Pony Tales and Other Irish Stories

By Noreen Whelan

Read tales of an Irish rural childhood, travelling the world with horses and policing London on horseback.
Born into a loving family on an Irish farm. Started to ride aged six, got bucked off too often, gave up! Started again on a different pony; got the hang of it, leading to a lifetime love for and career with horses. Represented Ireland at Pony Club and intervarsity levels. Travelled as groom with an Irish international three-day-eventer. Rode racehorses in Chantilly and Brisbane. Stock ponies and barrel racers in the Outback. Police horses in London. And there’s still so much ahead.
Fortunate. That’s what I feel…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781528970204

Noreen Whelan

Noreen Whelan was born in County Dublin, Ireland. Horses have been a staple element of her life from childhood. She attended University College Dublin and represented UCD and Ireland through the UCD Equestrian Club. She worked in France, Australia and New Zealand before moving to the UK. She has been a mounted police officer in London since 1993. The author still lives and works in London.

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About the Author

Noreen Whelan was born in County Dublin, Ireland. Horses have been a staple element of her life from childhood. She attended University College Dublin and represented UCD and Ireland through the UCD Equestrian Club. She worked in France, Australia and New Zealand before moving to the UK. She has been a mounted police officer in London since 1993. The author still lives and works in London.

Dedication

Mammy; John, Tony and Siobhan; Amy, Laura and Robert; Reilly, Patrick, Seanie, Jamie and Saoirse.

Ger, Helen, Caroline and Aly.

And all those people who have touched and helped along life’s path, even if at the time you didn’t realise that was what you were doing.

Also for those we have lost:

Maurice

Daddy and Patrick

Anne-Marie, Louise and Merle.

All my aunts and uncles but especially those with whom I spent the most time, Uncle Eamon W and Auntie Maar.

And with fond memories of and continuing gratitude to Brigadier BJ (Frizz) Fowler, who with encouragement and coaching kept me on the equestrian path I still follow today.

Apologies to those I should mention here but have omitted due to memory failure!

Copyright Information ©

Noreen Whelan 2021

The right of Noreen Whelan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The story, experiences, and words are the author’s alone.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528940085 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528940092 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781528970204 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2021

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

Stoneleigh photo courtesy of Clive Hiles.

Windsor photo courtesy of E S Photography.

Addington Manor photos courtesy of Geoffrey Marston Photography.

Million Mask March photo courtesy of Dominic Lipinski / PA Images / Alamy.

Quincy photo courtesy of Phil Cole Photography.

Other photos are my own but have been re-taken to publication standard by

Claire Twigg.

Thank you to all these wonderful photographers for permission to use their work.

Prologue

In early February 2018, I made the mistake of descending a staircase in the middle of the night in the dark. When my hand touched the newel post, I compounded the error by assuming I had reached the bottom and stepped off. There were still two steps below me. I gave myself a small fracture in my foot and the much more serious injury of completely detaching the main ligament that holds all the bones of the foot together. This necessitated a month of complete rest and elevation of the injured limb followed by surgery; then two months in plaster and a further three months of slow and gradual recuperation.

There were two high points during this time. The first was the care and consideration shown by friends in doing all my errands and driving me wherever I needed to go. The second was being forcibly ensconced on the sofa for the Cheltenham races in March. I opened an online bookies account, picked a horse for each televised race and placed £1 or £2 each-way bets for every race I watched. I didn’t win a fortune but broke even by the end of Festival week, and it certainly helped to pass the time enjoyably.

Soon after my accident, my brother Tony phoned to see how I was doing. When I replied bored stiff! he said, Why don’t you write your memoirs?

I laughed out loud, saying, I wouldn’t know where to start and who’d want to read them anyway.

The more I thought about it, the more I remembered my friend Aly telling me often, Oh, Noreen, I love your stories. When something weird and wacky was seen on the internet, my teamies—Twiggy, Lynn, Julie and John—would often exclaim, Nozza, have you got a tale to tell about something like that? So, I began to write, finding more and more memories flooding back. Seven months later, after writing, amending, deleting, adding, editing, reading, penning more, I thought, Enough! I have to stop somewhere.

So, these are my stories, the transcribing of which was mainly inspired by Tony and Aly.

So you see, it’s your fault, guys…

In the Beginning… Home and Kerry

Where to begin?

I guess we all want to think we will live on in the hearts and minds of our loved ones after we have moved on to the next phase; and when you don’t have kids of your own, who asks those questions like What did you do before you met Dad/Mum; Did you ever go/do/be…What were you like when you were my age? And so on. It feels a little pretentious or arrogant to think anyone might want to know the answers, but hey! I might want to know them myself later on if memory fails.

