Book 5 – Jill Dreams of a Dressage Horse

Chapter One – A New Ambition

I arrived back in Britain in April 1963 alight with new ideas, having just spent a month in Germany at a small riding school. I was on fire with a brand-new passion for dressage, which I now considered the ultimate equestrian art form. I was desperate to tell Ann, my best friend, all about it, so I hot-footed it to my childhood home, Pool Cottage in the little village of Chatton, not too far from Oxford. Ann had been living there for some time, and she was looking after two of my horses, Copperplate who was due to foal in a few months, and Black Comedy, who I had rescued last winter.

Ann was waiting for me at the railway station and drove me back in a little car that her parents had bought for her.

“Once you took the Land Rover back to Scotland, I found it hard with no vehicle of my own,” she explained.

“And Henry, how is Henry?” I asked, half-expecting her to announce that she was engaged to her boyfriend, who was a vet.

She grinned at me.

“He’s just fine, working hard.”

“And college? How are you going with your studies?”

She groaned. 

“I can’t complain. I decided to do this, go back to school and then get into Veterinary College, but it does rather tax my poor addled brain,” she replied ruefully. “But do tell! How was Germany?”

“I can’t even begin to explain,” I said. “There are the horses, the breeding is so important, and everyone seems to know so much about this stallion and that line of breeding and the other, and then there’s the politics and the war, you can still see the ravages of the war, but no-one wants to talk about it. But there is also this shiny new prosperity rising out of the ashes. It’s hard to explain.”

“I don’t imagine that the war is the number one topic of desirable conversation,” Ann said nodding.

“But the food is utterly divine,” I enthused, veering towards my favourite topic after horses. “There was strudel, roast goose, grilled sausages, potato pancakes, sauerkraut, and this most divine utterly German dish called roulade which consists of thin slices of beef rolled around bacon, pickles, onions and mustard, covered with thick brown seasoned gravy. But is 

Copperplate alright?” I asked. “I can’t wait to see her, and my lovely old chap, Black Comedy.”

“They’re both in good health,” said Ann. “Don’t worry. Copperplate is very round now. She’s only got a couple of months to go and has this dreamy look in her eye as if contemplating the mysteries of nature and approaching motherhood. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been riding Black Comedy a bit.”

“Of course, I don’t mind!” I said. “But I didn’t think you liked him, not to ride anyway?”

“Well, we certainly weren’t galloping or jumping. Just trotting around the lanes about. He really is an old dear, and not so bad for a gentle hack,” said Ann. “I found that I was missing the riding. I’ve even been teaching a few lessons at the riding school as well, in between studying.”

I nodded.

“I’m glad you’ve ridden him. It will have kept him up to snuff, having a bit of exercise. He was so fit when he won the point-to-point just before I left.”

We drove into Pool Cottage, and it was sitting there, all homely and snug and I felt as if I were being welcomed back to my own place in the world. Copperplate was snoozing under a tree in the warm spring air, and Black Comedy had his head down grazing nearby. They looked very companionable, and gratifyingly they both seemed to recognise me and ambled over to the gate.

“Gosh, she does look like a little elephant!” I exclaimed. “Absolutely enormous! I don’t suppose it could be twins?”

“Well, that would be a turn-up for the books. Henry has assured me that it’s rare for horses to have twins, and they often don’t survive, so let’s hope not. Especially as it is her first foal,” replied Ann.

“When are you heading up to Scotland?” she asked as we went inside for a very comforting, and very British cup of tea. I had been drinking coffee for a month now, and it was good to get back to what was familiar.

“I’m catching the overnight sleeper tomorrow evening,” I replied. “Mummy is due any minute, and I don’t want to miss the big event.”

“Are you hoping for a brother or a sister?” asked Ann.

“I don’t mind. What do you think? I’ve always just been an only child. You’re the one with two sisters?” I asked.

“Well they’re alright, but they can be a bit annoying. I think a brother might 

be interesting, something a bit different. At least he won’t be borrowing your clothes without asking!”

“Let’s see what Mummy produces,” I said as if she were a magician about to pull a bunch of artificial flowers out of a hat.

“As long as it’s healthy,” said Ann and grimaced. “Gosh, I hope I don’t start spouting clichés at every turn.”

“I thought I might go and visit Black Boy and Lavender tomorrow,” I said changing the subject. 

