Now the Pony Sale is Over

Anonymous

1965

It is the Late Autumn 1965 and "The Rolling Stones the Last Time" made the charts earlier that year. How prophetic that turned out to be.

The only thing I knew about horses is that they are dangerous at both ends.

One of the things I realised too late about my girlfriend was that if a job came up involving moving away from the area and from me then the horses would be odds on favourites. What I was to quickly find out that day was if you want to pay your girlfriend, who has recently started a new job some distance away, a surprise visit, make sure that the biggest pony sale of the year is not going on in the next town. "Yes" I hear you say "but why didn't you phone first?" instead of driving 200 miles from the East Midlands into South Wales on a whim? But I didn't like phones and yes it was a whim. It was also a slow drive as there were then in 1965 no motorways on the route to speed things up a bit and even today they would not be much help I f the AA route finder is anything to go by.

But even if it was not much of a fun drive the scenery in the area that I had never visited before was stunning with a backdrop to the farm of the Black Mountain, outstanding.

So having said that horses were not exactly my thing it was not my idea of a fun day to watch a seemingly endless line of nags of all shapes and sizes trot into the ring to be auctioned. So what to do to break up the tedium of this never ending procession? Go for a walk round the town then maybe? That took all of ten minutes and never was the expression "a one horse town more ironic than on that day.

Would the selling never end and was I ever going to get a bit of time with the love of my life?

Eventually the end came and were able to leave, having first to push start her employer's ancient van and to listen to his moans that the price of fifty foals which he wanted to purchase "blood astronomical" and completely out of the question on his budget. So we left him to drive home in his van while we followed on in my car back to his farm for a bite of supper.

I would not claim to be the brightest boy on the planet but then if that was a crime the jails would be full to overflowing and if are so much in love as I was then perhaps you don't always notice what is going on in front of your nose. But the realisation was not long in dawning that my girlfriend's new employer (a farmer and pony trek organiser) was getting a lot more attention and admiring glances than I was from her and which would appear to hint at more than an employer/employee relationship.

So that evening I drove somewhat wearily back home hoping to never see another pony again and knowing deep down that the pony sale was not the only thing that was over.

One thing I will always remember about her was that she actually cared about me which was a novel experience for me as far as girls were concerned. I smoked all the time which she did not care for and I was continually trying to stop or at least cut down. She didn't like me smoking in that she didn't like the taste in her mouth when we kissed but on a more endearing not she was worried about the effect on my health that it was having.

Well "to hell with it" at least I could break the monotony of a long drive home in the dark by puffing on a few cigarettes without the guilty feeling of her disapproval invading my conscience.