Through the Arched Window.
My father is a farrier and amongst other places he used to work for a near by riding school where I also used to ride.
Another thing this riding school did was something called Riding for the Disabled. This is where mentally and physically disabled children get to ride. As I'm sure you can imagine the freedom riding a horse give a disabled child is wonderful. (I'll let you make your own jokes).

Anyway, Pa was working there when they got a call from the BBC asking if they could make a short film of the riding school. The plan was that they were going to follow a day in the life of a horse.
This would involve him being shod - hence Pa's involvement.
They also asked if they could have a child who could ride and groom the horse. So Pa suggested me.

Now he didn't think to mention this to me until the presenter from Playschool, the one who was in that Doctor Who too, came round for a cup of tea. Now this confused the living shit out of me. People on the telly lived in the little box in the corner, everyone knew that, so how come she was in my house. Anyway that was all I saw of any PlaySchool types.

So I was booked to have time of school and filming started.
There was father, shoeing the horse, mother sweeping the yard, and I am asked to groom the horse get on him and ride him into the field.

Now what I had failed to mention was that I couldn't ride. Everyone figured I could and I had been too frightened to put them right. I mean, I had a horse, and I had riding lessons, but like someone who has had only a few driving lesson, I wasn't competent to be alone. Also I didn't like riding, or give a fig about horses so I never really put much effort into riding. The only reason I had the lessons was that they were free and I only had a horse because we had an empty field.

So I was asked to ride Poddy (for that 'twas his name) into the field. So I got on and let him amke his own way there, the problem came when we got into the field and all the other horses came up to us a surrounded us.
If you ever see the footage then you will notice it cuts when I start to look scared and realise I can't get off the damn thing because of all the other horses which scare me shitless.

So filming ended, I got paid with a PlayAway album and a PlaySchool ballon and went back to school. My Ma, Pa and Uncle told all their friends to watch it and we went out and bought a Video Recorder just for the occasion. ( this was about 1981 they where damn pricey).

What my folks didn't understand was why people kept coming up to them and say things like "We didn't know" and "what happened?".
When my Uncle went into work the next day people just avoided his gaze and muttered into their coffee.
What we didn't realise was that my section was only about half of the film, the other half was about the disabled kids and everyone (who didn't know me or hadn't seen me for a while) assumed I was one of the
disabled kids.

We still have a video.


Sorry for lack of funnies, but it is as long as a horses, and they are damn long.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Sat 13 Jun 2009, 19:02, 2 replies)

hehehe
whoops!
(Halfy By light alone, Sat 13 Jun 2009, 19:16, closed)

you are special but...
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Sun 14 Jun 2009, 5:35, closed)