Whispering Back (7 page)

Of course, my early years of riding were peppered with incidents in which I nearly came to grief. One of the more memorable happened when one of my old friends, Ben, visited with his future wife, Louise. We had taken Sensi with us to the pub, half a mile from her field, one balmy summer’s evening when Nicole was away. She was all tacked up, and seemed to be enjoying visiting the pub, where we sat on the benches in the garden. Ben had bought her a pint of beer, thoughtfully presented in an old ice cream tub, which she sniffed, slobbered in and then ignored while she began to tuck in to the lawn. The scene was one of absolute peace. The type of situation that any horse can turn into an emergency in the blink of an eye.

Standing nearby was a bin, which consisted of a steel cylinder held within a frame, made up of vertical strips of metal that ended in decorative curls. Smelling the salt from packets of crisps, Sensi began to investigate by sticking her head in. Before it even happened I knew she was going to get her bridle caught and I leaped up to disentangle her, too late. Feeling a jab on her mouth, she lifted her head sharply, only to find the bin came up with it and bashed her in the face. Panic set in immediately as she tried to get rid of these rather cumbersome blinkers. She reared up, with the bin still hanging off her mouth, banging up and down within its holder, showering her face with rubbish that only added to her shock. She wheeled round as fast as she could in an attempt to escape, while I held on to the reins, and was lifted bodily into the air, until I found myself flying round her in a circle, parallel to the ground.

Thankfully the bin somehow fell off her face and we stood there, shaking, while Ben and Louise, their faces ashen, emerged from under the table to check that we were OK. The rest of the pub’s clientele, being English, pretended that nothing untoward had happened, and they had not, just seconds before, been in danger of having a man, a horse and a large bin fly into their laps, or through the huge plateglass window they were sitting next to.

But, otherwise, things went very well with Sensi until she reached the age of about five. It was then that Nicole, encouraged by textbooks and peers, decided it was time she moved on. This meant getting her to ‘work in an outline, on the bit’. In theory this would mean her using her hindquarters more, and keeping her nose vertical. Common advice was to ‘push the horse forward from the leg into a restraining hand’ – seven pounds of pressure in each hand, according to the only book that quantified what a ‘restraining hand’ should be. In practice, this meant desperately trying to kick her every step of the way, and pulling her mouth all the time. She disliked this, as well as the side reins we bought her, and would constantly move her head around, trying to get rid of the pressure. It also made her mouth less sensitive, which in turn led to her being harder to slow down, although she remained amazingly forgiving and never really threatened to bolt. The crazy thing was that Sensi had previously been working really well – using her back and actively engaging her hindquarters. She was responsive, reasonably balanced, and obedient in every way. She just didn’t have her nose on vertical. Sensi quite literally got all in a lather over this dubious ideal, which she resolutely refused to submit to.

At around this time, we gradually began what would probably have been the smallest business in the country, except that so many businesses were already evaporating in a sea of bad debt, for it was the early 1990s. Trading under the name ‘Sensi’s School’, at first it was only Nicole, having taken her BHS Stage 1 and 2 exams, who gave lessons to a few children. Then my godfather kindly offered to buy us another horse, and this was when we bought Wilberforce, the bay hunter with a dislike for puddles, who was far too large for most of our clientele, which strangely did not include a large percentage of heavy adult males. Much more suitable was my godfather’s next gift, Cobweb, an old palomino schoolmaster, 14.2 hands high, very pretty and popular with young girls. He never put a foot wrong in the whole time he worked, and is the only one of our horses who could possibly be said, on balance, to have actually made any money for us. By this time I reckoned I could say, ‘Sit up straight, heels down, now ask for a working trot along the far side’ as well as the best of them, so I started giving the odd riding lesson myself, to beginners. At times my Cambridge degree definitely came in handy as I not only had a nearly inexhaustible ability to pontificate on any subject (regardless of lack of knowledge), left over from the days of discussing and writing at length about books I had usually not read, but also the arrogance to pretend I actually knew what I was talking about, which was not often the case.

