Not Enough Time

by Henrietta Knight

  It was typical of Terry, however, that he would not give in to setbacks and he never wanted to let me down in the yard. We continued to feed all the horses at 6 a.m., even though it became an issue for him to undo the latches on the stable doors, especially if there had been a frost during the night and the bolts were jammed. I often had to open the doors for him. The breakfast feeding took a lot longer and it became more and more difficult for Terry to bend down and feel the horses’ legs.

  Not only did Terry’s wrists look unsightly, and at times red and angry, but the skin on his hands was paper-thin. He constantly knocked them, cutting them and slicing off the top layers of skin. He bruised easily and bled freely, largely due to living on warfarin tablets for his heart and poor circulation. His wrists had been broken umpteen times and in the past had been constantly plastered and bandaged. When Terry rode in races he used to wear special supports. The left wrist was the worst. It had seen four fractures – and he had broken five fingers as well on that hand.

  He also suffered from gout, and there were numerous deposits of uric acid crystals on his fingers: hard-looking lumps, which never improved and worsened whenever he ate certain foods that were high in purine. When I drove Terry to see a gout specialist in Oxford, he was so shocked by what he saw that he asked for Terry’s permission to photograph his hands and wrists to use in his lectures to the university medical students.

  Despite the poor blood supply to his hands, Terry’s fingernails grew at an alarming rate and it was always my job to cut them. He told me I would have been a hopeless manicurist and in turn, he was a rotten patient. He never kept still, but constantly grumbled and swore at me, because he thought that I was going to hurt him or cut him. I was better at filing the nails with emery boards and he tolerated this approach. This brought back memories. In my twenties I had owned a special blacksmith’s bag full of farrier’s tools for paring and rasping the Shetland ponies’ feet on my mother’s stud – but they were a lot easier to work with than Terry. Not only did we visit the gout expert in Oxford, to no avail, but also a top consultant in the hand unit at the Wellington Hospital in London, where once more, he was told that his wrists were beyond repair and that the pain could only be temporarily alleviated by a couple of cortisone injections.

  Gradually, Terry did less and less outside. He gave up shooting because he could no longer lift the gun to his shoulder and his fingers were not able to operate the trigger or load the cartridges. It was a struggle for him and he missed these days out enormously. Fortunately, he could still watch our horses on the gallops. He continued to drive his battered old truck across the fields and would sit for hours at the top of the gallop, waiting for riders to appear. He never missed any of the horses, and if the staff or jockeys were riding badly he would tell them in no uncertain terms.

  As well as being on the gallops, he kept up his feeding of the ducks and pheasants up the lane. He still watched the red kites and buzzards in the sky and he still listened to Radio 5 Live throughout the morning, to keep up-to-date on news. Our horses continued to run well, even after we lost Best Mate in 2005, and we had some lovely young chasers to train. We kept enthusiastic for the future, despite Terry being less and less keen to go to the races. He preferred to stay at home and watch the various racing channels. There was too much walking to do on the racecourses and he could no longer get a grip of the leather straps, to tighten the girths, when we saddled up our runners.

  *

  The 2005–6 National Hunt season had produced some pleasing winners for us, although fewer than in previous years. In November 2005, Impek won the Peterborough Chase under A. P. McCoy, and in the spring of 2006, Harringay was victorious in the Mares’ Novice Hurdle final at Newbury under Timmy Murphy. Terry came racing that day and gave brilliant instructions to Timmy, telling him to hug the inner on the better ground. In the autumn of 2006, Racing Demon easily won the Peterborough Chase with Graham Lee. Yet, despite these wins, owners could see that Terry’s health was on a downward slide and we no longer went to point-to-points in Ireland or to horse sales.

  I think that a number of people reckoned we had seen our best days, and sadly, a number of our horses were not replaced when they were retired or injured. Owners either decided to withdraw from the sport, or else asked younger trainers to find them new recruits. Jim Lewis sold off his less successful horses and his one remaining French horse, Oumeyade, was moved to Paul Nicholl’s yard at the beginning of 2008. Jim did not own the horse in full and his co-owners wanted a change and a chance to be with the champion trainer, but it was a sad day when the horse left West Lockinge Farm.

