A Wander in Vetland

by John Hicks

  Before the home-coming embarkation from Egypt, there was many a sad parting between man and horse-mates in the hard years of war. The ill-usage of some horses that had been sold to callous Egyptians had convinced the New Zealanders that a merciful death was a better fate for a horse than bondage to a pitiless taskmaster, and numbers [of them] for which kind owners were not available were given a painless death.

  The role of horses in war was almost at an end. Horses and horsemen were superseded by the tanks, armoured cars and warplanes which had wrought so much havoc amongst them in this brutal conflict.

  For many of the craftsmen and trades people who relied on horses for a living, the early twentieth century would have been a period of profound change and hardship. Blacksmiths turned into motor mechanics; ostlers (stablemen) vanished so completely as to drop from the language; farriers, harness makers, hay and corn merchants, had to adjust: as did veterinarians. Veterinary surgeons were fortunate in that they were able to switch their focus onto other species, from this point it is possible to trace the rise and rise of small animal (pet) practice.

  However, even if the horse as a working animal has largely disappeared, the horse will long remain for recreational purposes: in the racing industry, for show-jumping, eventing and endurance riding – and then there are the pony clubs. Consequently horses still retain a place in the veterinary repertoire and a significant part of my veterinary training was dedicated to equine matters.

  When I was a student, even in the late 1960s, horses, above all other domesticated animals, carried the mystique encapsulated by an older generation of Latin-literate vets in the catch-phrase equus dissimile est (the horse is different). Horses had been the cornerstone of the veterinary profession for so long that they were regarded differently from other domesticated animals. Some students deemed it a far nobler thing to study the horse than impregnate their minds with the trivia of inferior species. Once acquired, this, in my experience, is a life-long prejudice that persists post graduation. Some specialist horse vets know they carry a divine imprimatur denied to lesser vets who grub a living from farm work or, worse still, tending dogs, cats and other small animals.

  In any general veterinary text books available to my generation the section on horses still occupied the position of first rank. My Sisson and Grossman Anatomy of the Domestic Animals (1964) starts with seventy eight pages dedicated to the skeleton of the horse, and only twenty-six to that of the “ox”; the sheep is dismissed in a mere six pages; the pig in nineteen, and the dog in twenty-one. The cat does not exist. Feminists should draw no conclusions about the fifteen pages devoted to the magnificent genitalia of the stallion when only eight are allocated to those of the mare.

  One of my favourite university textbooks was Practical Animal Husbandry by Miller and Robertson. This was first published in 1934 and I had the devil’s own job securing the last edition in the late 60s for my second-year studies. It contains wonderful diagrams with all sorts of block and tackle techniques for hobbling and restraining horses. One is entitled “Raising a Fallen Horse with Two Farm Carts”; in the background is the faint outline of an old-fashioned hayrick complete with thatched top. It quotes Sir Walter Scott, no less, on separating fighting dogs which are locked together …they can only be separated by choking them with their own collars, till they lose wind and hold, or by surprising them out of their wrath by sousing them with cold water... There are reams of sensible sexist advice about all aspects of animal handling, such as moving animals along a road: If you are in charge of animals and have a man available, send him forward to warn traffic…

  Miller and Robertson also included a full section on washing the “yard” which is, in fact, the penis – in this case of a horse. This is another euphemism of ancient provenance, well, at least three hundred years, because Samuel Pepys used it in his famous diary. In their description of washing the yard, Miller and Robertson also emphasised the importance of removing all the smegma. What a smackingly satisfying word to describe the offensive and irritating concretion of dried mucus and cells which build up beneath the prepuce (foreskin)! A veterinary degree is a wonderful way to acquire arcane vocabulary and smegma is almost up there with borborygmi (the gurgling sounds made by the movement of fluid and gas through the intestines). In fact, I like them both so much that I shall take the opportunity to use them gratuitously in a later chapter.

  Smegma, disappointingly, lacks the patina of long usage; being only of early nineteenth century origin but it is, indisputably (Oxford Dictionary), derived from the Greek word for soap. I suspect that the similar name shared by an excellent brand of kitchen whiteware is unconnected but, there again, with these continental brands, you never know. Smegma has a certain ring to it, but I can see why they chose a shortened version.