I had already discovered, of course, the extent of Nicole’s shocking cover-up on the costs of keeping horses. Making any money from the business was implausible to say the least, but the income from lessons helped to offset the ridiculous overheads. But I was not sure my godfather was doing us a favour by buying the new horses, for it meant there were yet more expenses involved. Nicole got a part-time job as a cashier at a building society, which paid some of our basic expenses. At a time when we did not have the money to go to the pub or cinema, the six-weekly shoeing costs alone were appalling, particularly given how infrequently either of us would get new shoes for ourselves.

The only sense in which we found the horses to be naturally productive was in creating massive quantities of manure. This endless disposal problem, however, led me to a lifelong interest. Until that time I had never had any appreciation of plants and would just as soon have watched paint dry as visit a garden. It all began because one of the old boys from the local allotments came and asked if we would mind him taking some manure away. As we gathered it frequently to combat parasitic worms, but had nowhere to put it, we were more than happy to let him take all he wanted. This led to Nicole making a throwaway comment of similar magnitude to the one I’d made in Sensi’s first field a few years before.

‘I wonder where the allotments are? Perhaps we could get one, and grow some potatoes or something with all this muck?’

Within a year we had four, very well-fertilised allotments, producing dozens of varieties of vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers, as well as billions of well-fed, happy slugs. At first, I literally didn’t know a radish from rhubarb. We set to work digging up the thick clay in a vain attempt to destroy the invading hordes of couch-grass and nettles, plastering chemicals on the insects and slugs that devoured most of what we planted. It was hard work, but when we had our first harvest of ten, fresh sweetcorn, it was all worth it.

We began to discover new ways of gardening, and eventually abandoned the traditional methods of soil preparation for a no-dig, organic approach. This did not come easy to Nicole, who had by now got into the almost endless task of turning the soil to knock back the weeds, which somehow always seemed to thrive more than any expensive, vacuum-packed seeds bought in the shops. We could almost hear the old boys tut-tutting as they continued their time-honoured practice of digging the heavy clay, while we would simply empty a barrow of nearly-rotted manure onto the surface of a bed, and sling a carpet over the top to stifle the weeds until spring, when we would lift off the cover to find abundantly healthy soil, ready for sowing, with the manure mixed in by worms who had been working hard all winter. The warm, dry micro-climate produced by our carpet mulch also encouraged beetles, who gradually reduced the number of slugs to a manageable level. Our favoured method in the end was to raise plants in biodegradable pots on the tiny windowsill of our one-bedroom flat, before planting them, pots and all, through holes in the carpets, using a bulb-planter. This gave us amazing results for much less effort. It was not the last time we would find that ‘alternative’ ways of doing things actually made the most sense. However, the old boys got the last laugh. They generally had wives back at home who would prepare a meal from the hard-earned fruits of all their labour. Nicole and I were usually so exhausted by a day riding, shifting muck, planting and harvesting, that if we had the energy to bring some produce back up the hill from the allotments, it would usually begin the long, slow process of rotting in our fridge, before eventually being taken back down to be composted. Meanwhile we would scramble to shove some bread into the toaster and a tin of baked beans into the microwave, to stop ourselves fainting from hunger. This was our contribution to nature’s never ending cycle of growth, decay and renewal, which, although immeasurably satisfying, rarely put a decent meal on our table.

And so it was that one afternoon, I came in from the allotment with a bunch of ill-fated, optimistic vegetables, to be told by a breathless Nicole, as she fumbled a tape into the VCR, that there was this amazing guy on TV. He could get a horse to follow him around without a lead rope, and put on the first saddle, bridle, and rider in about thirty minutes. They called him ‘the man who listens to horses’.