  I had trained horses for Jim Lewis since the early 1990s and the departure of Oumeyade marked the end of an era. The two sets of blue and maroon colours, hanging on coat hangers in the attic, were packed up and posted to Paul Nicholl’s office. Jim’s decision hit me hard. If only he had kept just one good horse at our yard; after all, we had never done anything wrong for him with the good horses that we trained and he had experienced an amazing run of luck. Fortunately, we still remain friends, but I will never forget that final telephone call and the disappointment that went with it. Nowadays, the once Lucky Jim does not have any National Hunt horses in training, although he still enjoys his days out at Cheltenham, where he meets his old friends and admires the Best Mate statue. The golden years with the Aston Villa colours were unforgettable, and had Jim not sent us horses like Edredon Bleu, Best Mate and Impek to train, we might never have climbed so high up racing’s ladder of success.

  *

  Although our horse numbers dwindled, there was a plus side as well. Terry and I could spend more time together and switch off from racing. We lived for our holidays and we continued to travel to Ireland, mostly to Connemara, but I dreaded the airports and wheeling Terry about in his chair. He liked the wheelchair, because it meant that he could get to the head of the queues and sit closer to the front of the aeroplanes. At one time, he insisted on having a race with a fellow wheelchair traveller across the tarmac at Cork Airport. Admittedly, it was far safer having him on wheels than on his feet, but he would often prod passengers in front of him with his long walking stick if they annoyed him, or got in his way; he would then turn away pretending that it was an accident and I would get all the flak.

  The stays at Ballynahinch Castle were as magical as ever and we went for plenty of drives around the country, exploring the beauty of Connemara and visiting our friends, or attending the Sunday pony shows. We also spent many hours with Cyril Biggins, fishing on the river by the hotel, but he was careful only to take us to places with the minimum of walking for Terry and where we could find him somewhere to sit. On occasions, Terry would fish from a chair. His casting was not great, but he loved it and, as usual, spent hours trying to entice a salmon onto his line.

  On the rare occasions that I was lucky and caught a fish, I would have expected him to be jealous, but that was never the case and he was just as thrilled for me as he would have been if he had landed the spoils himself. I am not much of a fisherwoman, but I love it. I find days spent on a river therapeutic and fascinating. It is a wonderful way to appreciate the beauties of nature and switch off from the day-to-day realities of life.

  Some of the other holidays Terry and I took were on the Isle of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland. We travelled on several occasions to this amazing island and I usually drove Terry in our car; although it was a long, tiring journey and often took upwards of ten hours, it was well worth it when we got there. We were invited to Mull by Tim Radford, who owns the beautiful Benmore estate on the island. His Knock House, where we stay, is big and comfortable. It looks out across sandy beaches to the sea. The Scottish scenery is stunning, the wildlife in Mull is breathtaking and I was always intrigued by the sea eagles. When Tim is not in residence, the house is let out commercially and, not surprisingly, there is a waiting list for it. The housekeeper/estate secretary is Kim Bissett. She is most efficient and loves riding. She has a horse of her own, which
is kept nearby in one of Tim’s fields, and now there is a magnificent all-weather arena for other riders on the island to enjoy as well. Kim’s husband, Donald, is the head keeper. Not only does he organise the fishing and the stalking, he also drives the boat that takes guests sea fishing or sightseeing to surrounding islands, including Iona: a fascinating place with a big history. There is an abundance of good salmon fishing on the estate, either on the picturesque little rivers or on the vast Loch Ba, where you fish from a rowing boat. I was lucky with my fishing rod in Mull and Terry enjoyed sitting on the banks when I cast my line into the rivers. On one afternoon I caught two salmon and he posed beside me for a photograph with the fish.

