Marjorie Quarton - Breakfast the Night Before: Recollections of an Irish Horse Dealver

I cant remember a time when horses meant nothing to me. Born and reared on the working farm where I lived until recently, they were always there in the background when I was a child, part of my life. I used to get out of bed and sit on my window seat, listening to the carthorses in the stables, listing the different noises they made. Scrunching hay, scrunching mangolds (much louder), snuffling after mislaid grains of oats, snorting, stamping and rattling halter chains. Sometimes there would be a great, grunting sigh and a clatter as one of them lay down. They were called Andy, Dandy and Fred.

The stables were out of bounds when the horses were in. They were tied up in a row with their heels towards the door, and I had the rashness born of ignorance which is sometimes mistaken for courage. I was about four when it dawned on me that the worst that would happen to me was a not very hard slap if I were caught. Well worth the risk. I crept out to the stable and made several unsuccessful attempts to climb onto the back of the nearest horse via his manger. Fred took no notice. Then, just as I was about to give up, Andy, the biggest of the three, lay down. I climbed onto his wide, dusty back and sat there happily for ages. I suppose I was missed, for somebody came running out, my nurse probably, saw me and gave a piercing scream. At once, it seemed as if an earthquake had started. Andy rocked from side to side as he organized himself for getting up. He tipped back, paused and then seemed to shoot towards the roof. It is my first clear memory. My hands were so tightly twisted into his long, greasy mane that I couldnt have fallen off if Id tried. My father had to be fetched to get me down, and there was no slap.

After that, Rody, the ploughman, used sometimes to lift me onto Andys back. Rody, nicknamed the Robin, and his son Paddy, who inherited the nickname along with the job, worked here for more than half a century between them. Once, Rody put me up on Andys bare back just before it was time to go to a childrens party. I was wearing a pink frock with matching knickers and Andy had been working hard all day, carting manure. My mother was not amused.

Clearing out some old letters a few years ago, I found an essay I wrote when I was five. It was done in careful capitals and entitled MY PONY. I had written, MY PONY IS CALLED ANDY. HE IS 17 HANDS. I LOVE ANDY. HE IS DED.

Andy died of tetanus. I crouched on my window seat, watching as the vet came and went. The paraffin lamps lent extra drama to the scene and I shivered as I listened to Andy breathing. It was a frightening sound, like a giant in distress, and, suddenly, the breathing stopped I have never forgotten that night, and never will.

I transferred my affection to Fred, who was, like Andy, a bay Clydesdale. He had a long, sorrowful white face and a perpetually drooping lower lip. I used to slip into his stall and feed him cabbage leaves, toffees, and bread and jam.

Over the stable was a musty, cobwebbed hayloft whose floor was highly unsafe. The rotten boards were patched with biscuit-tin lids. There was a ladder up to the loft, simply asking to be climbed. When it was pointed out to me that toffee might be bad for Freds teeth, I climbed into the loft and pushed quantities of hay down to him instead. My enthusiasm was such that I posted myself down along with the last armful and nose-dived into the manger after it. Fred seemed only mildly surprised.

Fred was named after Fred Minnitt, the friend my father had bought him from. Rody always called the horse Mr Minnitt, thinking, I suppose, that Fred would be lacking in respect.

*

I may have suggested that I had a good deal of freedom when I was small. Not at all. My life, up to the age of nine or so, was so sheltered it was a wonder I didnt suffocate. Most of my early memories are of walks with my nanny, securely held by the hand, bonneted and gaitered in the manner of the time.

I loved Greta, my nanny, dearly, and wouldnt have dreamed of revealing that she pared her corns with my fathers cut-throat razor. Because of those corns, our walks werent the brisk affairs they were meant to be; most ended a few hundred yards up the road in some cosy cottage, where Nanny drank stewed tea and talked to her friends about deaths and diseases.

I think I was fairly well behaved, so few scoldings and fewer slaps came my way. An only child, I shared my parents affection with various cats and dogs but with no other child. Kept at home, I saw no other children. Nanny took me for walks while my parents walked the dogs, but I saw nothing to resent in this arrangement. My mother wondered if I was jealous of her cat when I dropped him out of an upstairs window and this is the only occasion I can remember when she was really angry with me. In fact, Id been told that cats always landed on their feet and was checking. It is true. However, my mother had seen Cromwell, so called because he was remarkably ugly, falling past the drawing-room window, and I failed to convince her.