The Westbury White Horse

According to my father, the first word I spoke was horse. A strange choice as I don't come from a 'horsey' family, so either I had a grasp of the English language from a very early age, or my dad was telling tales and I burbled 'dada' just like all small people! I say this, but to be fair to my dad, my earliest memories are of horses. I was obsessed with them. One of my earliest memories was being in a hospital riding on an old fashioned wooden rocking horse. My brother was ill at the time, but that is the only thing I can remember, the wooden horse! Unsurprisingly the earliest toy I can remember was a rocking horse I called Bluebell (after the donkey in Ivor the Engine) I still have her, the rockers were removed for ease of storage, but Bluebell remains in the loft, my black and white piebald pony. She taught me all that I know about horses. I wasn't allowed riding lessons as a child, lots of various reasons that I don't intend to go into, but my parents