  *

  In February 2011, Terry celebrated his seventieth birthday at the Eyston Arms in East Hendred. He had absolutely no idea that a party had been arranged in his honour and thought that he was just going out to dinner with my sister Ce, fellow trainer Charles Egerton (Edgy) and me. The first person he saw as we walked up to the bar was his brother, Tony.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he exclaimed, and then the secret was out, as other guests began to appear from every corner of the pub. Ce hosted the party and all five of Terry’s children were present. It was a great evening and very moving. Terry was in excellent form and looked wonderfully happy in all the photographs. It was a special party, but sadly, this was the last time that he ever saw all his children together under the same roof.

  The summer of 2011 was an especially good one. Terry and I spent some more memorable days in Mull at the beginning of July and on Monday, 25 July, we were officially married at the Didcot Register Office. We had talked about getting properly married for several years and I finally tracked down Terry’s missing divorce certificate in the January of that year through Her Majesty’s Courts Service at Gloucester County Court. We adored each other and it would have been tragic if Terry had suddenly died and we were not legally joined.

  Our visits to the register office prior to our official wedding were short and sharp, but we both signed all the relevant papers. The lady in charge seemed highly amused by Terry’s sense of humour and the stage was set. Our four witnesses were Terry’s middle son, Robert, and his wife, Gemma, plus my secretary, Dawn Graham, and her boyfriend, Tony Breakspear, who worked for the post office in Oxford and who Terry called ‘Postman Pat’.

  It was a lovely sunny day and the service only lasted for twenty minutes. Afterwards, we had a memorable lunch beside the River Thames at the Boathouse Restaurant in Moulsford. Both Terry and I were indescribably happy. Seeing the photographs afterwards and Terry’s smiling face still brings tears to my eyes. At last I was a properly married woman, even though it had been a long wait – I was finally and legally Mrs Terry Biddlecombe and I was immensely proud of my new status. I had never ceased loving Terry since the day that we met in 1993 and the bond between us had become even stronger as the years had passed by. At the beginning of August we had our proper honeymoon in Connemara and it was a perfect holiday. As in previous years, we went to the annual Connemara Pony Show in Clifden. It was a fun day and had the usual festival atmosphere. Terry met numerous friends and happily sipped his glasses of Guinness outside the Station House Hotel, which overlooks the showground. It was not until we got home that some strange accidents befell him. Looking back, these may well have been forerunners to his stroke in October.

  *

  Every morning, after we had finished feeding the horses, Terry would drive off to the newsagents, Rowes, in Wantage to collect the newspapers, which included his copy of the Daily Sport. He enjoyed trundling off to Wantage in his old truck and he met many people in the shop. They exchanged local gossip and put the world straight. Everybody knew Terry. He always came back smiling, but on one occasion in September, at about 8 a.m. he walked into the farmhouse kitchen, covered in blood.

  He told me he had tripped on an old carpet in the shop – but there was no carpet. He guiltily put his head round the door and said, ‘I’ve had a fall.’ His hands were badly cut and skinned. His nose and face were also bleeding. It took me at least thirty minutes to clean him up and he was extremely sore and shaken. I bandaged his poor old hands and applied ointments – mostly aloe vera gel. We stopped the nosebleed and I washed his face. He was already painfully stiff in his knees and by the evening, he could barely walk.

  Thinking back, I am certain that Terry had suffered a blackout that morning and had momentarily lost consciousness. He had then fallen head-first onto the shop floor. Knowing what I know now, this was most probably a mini-stroke. It was a miracle that he managed to drive home. During the days that followed, he appeared normal and his wounds gradually healed, but he never did remember exactly what had happened in the shop.

  The second mishap that befell Terry that autumn was in the yard at West Lockinge. At the time his feet were playing up more than usual. He was suffering bad attacks of gout in his toes and also in his ankles. He often wore sandals, because they put less pressure on his feet when he walked. After watching our horses on the gallops, he always parked his truck beside the house at the top of the driveway. On this day in September, I was in the office overlooking the yard and it was after the second lot, at approximately eleven a.m. I looked out of the window, to see Terry’s vehicle slowly running backwards down the slope towards the stables. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, but seemed to be making no attempt to stop it. Obviously the handbrake had not been applied, nor did he have his foot on the brake pedal. The Daihatsu rolled for about sixty yards and then veered left-handed, crashing straight into the outside wall of a vacant stable.

