Page 146 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK FOUR Volume 1 "Northcote 1984 to 1998"

know what to expect and certainly did not have lots of spare cash.

We eventually hitched up the Land Rover to our big trailer and set out in the direction of
Lincoln.
It turned out she lived on a modern housing estate and in the drive, or rather oozing out
onto the road from her drive was one of those dreadful “American stretch limousines”.

Ruth was with me and we looked at each other, both having the same thoughts…...”what
have we let ourselves in for here”! The actual horse was in a stable, “ down the road and
around the corner.” It was a pony stable, part of a block and the horse was an 18 hh
Shire!

His head was stuck up in the rafters of the stable and he could just see out of the door
if he twisted his neck almost double!

She had a hankering for horse drawn weddings evidently and had bought the horse to
pull a carriage of some sort or other! She had no carriage ….yet and had second thoughts
about the whole idea.

We settled on £700 and prised “Henry” out of the stable and persuaded him to go into our
large trailer. He had been in the stable about
four days and nobody dared do anything with
him……….poor chap.
On getting him home we found he was an old
fashioned type Shire with slightly smaller head
and lots of heavy feather to his four legs.

We researched back as far as we could from
records produced from that auction and found
that he had come from the South of England,
he was a pure bred and his name was
“Medstead Ambassador” he was a black
gelding with three white legs.

His nature was excellent and kindly. He was
obedient and knew all about pulling wagons so
became one of our team taking visitors for
wagon rides around the local countryside.

(Picture here of Henry in the shafts of our ride
dray.)
Henry’s main day of fame was when I
took him to a funeral.
A gentleman who had lived in New Bolingbroke,
our last village, had died.
He had been a wagoners and his eldest son