  Before I entered university to commence my veterinary training, I had stayed on farms and spent many holidays with our local vet, Mr Betts, who worked in one of Liverpool’s sooty suburbs. Aintree excepted, Liverpool is not recognisably a hub of the equine world and Mr Betts dealt almost entirely with dogs and cats. I had very little experience of horses.

  The Liverpool University Veterinary Faculty required its students to broaden their experience during the long summer vacations in the early pre-clinical years of the five year course by working on farms, in kennels, at abattoirs, stables or agricultural research facilities. To rectify my ignorance about all things equine I chose to spend my first university vacation at a riding establishment in a leafier part of my grimy home town. It wasn’t a bad choice. One of my friends, Tony, spent the summer watching cattle being pole-axed and butchered on the floor of a primitive abattoir in Derby. Another, Richard, was consigned to painting colour coded dung cans at a research centre for some parasitological experiment. He learned that there is drudgery at the heart of even the greatest scientific endeavours. Meanwhile, I learned a lot about the complexities of human nature.

  I don’t think I ever worked out quite what was going on at the O’Reillys, but they were certainly pleased to have my unpaid labour for a few weeks. The horses were kept in loose boxes and had to be “mucked out” daily. This was to be my job. Miller and Robertson gives precise instructions: …the clean portions [of the straw removed] should, if the weather is fine, be dried in the sun, aerated and then laid out in windrows across the direction of the prevailing winds; the windrows should be turned once or twice a day. On very wet or very windy days the clean bedding should be left in the passage behind the horses and the windows and doors kept open; if this is not possible… it is usual to remove only dung and soiled bedding, two or three times daily in a wicker basket emptied into a stable barrow outside…. Each layer of straw should be laid at right angles to the last… Oh for the days before wicker displaced plastic and labour was cheap! To the O’Reillys of course, I was cheap labour. Even so, they had pared the ritual of windrows and aeration to a bare minimum. The O’Reillys were likeable rogues who slotted neatly into one of the stereotypes we all hold of the horse-savvy Irish. They weren’t the sorts to do it by the book, but they knew their horses and they definitely weren’t short of horse-dealer cunning.

  When I first arrived, Tom, a precocious late teenager – roughly my own age, but infinitely more worldly – perfunctorily showed me the ropes. It was obvious that he was not particularly interested in doing this and that he had his mind on other things. He was shagging Sheila, the owner’s daughter. There were haylofts and thickets scattered round the property for such eventualities, should they take your fancy. In fact, the O’Reilly establishment would have made an ideal set for the filming of a DH Lawrence novel and, even if Tom had never heard of the great novelist, as he almost certainly hadn’t, he was instinctively playing a lead role. Tom also appeared to ignore the advice attributed to a famous actress, Mrs Patrick Campbell: I don’t mind where people make love, so long as they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.

  Some would have considered Sheila a coarse prize, and Tom appeared to treat her as
such, but she was a willing hack for routine practice. I tried to look at it from his point of view. He was gaining experience from an older mare, perhaps past her best, but leaving his options open should a superior mount become available. He certainly kept a look-out for any promising young fillies that came his way.

  One such was the divinely svelte Perdita. Her name alas, when massacred by the Liverpool accent, lost its classical pretensions – the last syllable becoming a choked sneeze: Paair/dee/cha. Perdita was one of those horse-mad young girls who festoon riding stables the length of Britain: possibly the world. I was not immune to her lissom figure, for I was a late maturing adolescent: an innocent soul awash in my sea of hormones. In my testosterone-twisted fantasies Perdita readily qualified as a Greek goddess, albeit one with a Latin name.

  Women, so we are told, admire confidence in a man above all other traits; and Tom – in spite of, or, perversely, because of, his other rather obvious conquest – had Perdita in his thrall. There was no doubt in my mind that he was grooming her for future adventures, but I did not think he had mounted her yet.