“Oh, that is a good idea,” agreed Ann. “You can get the lowdown on Susan Pyke’s wedding. Mrs Ellison-Heath is Susan’s godmother, isn’t she?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Susan Pyke, to those readers not familiar with my childhood, has always been that ‘mean girl’, not only at school where she and her cronies had taunted me endlessly, but also in the horse world of gymkhanas and shows, and even just passing each other riding down country lanes. I had been teaching myself to ride when I had my first pony, Black Boy. Susan, at that time, had a very showy show pony called “La Blonde” – and I think that just about says it all!

The years had rolled by, and my riding had improved, and a few months ago, Susan and I had competed in the Ladies Race at Grassmere Point-to-Point. I had ridden my ex-steeplechaser, Black Comedy, who I had rescued from a horrible, cruel man who had punched him in the nose in front of me. Susan had ridden a malicious black stallion appropriately named Diablo, which means ‘devil’ in Spanish. We had been neck and neck, and I had drawn ahead on the valiant Black Comedy, and he had slightly stumbled, and although we had gone on to win when we had crossed the finishing line, I had been hanging around his neck. It had been in all the local papers and was a huge joke. I had to laugh along with everyone else, but it rang very hollow. Susan had been determined not to lose the limelight. During the prize-giving, in an extraordinary display of one-upmanship, she had announced her engagement to Bartholomew King, a Rychester solicitor. Ann and I were finding it hard to imagine Susan getting married. She would be the first of our cohort to get hitched.

Ann had written and told me how she and Henry had been invited to the engagement party. Apparently, plans were rushing ahead, as a June wedding was considered de rigeur. The happy couple were to live in a house that was being built in a new development on the outskirts of the nearby town. It was a large four-bedroom property with not less than two garages. Such developments were springing up like toadstools. I had heard them described as ghastly tentacles that were engulfing the countryside.

Susan was styling herself as one of the ‘ladies that lunch’ in Rychester. It seemed rather an anti-climax to our years of trying to out-do each other. Whatever I did, it was never going to be living in an upmarket housing development, a housewife with a professional husband and a daily help who came in to clean the house every day. Utter anathema! I would be a poor gipsy living in a caravan on the edge of a moor, an eccentric who lives in an old railway carriage in the woods or a socialite who summers in the south of France, but never just plain and boring and a housewife. 

I rang ahead to the residence of the Ellison-Heaths to ask if I might come to visit the following afternoon. It really Would Not Do to drop in casually. Mrs Ellison-Heath was not the sort of woman who would countenance such behaviour. She was not only the god-mother of Susan Pyke, which had to be a blot in anybody’s life, but she was extremely pretentious with strangled vowels, all manicured and lacquered, and talked without ceasing about her dreadful garden; impossibly neat herbaceous borders, mauve aubretia, sundials, birdbaths and sheltered nooks. However, on the plus side, her eleven-year-old daughter, Lavender, was actually a decent sort of girl. She rode well and aspired to compete in showing classes. Lavender also looked after my darling Black Boy extremely well. He lacked for nothing and was round, glossy and had the look of a smug pony who knows he is on a good wicket.

Mrs Ellison-Heath feigned delight at my suggestion that I might visit and asked politely about my trip to Germany. There was just a faint whiff of disapproval in her voice; no doubt she was remembering the war and the universal hatred of the dreaded Bosch. 

After lunch the next day, I dressed with care, hauling out my newest jodhs, which I had purchased in Germany and a rather stylish sweater, a jolly bright emerald colour with an intricate pattern of cable stitch and a rather nicely turned collar, which was all the thing on the Continent. There was a brisk breeze blowing outside, so I donned my new suede jacket that made me feel very modish.

I walked through the village to the Ellison-Heath house, and it was good to be back. As they say, going away is fun, but coming home is the best, and Chatton would always be my home. Several people called out cheerful greetings from their gardens or front doors, and the sun shone, and all was right with the world.

“How is your mother?” 

“Has the baby been born yet?”

“How is the weather in the Highlands?”

They chorused with interest. 

“Mummy is fine.”

“The baby is due any day.”

“The Highlands are beautiful but cold.”

I replied.

I walked carefully down the drive to the Ellison-Heaths and rang their front doorbell, which chimed a rather nauseating tune inside the house. I was relieved when it was Lavender who answered the door.

“Jill! Jill! It’s wonderful to see you!” she said, in a gratifying display of welcome. She was an attractive, but unusual-looking girl; long brown hair that was neatly plaited, a small pixie face with a tip-tilted nose and unusual almond-shaped black eyes that were set at angles like a cat. I wondered how such an original and interesting girl had been born to such a ghastly mother. I hadn’t met her father and wondered what he might be like. 

