to truly ride a pony and simply squeezed my legs onto the saddle. Diane Barlow made a remark and said to the other riders that I was riding like the American cowboys rode their horses:perhaps it may have looked that way to them, but to me I was saying to myself Ooh Sh*t ? anyway we all got down to the field gate. The gate was shut and Diane exclaimed to me that me being the boy that it was I who should dismount and open the gate to let them all through. The gate had a broken hinge and was a solid wooden gate where it was quite heavy to lift from off the ground and swing open. all of the girls got through the gate and without as much ado they dug their heels into their mounts and did not bother one bit about me? Holding target's reign with one hand and trying to close the gate at the same time proved to be something of a task in its self! for as I pushed at the gate Target pulled against me. By the time I shut the gate, the ponies had galloped half way up a three hundred yard stretch field. Target by now had turned and was facing uphill and was pulling against me. I just managed to get one foot into the stirrup iron where upon target lunged forward at break neck speed' thus I fell backwards. By now the stirrup leather should have released from the emergency catch; but it held tight, and with the whole of my foot being through the stirrup, Target dragged me a good fifty yards through sloppy mud where I got a mouthful of fresh horse manure. When the clip was released, there I was face down in a quagmire and Target had shot up the field minus its rider. Feeling concerned, Diane was the first to gallop down to where I lay, as I got up off the floor with only my pride hurt. Diane asked if I was all right and then said to me that she thought that she had heard me say that I could ride a horse? With this I shrugged my shoulders and explained that the only horse that I'd been close to was a clothes horse. Diane although only ten years of age and me being twelve offered me tuition on how to ride a pony and later on a horse. Diane was a lifeline for me for within months I was able not only to ride first class but even went over the jumps.

Some months later in the winter time, I was to take Major down the field with an old pit tub. Major was a colliery pit horse and would be harnessed to a a long chain attached to the pit tub all the girls would ride on the tub and then when in the field they'd sometimes help me cut the bales of hay and spread them. But on this day they decided to leave me and walk back up to the stable. But on my way back to the stables I heard the girls shouting and wailing. they were waving at me and I waved back, then it dawned upon me that the waving was frantic waving. Having ran to where they were, I was to be greeted by them motioning for me to look where they were pointing! A young girl (Carol Wilkinson) had walked across of what looked like solid ground; There was an half inch crust of dried slurry and underneath was dense coal slurry, she'd broken through the crust and was now knee deep in slurry and going down deeper by the minute. I crawled to her and tried pulling her out; I was sinking into the stuff myself. There was but one thing to do and that was to fetch a collar strap and also a long rope. Elaine saw me sneaking off with the rope and asked me what the hell I was up to, it was then Ttat she was to loose her cool and say a few unladylike words and then go with me to the slurry pond. Carol was deeper in the slurry; I crawled back to her, put the collar around her waist and then crawled back. Elaine and I pulled Carol free, she lost her wellingtons in the slurry but two years later I got them out and gave them to her, she gave a few tears and I got a hug from her.