  How could I not envy Tom his carefree nature and animal magnetism? He reaped New Testament rewards for Old Testament sins, for had not Jesus said: …unto everyone that hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away…? And thus, in biblical terms, ingrained from a thousand attendances at school chapel, I contrasted his love life with mine.

  If I were to be perfectly honest, and cast all adolescent envy aside, I had to admit that Tom had the makings of a superb horseman. I was to witness this one day when a mare – securely tied to an iron ring in a wall – was spooked by the sirens of passing fire engines. Tensed and unable to break free she became a vision of captive terror, several hundred kilos of hide-bound grenade: muscle, bone and sinew. Her hooves sparked as they struck the drive: a toe-crushing tap-dance of iron on concrete. She arched backwards, straining as she wove from side to side on the taut rope: a fish fighting on thin line. Something would have parted – a violent avulsion, with risk of injury to horse and bystanders – had not Tom appeared. With no hesitation or hint of concern for his personal safety, he laid his arms round the bunched muscles of her neck and, embracing her with calming words, drew himself towards her as to a lover in tormented anguish; and oh so gently!

  The great creature relaxed. The moment passed. Her head dropped in soothed submission, and all was well. It was an exhibition of naked courage. Tom had simultaneously demonstrated the depths of his genuine and instinctive love for his horses and semaphored his capabilities as a different sort of lover to any admiring females who happened to have seen his heroic display.

  Mucking out each morning was a breeze, save for Bruno, the gelding in one loose box. I was warned to be especially careful about him. He could well be a rig (the term for a horse with a retained testicle and which, consequently, looks like a gelding but behaves like a stallion). The funny thing was, once Bruno was saddled up, he behaved perfectly. The O’Reillys, as I later discovered, were trying to sell him before he killed someone. The moment you approached Bruno’s stable door he laid his ears back and swung his powerful hindquarters towards the door as if to say “Get past them if you can, mate!” Tom had instructed me to be briskly efficient in such situations. I must always show the horse who was boss. Since I had been entrusted with the task I wasn’t going to grovel back to Tom each time I ran into difficulties. Besides, I had the Greek goddess to impress, and he had the habit of disappearing for long stretches of time. Which thicket was I to look behind?

  I managed to complete the mucking out successfully, despite some trepidation, for a few days. But one morning Bruno seemed to be in a more menacing mood than usual. His rear end swayed warningly as I reached for the bolt to undo his stable door. His ears were flat down on his neck. I talked to him – as advised by Miller and Robertson: when approaching a horse, whether in a stall or a loose box, always speak to it before touching it. More to reassure myself than Bruno, I said, “You might be in a swinish mood today, old pal, but I’m going to clean out your box – come what may.” Bruno had other ideas. Approach from the left side and handle the head or neck first. I agreed with Miller and Robertson, I needed to try and get to his neck, put a head collar on him and lead him outside. But it was easier said than done, the only access was from the rear and it was well guarded by his hefty hindquarters. There was no advice about getting to the head and neck under such circumstances. Perhaps you should employ “a man” to do it for you. It is better to treat a strange horse with suspicion, but do not let it suspect that you are afraid of it. Yes, yes, yes! So now was the time to show it who was boss? Confidently I raised my broom, commanded him to move over in my sternest voice, and thwacked the brush end against his massive gluteals. That was both a big mistake yet, at the same time, an immensely instructive moment. Instantaneously, two panels of the solid tongue-and-grooved door between us were shattered at the height of my groin. I had not even had the wits to withdraw my broom. It clattered ineffectually on the floor beneath the stamping steel of his hooves. At this stage I decided to ignore Miller and Robertson and left Bruno to stew in his own juice. One of the O’Reillys would have to deal with him later.

  Mrs J had ridden Bruno several times and he seemed to be all she desired of a horse. Unwisely, she had never visited him to catch him and saddle him up herself. Whenever she rang to make an appointment to ride Bruno, the kind people at O’Reilly’s always had him ready for her. She was considering buying him and was visiting for one last ride that afternoon. Mr O’Reilly instructed Tom: “She’s coming at two. Get the bastard saddled up by half-one. With luck she’ll make up her mind this time.” I would have felt worse about my failure that morning if it hadn’t taken three of us to distract and coax Bruno from the loose box where I had left him but, deep down, I knew that Tom would have managed by himself.