I sat and watched the first QED programme about Monty Roberts in stunned silence. It was as if a whole new dimension opened up in my appreciation of horses, indeed of life. Suddenly I realised that there was so much more to understanding a horse than I had thought. And such benefit to be gained from that understanding. So much of what Monty was saying seemed equally applicable to people. Using nothing but a rope, body language, and an acute understanding of the horse’s psychology, he created within minutes a bond with a horse he had never met before, bringing out the best in the horse and also in himself through his fundamental commitment to non-violence. The results were almost unbelievable, but it all made perfect sense. It was as if he and the horse were holding a rational conversation, all of their own. Spellbound by how he was generating such a calm presence around himself, and producing such an amazing response, I found myself being drawn into a new world, a world of relative speeds and movement, eye contact and angles, of pressure and release, advance and retreat. The world of a language he called Equus.

For me, the ten-week Monty Roberts Preliminary Certificate of Horsemanship course was like dying and going to heaven. From 8.45 in the morning until 5 at night my day was filled with nothing but horses, and I was surrounded by people who shared my obsession. It was just as I’d imagined going to Cambridge would be: bright articulate people tossing ideas around, sharing thoughts, discussing finer points, having brilliant insights. University had been a big disappointment in that regard, not just because I’d chosen Engineering and discovered that the loading weight of a plank of wood didn’t fascinate me that much after all, but also because it didn’t appear to fascinate many other people either. Even in the more intellectual subjects, like political science, philosophy, or English, where people would get really fired up and fiercely debate the issues of the ages, for many students there was still an underlying lethargy, a commitment to doing the least work (and the most drinking) possible, fuelled perhaps by a post-adolescent existential crisis. My biggest regret some years on was wasting the opportunity to pick some of the finest brains in the world. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

One of the aspects of the Cambridge environment I particularly disliked, but quickly found myself colluding with, was the level of intellectual aggression. Undergraduates wanted to be seen to be clever, and this sometimes made them extraordinarily closed-minded and judgemental. Rather than listening to other points of view, they generally wanted to trash them, using the most obscure, esoteric language possible. I suppose it was partly because there were a lot of shocked, unnerved people; they were used to being the cleverest people in their school, and now all of a sudden 5 As at A level was nothing special.

But this intellectual ferocity was nothing compared to the deeply-held, never-to-be-challenged views of many in the world of horses. Over the course of the next few years, both Adam and I would come face to face with this resistance time and time again.

Not that the learning environment at West Oxfordshire College was perfect, either. There was scepticism from tutors on other courses, and right from the very start students were desperate to impress Monty with their skills and knowledge. This competitiveness was hardly conducive to learning.

I very nearly didn’t go on the course. Like so many others, I’d seen Monty on the first QED programme, and been amazed. But it didn’t seem like a possibility to meet him. In my mind, he became the equine world’s equivalent of David Bowie – an utter genius, well out of reach. Then I saw a small advert in one of the glossy horse magazines I bought from time to time: ‘Ten-week course on the techniques of Monty Roberts to be held at West Oxfordshire College, Witney’. I looked it up on the map – definitely within travelling distance, if I had a car.

‘I don’t know,’ I said to Adam, ‘I’d have to give up my job.’

He looked at me in astonishment. ‘Are you mad? You work as a cashier at a building society. Part time. This course is about horses! You’ll get another job.’

Then I spoke to my mum. ‘I know it’s great value for money’ (the course was just £750 for the entire ten weeks), ‘but it’s still quite a lot to find all at once.’

She looked at me oddly. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, we can always lend you the money if you don’t have it to hand.’

‘But . . .’

‘No problem.’

I tried again.

‘Dad, I want to go on a ten-week course about the methods of that American chap we saw on TV, remember, the one who listens to horses. I’d have to give up my job, I don’t have the money to pay for it, and I’d have to somehow get hold of a car. What do you think?’

I knew he would say no. He hated anything that looked like a ‘scheme’. After all, there’s no money to be made from horses, and it’s not a good idea to change jobs too often. Looks bad on the CV. Besides, he would think it crazy to invest even such a reasonable amount of money in what essentially amounted to a hobby. The part of me that didn’t think I deserved to go on the course knew I could rely on my dad to back me up. Even more conveniently, I could blame him for holding me back.