“Come and see Bingle Jells, I mean Black Boy,” she apologised, as a sop to my sensibility. Renaming my loyal pony, Bingle Jells had been exceedingly odd, and it was one of life’s great mysteries why such a decent girl like Lavender should do such a thing. I didn’t want to ask. Somehow it seemed too intrusive to question such behaviour. But at least Bingle Jells had a certain idiosyncratic charm, not like the deadly name – Danny Boy!

Lavender grabbed my hand and towed me around the path to the stables. 

“We’ve been practising for days, and I hoped you would come, I know you’re going to love this!” she enthused.

Black Boy nickered as we hoved into view. He rubbed his head, affectionately against my shoulder as Lavender tacked him up. I resisted the impulse to pull away to save my new suede jacket from being soiled. Affection from ponies is more important than stylish clothes!

“What was Germany like? Did you learn wonderful things? What is real dressage like?” she asked in a non-stop stream of questions. “Just wait and see what we can do!”

I became more and more curious, wondering if she had mastered a classical dressage movement after studying some book on horse-riding. I watched as she mounted and rode around her very professional schooling area. It was sixty yards by forty yards and would have been Ann and my ultimate dream when we were Lavender’s age. We had had access to the arena up at Mrs Darcy’s, but besides that, it had been a flat area in the field at the back of Pool Cottage or riding up and doing circle work on the Common.

Lavender was assiduous in following the rules, and she warmed up for at least ten minutes, first walking on a long rein, then trotting in large circles 

before beginning to ask for more impulsion and taking up more contact. I watched with new eyes now that I had been introduced to some of the finer points of dressage in Germany. I was surprised to see that Black Boy really did drop his haunches and bend at the poll, rather than my childish version of collection, which had involved sitting in the semblance of a correct position and riding on a short rein. I noticed that somewhere along the way Lavender had mastered the art of half-halts, which are the way you tell a pony or horse that you’re going to ask for a transition to another pace or perhaps a greater degree of collection.

Then Black Boy was strutting at an extended trot down the side of the arena, and he was pointing his toes like a ballerina with impressive impulsion.

“Well done!” I shouted, thinking that this was what Lavender had wanted to show me. I must admit I felt a little aggrieved that she was achieving an extended trot that I had not even dreamt of at her age.

“That’s not it, here goes!”

They turned up the centre of the arena, and now Black Boy was cantering with an outstanding degree of collection. After four strides, they did a flying change, on a straight line, and then the next stride another flying change, and on until near the end of the centre line.

“He’s skipping, I’ve taught him to skip!” laughed Lavender. “What do you think?”

I thought it was utterly amazing and I was, on the one hand, touched that she sought my approval, but on the other, I had learnt enough to know that this wasn’t skipping, but one tempi changes of leg – one of the most advanced manoeuvres. Something that I was nowhere near attempting. To my chagrin, I felt overcome with envy that Lavender should have done so effortlessly what many riders aspire to but never achieve. My mouth opened. She pulled up and looked over anxiously, asking again.

“What do you think? Isn’t it fun?” 

I recovered my wits and made congratulatory noises, clapped my hands vigorously and shouted ‘bravo’, ‘bravo’ several times. Lavender was something else. She had a gift that had to be cherished, and I was determined to make sure that My Better Self Triumphed.

“Lavender! I’m stunned! How did you do this?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. We practised flying changes in a figure eight, like you do when you’re doing your workout in a showing class and then I thought I might try it on a straight line and we just sort of did it. He is the most amazing pony, and that is down to you, Jill.”

I would have liked to have believed her. Certainly, I’d put in the groundwork, but the credit had to go to this quite stunning young girl. I was determined that I had to do everything in my power to help her get some proper training. I had the feeling that she did have the talent to get to the very top.

Lavender was desperate for me to teach her some of the things that I had learnt in Germany. It took all my brainpower to come up with something. I tried to remember all the things that I had seen and tried in Germany; first, there were all the ‘p’ words – passage, pirouette, piaffe, even that weird one ‘putting the horse up together’. Then I remembered a rather tricky dressage movement in one of the more advanced tests. Walking forward six steps, rein back four steps and then walking straight on. Achieving this required accurate riding, although it was hardly in the realm of one-tempi changes and extended trots.

I couldn’t fault Lavender’s attitude. She didn’t swank, nor sneer at my instruction but listened to every word and achieved the movement very creditably.

“Thank you so much, Jill. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked you for a lesson. Will I ask Mummy to pay you?” she said, a little frown on her face.

“Not at all. I love coming to see you and Black Boy so happy together. You’re the best child rider I’ve ever seen,” I stated quite honestly.

