Tuesday 31st March

The equine character in this series of photoes was called Twinkle. She came into our lives a few weeks after we'd moved to Hoxne.  I took a 'phone call which complained that a small dapple grey pony was playing in the traffic two or three miles  along the road from us. The game she was playing was called havoc, or that at least was what she was causing. At this time (the late sixties) every east Anglian police officer kept a halter in his garage, so pausing only to pick up my halter I set off on my bike in the direction of Stradbroke (the place of the last recorded sighting of the pony).  I found him at a crossroads (harassing traffic).  I  leapt off my bike, applied the halter,  remounted the bike,  clasping the halter in my righ hand, with the pony trotting along beside me, back towards Hoxne.

I seemed to spend the next few days on the 'phone, trying to find the owner of the pony without much noticable success. No one seemed eager to claim the pony that the girls had now named 'Twinkle'.

Two or three days later I finally took a 'phone call that looked like being  helpful from a lady farmer who lived just the far side of  Stradbroke.  She'd lost a pony who sounded very like the one that Sarah was at that point riding round the front lawn on a halter. The putative owner's parting shot was not reassuring.          "If you have children" she said "Don't let them near that pony. She's vicious.

   
Later that afternoon the pony owner drove over to identify Twinkle, which she did; and I could see within minutes what the problem was.    She was afraid of him.  She stretched her right hand out to full length and patted his neck with three trembling fingers .He replied by laying his ears back and baring his teeth at her. The owner said she didn't know how she was going to get him home. She didn't have access to a horse box, and anyway he always tried to bite or kick her, if she went near him. I suggested a return trip by the same  method I'd used to get him to Hoxne, and all went without a hitch.  I think I must cut this story short by saying that in the end I taught our two oldest girls to ride, and also the horse owner's  daughter who was about Sarah's age (and who wasn't afraid of the pony).