somehow part of the superiority with which our families were blessed: an attitude so intrinsic to higher-class rural life at the time that you needed to be distanced from that life in some way in order to escape it.
Against this, loving animals was much like loving people: we didn’t think of ourselves as ‘loving dogs’ or ‘loving horses’, but as loving Lola and Kim, Acoushla and Cinders. No one was personally acquainted with the animals which were pursued and killed – they were not unlike those distant Chinese children who, it was said, would be glad to eat up cold rice pudding. It was a pity that Chinese children were hungry, and it was a pity that game animals were frightened and killed, but what could you do about it? Whereas your dog and the pony you rode were your close friends , and what was more: they shared your pleasures. It was obvious that gun-dogs loved to play their part in a shoot, and that there was nothing a pony enjoyed more than being ridden to hounds.
Take Cinders, for example. He was not my first pony – that had been Molly, a dear old ambulant bean-bag whose role, played to perfection, had been to inspire trust. Cinders was my first pony for proper riding, with whom I continued until I outgrew him at about twelve; and he was a wicked bully. The theory was that because he had not been gelded until he was three, he still believed himself to be a stallion – and he did, indeed, chivvy the mares into groups and threaten approaching rivals although they were all twice his size. He also, when out to grass, used to bully children, so that trying to catch him was always a drama. He would flatten his ears, roll his eyes and chase us back over the fence, then swivel round and launch a kick in our direction as though mocking us. Often we would have to call our mother, who had mastered him long ago by swearing at him in a loud voice and beating him with a walking-stick. He never tried his tricks on her. It took me a long time to summon up the same authority over him, but I finally succeeded. And the lovable thing about Cinders was that once his opponent managed to get a bridle on him he called it quits not only with a good grace but with generosity: no pony displayed more evident enjoyment in our rides, or was more eager to take on a formidable obstacle when out hunting. Once we came to a place where the way out of a field had been blocked by a sheep-pen – a rectangle of hurdles – so that the jump was an in-and-out. I was on the verge of hesitation, but Cinders would have none of that, and bounced me over this double jump so stylishly that when, a few days later, the Master of Hounds met my father he described it as ‘a splendid sight’. It must in fact have been nearer comic than splendid – pure Thelwell – because Cinders was a tubby little pony and I, at that time, wore round glasses and two short pigtails which assorted oddly with the bowler hat de rigueur when out hunting. But luckily for me, I was aware only of the glory of it. Discovering that you were braver than you thought, and the delightful collaboration with your beloved mount: those were the joys of riding to hounds as far as I was concerned, and firmly though I turned against blood sports once I had grown up, I was never able to regret having once known those joys.
On Cinders, when he was very young: ‘pure Thelwell’
‘You ’ont never do it that way, bor,’ said our best friend, Wilfred, who was the cowman’s son, when my brother was trying to knock a tin of paint off a beam in the loft by lashing at it with a piece of cord. He said ‘bor’ (boy) not because he was much older – he was the same age as I was – but because in Norfolk everyone was ‘bor’, just as everything was ‘little’ and ‘old’ (‘That’s a funny li’l old car’, we might say, hoping to sound like our friend). ‘You ’ont never do it that way, bor, that ain’t the way to go about it.’
Piqued, my brother said snootily: ‘Why
Against this, loving animals was much like loving people: we didn’t think of ourselves as ‘loving dogs’ or ‘loving horses’, but as loving Lola and Kim, Acoushla and Cinders. No one was personally acquainted with the animals which were pursued and killed – they were not unlike those distant Chinese children who, it was said, would be glad to eat up cold rice pudding. It was a pity that Chinese children were hungry, and it was a pity that game animals were frightened and killed, but what could you do about it? Whereas your dog and the pony you rode were your close friends , and what was more: they shared your pleasures. It was obvious that gun-dogs loved to play their part in a shoot, and that there was nothing a pony enjoyed more than being ridden to hounds.
Take Cinders, for example. He was not my first pony – that had been Molly, a dear old ambulant bean-bag whose role, played to perfection, had been to inspire trust. Cinders was my first pony for proper riding, with whom I continued until I outgrew him at about twelve; and he was a wicked bully. The theory was that because he had not been gelded until he was three, he still believed himself to be a stallion – and he did, indeed, chivvy the mares into groups and threaten approaching rivals although they were all twice his size. He also, when out to grass, used to bully children, so that trying to catch him was always a drama. He would flatten his ears, roll his eyes and chase us back over the fence, then swivel round and launch a kick in our direction as though mocking us. Often we would have to call our mother, who had mastered him long ago by swearing at him in a loud voice and beating him with a walking-stick. He never tried his tricks on her. It took me a long time to summon up the same authority over him, but I finally succeeded. And the lovable thing about Cinders was that once his opponent managed to get a bridle on him he called it quits not only with a good grace but with generosity: no pony displayed more evident enjoyment in our rides, or was more eager to take on a formidable obstacle when out hunting. Once we came to a place where the way out of a field had been blocked by a sheep-pen – a rectangle of hurdles – so that the jump was an in-and-out. I was on the verge of hesitation, but Cinders would have none of that, and bounced me over this double jump so stylishly that when, a few days later, the Master of Hounds met my father he described it as ‘a splendid sight’. It must in fact have been nearer comic than splendid – pure Thelwell – because Cinders was a tubby little pony and I, at that time, wore round glasses and two short pigtails which assorted oddly with the bowler hat de rigueur when out hunting. But luckily for me, I was aware only of the glory of it. Discovering that you were braver than you thought, and the delightful collaboration with your beloved mount: those were the joys of riding to hounds as far as I was concerned, and firmly though I turned against blood sports once I had grown up, I was never able to regret having once known those joys.
On Cinders, when he was very young: ‘pure Thelwell’
‘You ’ont never do it that way, bor,’ said our best friend, Wilfred, who was the cowman’s son, when my brother was trying to knock a tin of paint off a beam in the loft by lashing at it with a piece of cord. He said ‘bor’ (boy) not because he was much older – he was the same age as I was – but because in Norfolk everyone was ‘bor’, just as everything was ‘little’ and ‘old’ (‘That’s a funny li’l old car’, we might say, hoping to sound like our friend). ‘You ’ont never do it that way, bor, that ain’t the way to go about it.’
Piqued, my brother said snootily: ‘Why
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