Besides, since I am already starting to fry my brain in boredom while sitting housebound on crutches after a stairs fall – four weeks so far and at least another ten to go – I might as well do something creative and enjoyable to help pass the time.

So, back to the original question…Where to begin?

I couldn’t take you into the shops with me when you were little.

What! As far as I’m aware, I was the original ‘good girl’. I’ve heard the stories, how I was dressing myself and making my bed from about age three, being very tidy. I remember when I was about ten and the record-player was in my brother John’s room, if I wanted to play records, I absolutely had to make his bed and tidy the room before I could comfortably sit and relax with the music. Why couldn’t I be brought into the shops? Seems I was energetic and curious, so was in the habit of grabbing things off shelves, leaving my mother afraid I would either pull down a display in an embarrassing avalanche of packets and tins or perhaps the equally embarrassing potential to leave the shop and be stopped because the bags contained something I had added that was unnoticed and unpaid for.

Mama, my maternal grandmother, thought she had the better of me at the tea-table during a visit to our house when she saw my pudgy little fingers reaching for the sugar-bowl and swiftly moved it out of my reach – only for me even more swiftly to change target mid-reach and plunge my hand into the butter instead! Mammy’s sister, Auntie Fran, was more successful on a different occasion when I grabbed a tube of Colman’s mustard. When Mammy moved to retrieve it, Auntie Fran said, No, leave her, Helen, let’s see… well, let’s just say I hate the taste of mustard to this day!

I guess I was quite adventurous as a child, looking to try new things, up for a dare including daring each other to grasp the electric fencing and hold on despite the shock. We all did that! I don’t think I would have come up with the ideas, but I was willing to try them out! I didn’t have much sense of danger or consequences. When I got my first two-wheeler from Santa, I arrived into our house full of relatives on St Stephen’s Day with my hands and legs shredded from the tarmac and gravel on Mahers Hill, having tried to ride down the steep hill, fallen off and slid quite a distance on my front.

I also sat in the fire – literally! Daddy used to come in from the fields on cold evenings and stand with his back to the fire warming himself before dinner, and when I was small, I used to copy him and stand there with him…except one day the fireguard was not in place and I sat in the fire. I don’t remember this at all – maybe I blocked out the trauma! I DO remember my younger brother Tony falling into the fire. He was about six and I nine, and while Mammy was out Daddy was ‘minding’ us. He was sitting in an armchair beside the fire, and Tony was trying to squeeze through between the wall and the chair; so Daddy helpfully moved the chair a little and Tony’s effort in pushing through carried him forward, landing on the side of one hand IN the fire!

Another of my daring adventures was to try to fly! I was in my grandparents’ cottage in Ballybrack, Co Kerry, and while the staircase now has a solid wall each side of it, back then it was open on the left looking down onto the room below. I assume it must have had a banister which I must have climbed over for my attempt, but I remember looking at a sofa below with an armchair upside down on top of it – someone must have been cleaning the room at the time, I guess. Anyway, it did not look too far below where I was at the top of the stairs, so I launched myself over in a leap of faith. Mammy later told me Auntie Fran was minding me at the time and I nearly gave her a heart attack!

I loved Auntie Fran. She used to say to me, What are you, Darling? What are you? You’re two frights and a holy terror! and then hug me. One of my earliest memories is of me standing in the garden at Auntie Fran’s Holy Faith Convent, perhaps the one in Clare Road in Dublin. This may be a false memory as we had black and white photos of the visit, but I believe it is a true memory because I can remember the exact blue colour of the outfit I was wearing – a cardigan, skirt and matching headband, all of which Auntie Fran had knitted for me.

We made regular visits to Mammy’s family in Kerry. I continued going until I was about ten or so; once I started being more involved with the ponies and particularly once I started competing, I don’t think I really went again until I was in University – I spent a week or two in Auntie Maar’s studying for exams when I was about 20. I remember many little bits and pieces about childhood visits – the journeys down to Kerry, where the roads seemed to be never-ending, (driving along one road, I could see the same road as a narrow ribbon miles and miles away in front of us); passing the time in the car with games of I Spy, First to count 20 white/red/blue cars and so on; and our favourite game, John and I and later Tony too, kneeling upright on the back seat looking out the rear window with arms folded, seeing who could keep their balance the longest as the car went around turns and bends, accelerated and braked. There were no seatbelts in the rear then – and no-one wore the ones in the front anyway!

I remember the journey down after Mama died. Mammy was crying and crying in the front, and I guess Daddy may have been driving too fast, as we were stopped by a Garda (Maybe it was just a random checkpoint, I don’t know). I remember the Garda asking something, and Daddy saying we were going to Kerry and explaining about Mama, and the Garda waving us on with his condolences. I have no other memories of that visit to Kerry or the funeral either.

