Goodness me, how time does fly. It's now a week since
I posted last, and it's time that situation was rectified. So, before
I get too tied up with
Christmas present buying, creating the
Christmas round-robin (a difficult one this time) and sorting the Cards out in time to meet the international posting deadlines, thought
I'd recount
the story of
Prince, a Rocking Horse who has been a friend both to
Peter (since he was a Toddler during the
Second World War) and then
Philippa who inherited him when she too was a small girl in the
1970's.
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| Prince the Rocking Horse - a frontal view |
Exactly how he arrived to become
Peter's friend - they "rode" for many hundreds of miles together until
Peter became too big to ride him - is not clear. Family legend says that he was made for
Peter by the young soldiers of his
Father's regiment (the
Manchester Regiment) when both were serving in the
Liverpool area during and shortly after the
Liverpool Blitz.
Prince moved everywhere the family did - which was frequently at that time - but spent some of
Peter's childhood in
Manchester where the family eventually purchased a home (as opposed to living in military billets).
I don't think he moved with them when
Peter's Father's regimental posting to
Singapore took the family there and what happened to
Prince once they all returned and they went off to their respective boarding schools is also somewhat hazy, but
I would surmise that he stayed with
Mum (who provided the family hub after their
Dad died in 1951).
While they all lived in
Manchester, the story goes that
Peter was loth to allow anyone else to ride him - with good reason apparently. One day, one of his many cousins came to play and was allowed to ride him - without supervision. Alas, said cousin decided it might be fun to see if his mane and tail came off - and before the grown-ups could stop him, sure enough he got them off. The result was that from that time onwards until many years later, he was a
Rocking Horse minus mane, tail and forelock. However
Mum was able to rescue the brown mane and tail - and it was carefully stored away until such time as the right person could be found to re-attach them. It's a specialist business achieving such results and it was a long time before we were able to get the job done.
My first memory of
Prince was shortly after
Peter and
I got married in
1969 when he was living in an allotted space in
Mum's bedroom - which is where
I think
Philippa first met him (although she was too small at that time to actually sit on him). However, by
1973 he had taken up residence with us, and travelled wherever we happened to be.
Philippa too (the name actually means "Lover of Horses" in
Greek we discovered after we had christened her) spent many a happy hour riding
Prince everywhere in her little imaginary world.
(She
did have riding lessons a few years ago under guidance from a
Household Cavalry instructor - courtesy of the
FANY, but after a nasty fall, has rather lost her nerve. She is determined to get back in the saddle one day - but not quite yet!
However, her love of horses is unquestioned)
.
The one photograph
I have of her in such mode is not very clear and would have to be scanned into this post - and, alas, as I type this, the printer/scanner is being doctored after we suffered a bad paper jam late last week.
(
I have been absolutely lost without it - never thought I could get so attached to a blinking machine!) Also, my scanning efforts to date have not been as successful in our posts as are the digital illustrations.
 |
| Showing Prince's brackets and Stand |
When we emigrated to
Canada in
1975, Prince came along too - and continued to occupy
Philippa until she too got too big to ride him.
I don't recall
Clare riding him very much - somehow she and horses (
Rocking or otherwise) have never been close and
I suspect she found him a little unsteady for comfort. After all this time, and travelling inter-contintentally his brackets had indeed got a little rocky.
Alberta's climatic conditions (dry, cold winters and similarly dry summers - interspersed with torrential downpours occasionally) together with the central heating did not do
Prince's wooden frame a lot of good - because his paintwork began to flake and he also showed signs of cracking. However, he carried on - often acting as a clothes horse when cupboards etc. were full!
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| Prince, side-ways on showing off his saddle and strirrups |
For the next ten years, after we returned to the
UK , Prince spent his time somewhere in our house - usually covered with an old unused gentleman's coat - to keep the dust off. However, in
1998 we sold our house - as
Peter became increasingly less well and moved into a small apartment where
Prince could no longer be accommodated.
Philippa who had been appointed
Prince's guardian by this time, was living in a small room in
London, and then moved to work in
Belgium, so
Prince was put into storage together with our excess baggage. In
2000, we moved again - this time to a bungalow - and while he could not stay in any living space, there was room for him in the attic so
Prince took up residence in a large space - which could get quite cold during the somewhat wetter winters in
Lancashire, which again did his wooden frame no favours. Still, he soldiered on until
Philippa moved into a large enough flat where he could be comfortably housed.
He has been with her ever since and a couple of years ago, she managed to find a specialist
Rocking Horse Restorer to put the old fella to rights. You will notice that his forelock, mane and tail are now properly attached, but this time, they are Grey. (Horses are never white as you know - unless they are the
White Horses we have here in
Wiltshire, which have been cut out on hillsides with
Limestone soils): they are different shades of Grey. The
Restorers confirmed that he is a "
Liverpool" model, but his Brown mane was incorrect - which does, in my view, confirm the family legend referred to in the introduction: that
Prince was indeed a handmade present to
Peter based on the
Liverpool Rocking Horse Model - but because it was war time, the crafters used whatever material came to hand - which just happened to be
Brown!
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| Prince in his corner in Philippa's living room |
In addition,
I never remember him being so
White - in my recollection, he was more of a creamy yellow colour, which again confirms his original artisan origins
, where they made do with what they could find at the time..
Prince now stands proudly in
Philippa's living room in
High Wycombe - and awaits any
Little People who come to visit for lunch or to stay and who happen to be the right size and weight to sit comfortably and safely on him. In the interim, as an elderly gentleman (in human terms he's got to be in his
70's), he stands contentedly in his corner and watches as the days go by.