“I’m sure I’m not,” she said, but her face did light up at the compliment.

We went into tea, and there were tiny little triangle sandwiches with parsley garnish and even smaller iced cakes with silver baubles and we had to eat about a dozen of each to appease our hunger. Lavender plagued me with questions about Germany; the horses, the people, the things that I had learnt, and I did my best to describe it all to her.

“You know Mummy has bought all your books for me to read. I can’t tell you how amazing it is to have such a wonderful pony and have his whole riding history written up in books, and they’re so funny. Sometimes, I laugh so much I want to cry.”

I felt embarrassed by this hero-worship. Finally, I left feeling wrung out like an old grey dishcloth. It was as if I had been on a roller-coaster of emotions. 

On the one hand, I felt buoyed up by her blatant admiration, but, on the other hand, her youth, vitality, and sheer enthusiasm made me feel rather old and has-been. I wondered whether my ambitions weren’t rather ridiculous in the face of her natural ability. Then I pulled myself together. I might never get to the top as a dressage rider, but at least I could teach. That was one thing of which I was sure, and it was a noble and selfless ambition.

As I was about to leave Mrs Ellison-Heath swept in.

“Oh! Jill dear! I’m sorry, I almost missed you. I’ve been around to see dear Susan. She is just drowning in a welter of wedding preparations.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that she is to be married in June,” I replied politely.

“Lavender was looking forward to taking part, but she’s a little too old to be a flower girl and not quite old enough to be a bridesmaid,” said Mrs Ellison-Heath.

I murmured something indistinguishable. Privately, I thought that Lavender had had a lucky escape!

That evening, I settled into my rather cosy sleeper bunk on the train. Although I felt that I qualified as a bit of a world traveller, having been to Germany and back, this was still a novel experience for me, and I rather liked the idea of going to sleep and waking up somewhere quite different. The train chugged and clicked and whistled its way through the moonlit countryside. I lay down to sleep, and it seemed to pick up speed. Hurling itself through the darkness, snaking around corners, shrieking its whistle as we sped through tiny towns, occasionally brakes grinding as it clunked to a stop at the larger stations and then I could hear voices and doors banging as people got on and got off. Eventually, I slept and woke early, opening my eyes to the prehistoric light. We must be in Scotland by now, and the landscape was a murky yellow-brown colour. I was back in the Highlands, the realm of chivalry and romance. 

The train drew into the tiny station near home and Richard, my stepfather, was waiting for me on the platform. 

“Is Mummy alright? Has she gone to the hospital?” I called anxiously, as I tumbled out of the carriage door weighted down by my luggage.

“She is fine. I left her behind, stirring the pot of chicken broth,” said Richard stepping forward to help me with the two heaviest of my bags. “She can’t wait to hear your news, and there’s no sign that she’s about to have the baby immediately,” he told me reassuringly.

Mummy was standing on the steps of the castle waiting for us. She was enormous.

“I believe that you are as wide as you are tall!” I called out to her, bounding up the steps and gingerly hugging her, while Richard staggered from the Land Rover weighted down by my luggage.

“It’s alright. I won’t break!” she laughed.

“I can smell the broth from here,” I said cheerfully, looking forward to the traditional homecoming bowl of goodness that was served to new arrivals 

and those returning to the castle after an absence. Chicken broth for breakfast might not be conventional, but it was rather delicious and extremely sustaining. 

I was looking forward to my day, riding Balius, my beautiful young grey horse. I had asked Richard to make sure he was shod in readiness for my return, and I planned a long, solitary ride up to the loch and perhaps over the hills to the sea. I felt like I needed some time on horseback out in the fresh air to think about all the things I had seen and learned in Germany. Riding in an arena was brilliant to shut out distractions and focus on technical details, but it wasn’t the same as being out in the open, at one with the countryside and your steed. Tomorrow I would take him over to my friend, Linda, who owned a riding school a couple of miles away. It was Linda who had recommended the riding centre on the outskirts of Munich, where I had gone for the last month, and there were so many things that I wanted to discuss with her. I had also carried back letters and parcels from her friends there and had bought her a couple of German books on dressage. She would be my link with what I already knew and what I had just learned. 

I wanted to talk to her about buying a dressage horse. Of course, there was no way I could afford to go to the prestigious spring horse sale at Verden where they got the most amazing prices for world-class horses, but Linda would be able to help me find something like that in England. I thought we might go off in the horse box and drive around the country looking at horses along the way. I had the inkling of an idea now of the direction in which I wished to go, but I couldn’t do it on my own.