Conversely, I do not remember the journey to Kerry for Dada’s funeral, but I remember him laid out in a dark suit in the room that later became Uncle Eamonn and Judy’s bedroom; visitors coming and going, prayers and candles. My strongest memory of the occasion though, is a cousin (two years older than me) pointing out the glasses put down everywhere with sups of ale or porter or whiskey left in them, exhorting John to taste them with him. I was up for that, but all he gave me to taste was some Tonic water, which tasted vile!

I have one particularly lovely memory of Kerry, when I must have been quite small. I was with Mammy in the field beside ‘the Cottage’ in Ballybrack, (grandparents’ house that later became Uncle Eamonn’s); and she hoisted me up to sit on a wooden box in the corner. In my mind, it was quite a large box, maybe three feet square, like an old tea-chest. It had a white mark on it, probably paint, but when I asked what it was Mammy said that that was where a leprechaun had sat. I remember telling my friends later that my grandparents had a box where a leprechaun sat! Mammy said many years later that I must have dreamed that story. Maybe I did, but I think it was a throwaway remark made by an adult which therefore they forgot, but I didn’t!

When we were small, we stayed in the cottage with Mammy for Kerry visits, and went with the adults on what seemed like daily, interminable visits to all manner of relatives – Auntie this and Great-aunt that and Cousin this and second cousin-twice-removed that, where there were much tea and cake and sitting quietly and adult chat and I felt it was so ‘Boring’! As soon as I could I started staying ‘down the boreen’ in Auntie Maar G’s, which was so much more fun. John and Gerard were the same age and found lots to do together, while I either trailed along after them or went about with young Dave. Young Dave G was nine or ten years older than me, so although he always seemed to be an adult in my eyes, I imagine when I was staying in Auntie Maar’s at five, six or seven years of age, Dave was actually only 15 or 16 years old! He was fun, light-hearted, great with kids, treating them like they were equals, and incredibly kind. In my head, a lot of my time on their farm was spent out around the fields being carried on Dave’s shoulders while he constantly sang. The two songs I particularly remember while perched on his shoulders were both released the year I turned ten, namely Cushy Butterfield by Brendan Grace and Sylvia’s mother by Dr Hook. The milk had to be taken in churns to the creamery in Firies every day and I often went on the trip, either with Uncle Dave on the horse and cart or young Dave in the David Brown tractor and trailer, a more modern transport with which he was thrilled. I enjoyed both experiences, especially with Uncle Dave as the horse and cart was a new experience for me – and he usually bought me a stick-of-rock type sweet called a Peggy’s Leg in the shop in Firies!

I had a little fright in the hayfield, one day when the hay was all piled on the cart to be drawn into ‘the haggard’ and I was sitting on the rear of the cart. The horse went through a gateway which was a little too narrow, and all the hay fell back on top of me. Momentary panic of suffocation! They got me out quickly, though.

I can’t be 100% definite, but I think older cousin Anto G was still at home then. I remember the horse being put out in the field at the end of the working day, and Dave used to ride him out or sometimes put me on him. I was a little nervous because he said he was bad-tempered and had taken a lump out of Anto’s arm, but he made sure I was always OK.

Luckily, the parents didn’t see what we kids sometimes got up to. Uncle Dave had a bull, who when kept inside, was chained to the wall via the ring in his nose. He was quite a moody bull, almost killing Uncle Dave some years later when he gored him in the field. A popular game for us was daring each other to climb on the bull in the cowshed. I remember doing that with John and Gerard – I have either forgotten other cousins doing it or maybe they just had more common sense! We would climb onto the wall beside him then step up onto his back, moving forward to stand on his head or even his horns. Yaaayy, look at me!!!

Uncle Dave had his own ideas of fun for his nephews. As soon as one of the boys were in the cowshed, whenever a cow raised her tail to squirt urine or liquid faeces, Uncle Dave would grab the nephew and get him squirted! He didn’t do that with his nieces, but he would squirt us with milk when hand-milking the cows, which was almost as gross! However, I enjoyed trying to hand-milk them, with a little success, although I was always nervous that the cow might kick me.

Practically every one of us kids that visited also seemed to fall into the slurry pit sooner or later. All the muck got washed out of the milking-parlour, down the yard behind it and into the pit. The problem was that a muck-covered yard looked the same as the surface of the slurry pit, so at one stage or another, I think most of us fell in, had to be fished out and washed down! Luckily, there was always a few of us about, as quite obviously it would be very easy to drown in there. There was also a grain silo, and as we tended to play everywhere, probably most often where we shouldn’t, I remember scrambling around in there, the equivalent of a modern children’s ball-pit, except again we could easily have sunk down and been suffocated. Some storage sheds overlooked the yard behind the milking-parlour, and I can see myself one day leaning out and falling – luckily young Dave was there (probably why I was leaning out in the first place) and caught me before I hit the ground.