  In due course the deal was made. Mrs J was upset that the O’Reillys were unable to provide livery for her new acquisition, but she had made alternative arrangements and rode off happily enough. Everybody at O’Reillys breathed more easily. Bruno was off their backs at last.

  I felt sorry for Mrs J, she seemed a decent sort, but there is no room for naivety when you’re buying a horse. Nothing more was heard from her, but as to whether that was because she was satisfied with her deal, reluctant to complain, or had already appeared among the death notices of The Liverpool Echo – I felt it imprudent to enquire.

  My little goddess could remain unimpressed and indifferent towards me, but that was all right. In this spring of my youth it was great to be alive. The world was full of beautiful, summery women and every day I saw a goddess or two. I could never be a Tom, nor did I want to be. I acknowledged, however misguidedly, that I was a romantic, and I didn’t care for coarse rumpy and, deep down, I knew that one day I would find a goddess who was interested in me. And very soon, I did.

  Chapter Six

  King Alfred and the Pied Piper of Watling Street

  Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,

  Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,

  Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,

  Families by tens and dozens,

  Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives --

  Followed the Piper for their lives.

  – Robert Browning: The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

  In the event, the goddess I found had equine connections in the form of a much-loved pony whose full name was Coffee Cariad (the last name being Welsh for darling). He and I competed on unequal terms for her attentions. While he was petted and pampered in a field a near the Lanfear’s house in Radlett, just north of London, I was suffering the rigours of my demanding university course nearly two hundred miles away in Liverpool. While Coffee yielded to the delights of long grooming sessions with dandy brush, curry comb and hoof pick, I was sequestered in a small student bedsit poring over dense texts or cramming for tests and exams – pining for my next encounter with Coffee’s winsome owner and th
ose sweet moments when the drudgery of existence would be effaced by her loving companionship.

  Whenever possible I made the trip south and, I have to concede, Viv occasionally forsook Coffee and travelled to Liverpool. For the first year of our courtship we made these journeys by rail but, on my twenty-first birthday, I was given a green Morris Minor by my parents. I felt immensely privileged, and slightly guilty because of it, but I was now free to beetle down to Radlett whenever I could.

  The start and finish of the drive weren’t too demanding. I picked up the M6 outside Liverpool, came off it somewhere near Stafford to catch the A5, and trundled across the Midlands to join the M1 near Coventry. In those days there was no motorway link between the M6 and M1.

  The A5 is an ancient highway, still known by its Saxon name of Watling Street. In the ninth century it marked part of the boundary to which Alfred the Great, from his stronghold in Wessex, had rolled back the invading Vikings. South and west of Watling Street was Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon kingdom; north and east of it was the area administered by the Danes. On modern maps Watling Street drives, as straight as when it was built by the Romans, through what is now a densely populated area of England. Where the legions once marched in orderly files behind their proud standards now, nearly two thousand years later, lorries thundered along a three-lane highway spewing their acrid, blue fumes. During the early 1970s the A5 was, until the M45 link was finally completed, a dangerous bottleneck on the major route connecting north with south, and it was regularly disrupted by delays for road works and traffic accidents.

  One sombre winter’s afternoon, as the beetle and I reluctantly headed back to Liverpool, we stumbled on the police just as they were starting to close off the A5 near Cannock. I cursed my luck, for we were the first to be diverted. There was a detour sign and I followed the arrow, assuming that we would soon be directed back onto the A5. But, perhaps typically, after a couple of signs the trail petered out. Assuming I must have missed one, I pulled over to the side of the rather minor road where I now found myself, and studied my trusty AA road atlas. It was disconcerting to know that I had not the foggiest idea where I was. I felt a bit like the unfortunate tourist lost in Ireland who asked a local the way to Tipperary. “Now if I was going to Tipperary” the local is purported to have answered, “I wouldn’t have started from here!” Where the f*** were we? A large truck had pulled up behind me. He was blocking the road, but seemed strangely content to sit there.