  At the same time, there were horses in the yard returning from exercise and used saddles were lying on the gravel. At least five members of staff were preparing to lead their horses to the wash-down area. Thankfully, nobody was hit by the truck and even the saddles escaped its wheels. I think the jolt of the vehicle as it hit the brickwork must have brought Terry back to his senses, but the whole episode can only have been caused by another blackout. He calmly got out of the side door and looked at the damage, which was significant. ‘That was lucky,’ he said. ‘My sandal got caught under the pedal and I couldn’t use the brake.’ He always had an answer and at the time everybody believed him, but when I examined his shoes, I saw that there was no way they could have been to blame.

  Finally, at the end of September, when Terry was driving up the old runway to the top of the gallops, he failed to turn left along the track and crashed his truck through the wooden fence that divides our farm from that of the neighbouring farmer. The rails were smashed to pieces, but unperturbed, he reversed, returned to the farm and merely complained that the steering had locked up on his Daihatsu. We all thought that this was strange as it had recently passed its MOT and he went up that pathway most days. Fortunately, he was driving very slowly and nobody was in his way. I could not help feeling how lucky that this mishap did not happen in the village, or on the busy main road at the top of the farm.

  I remember thinking to myself that these incidents with the truck were strange, and Bob Bullock said to me in the yard one morning, ‘I don’t think Terry is very well. He’s not behaving normally.’ Obviously I watched him even more carefully after that, but he seemed to be alert and enjoying all his normal television programmes, as well as swearing at everybody around him. He was in far better shape than his truck, which, after the accidents that autumn, had become even more battered and dented than usual.

  *

  Our last open day was held on 26 September 2011. At that time, we had thirty-eight horses in training. Terry, even though wobbly on his legs and moaning about his gout, was in sparkling form throughout the day. Instead of standing and organizing horses into the parade arena, he was happy to sit on a chair by the entrance gate, surrounded by his friends, but there was plenty of laughter and I made my usual references to him when speaking through my microphone from the little commentary box. That year we had a smaller marquee in the garden but an excellent pi
g roast. There was plenty of alcohol, plus the usual tables and chairs, so that the owners could sit around and chat. Terry told me that he enjoyed the day, but it saddened me to see him noticeably less mobile.

  After that day in September, due to the ever-increasing problems Terry had with his hands and wrists, plus the obvious difficulty that he had with his walking, I decided that it was best for me to feed the horses every morning on my own – sometimes with the help of my head lad, Andy Fox. Terry did not object to this and rather enjoyed being left in bed to sleep a little longer. However, he usually started getting dressed at around seven a.m. and after my rounds in the yard, I would return to the house and help him with his shoes and socks; he could still do most other tasks on his own. On that fateful day, 9 October 2011, when I looked across to the house from the yard at 6:45 a.m., I was surprised not to see the light switched on in his bathroom. I went straight upstairs to see if he had overslept. I knew that he had not had a good night and had been up and down out of the bed to visit the lavatory on several occasions. Indeed, he had woken me up a couple of times to say that he had a pain in his tummy, but as I was such a heavy sleeper in those days – I am not now – I had not really taken in the gravity of his problems. When I went up to the bedroom to rouse him, he was sprawled, naked, across the bed and in a dreadful state. He appeared semi-conscious and was sweating profusely.

  I remember talking quietly to him and asking him what was wrong. He mumbled some unclear words, rolled about on the bed, and then lay back on his pillows. His bad turn seemed to have happened during the hour I had been in the stables. I had left him at 5:45 a.m. and at that time he was sleeping peacefully. I did not suspect anything particularly serious, because I was used to Terry’s problems and he was often uncomfortable, but I do remember saying to him, ‘So you’re not getting up then?’ to which he replied, ‘No.’ I straightened up his legs and body to make him more comfortable and pulled a light sheet over him. He went back to sleep.