I had a more pleasant experience witnessing the wonder of birth when I was about nine or ten. My uncle had a sow that was due to farrow, and when the occasion came, Uncle Dave was sitting by the range in the kitchen, enjoying some porter with a visitor. Gerard was sent to keep checking the sow, and of course, I tagged along with him every time. Thus I was with Gerard when the sow brought about fourteen little piglets (‘banabhs’) into the world. I remember being fascinated, particularly by the number – I began to think it was never-ending! Not quite so straightforward was a cow calving who got into difficulty on a different occasion. Uncle Dave and young Dave were dealing with her, and I remember they did indeed give me tasks to do, I wasn’t just a bystander. I remember them using a jack and tying a rope around the calf’s front feet. Being a child, I had small hands and was not squeamish, so I helped find the calf’s feet inside the cow so they could tie the rope on. They then had to ‘jack the calf out’ which took no little effort. Thankfully, cow and calf recovered well.

I used to love the chicks at Auntie Maar’s – they were her domain, hens and chickens, geese, ducks and all the eggs. Feeding them was fun though I was always scared of the geese – they deserve their reputation as avian ‘guard-dogs’! Most of all, I loved seeing all the tiny chicks in their little shed with the infra-red lamp over their heads to help them thrive. I also loved feeding the calves, putting my fingers into a bucket of milk then into a calf’s mouth to teach him to drink, feeling him sucking greedily on my hand. Likewise, with lambs – on all my visits, there always seemed to be at least one lamb that needed bottle-feeding, and that was my job.

All the cousins loved going to Auntie Maar’s. She was very kind, although Uncle Dave could be a little scary, mainly when I was smaller – he would suddenly grab me, pinching my cheek (bit sore!) booming, How’s my little ‘tomaaato’? I didn’t know how to deal with him and was a little scared of him as a smaller child. As I got a little older, I just loved everything about going to Kerry, as for me that was ‘Staying at Auntie Maar’s’. I remember on one occasion I was there with cousins Fran and Noreen L and possibly Siobhan L, and we were all in the room at the very top end of the house. John and Gerard and maybe Tony L were in the boys’ room at the other end, off the kitchen. It was lovely, warm, summery weather and the sash windows were all open. The boys would climb out, sneak up to our window and try to scare us and run off; we would then do likewise. The L girls all then got very scared There’s a bat in the room, there’s a bat, my hair, get it out! I didn’t see a bat and was probably too young to know anything about bats or the theory that they swoop down and get stuck in your hair. Plus, they all had very long hair and I had very short hair, so I wasn’t worried!

I was about ten when I was a heroine for a short time at Auntie Maar’s. All the cooking and heating was done by a range stove (think Aga) in the kitchen (I never quite understood how the damper worked!). I was there one day with just Auntie Maar and young Dave when the chimney caught fire. There was a square opening into the chimney above the range, protected with a thin sheet of wood. Dave removed the wood, but I was really the only one small and agile enough to climb up inside, which I duly did. Dave handed me up a hosepipe and I sprayed all around the chimney up above me where I could see the red embers glowing – and put the fire out! Obviously, I came down as dirty as a chimney-sweep, but what excitement for me!

It was really a life from a time now gone by…no central heating (thick eiderdowns and a hot water bottle), no indoor plumbing (potty under the bed at night, outside privy during the day). I remember washing mountains of potatoes in a tin bath with a yard broom – although I cannot remember where the water came from…maybe there was a cold tap? There had to have been water for the milking parlour – and of course, there was the hose I used in the chimney. So, there was water, maybe just no bathroom! But they were some of the best holidays I have ever had.

Adventures at Home

Back at home, poor Tony (my little brother, three years younger than me) had a few misadventures in my company. When he was about four, he got a tricycle from Santa, so John and I went out with him. Mahers Hill again, oops! The tricycle ran away from us so to speak, reached the bottom of the hill before we did, crossed over the road at the bottom, shot up the bank at the other side and launched itself over the top into a drop of about 15 feet into a stream. Luckily, Tony’s coat got caught on a branch which prevented our little brother completing the unplanned sky-dive! I’m not sure why family anecdotes have me at the root of these mishaps – John was there too and he is older than me!

But John was not there when I ‘made’ Tony put his hand through a pane of glass. He was perhaps five years old then, and I thought it was funny to