Donkey Driving Enterprises

Who remembers Bonnie and Clyde driven by Anne McCaig?

Our home made rein machine.

A Victorian Rein Machine for driving Four In Hand.

Our single rein skills for long reining and driving clinic was enjoyed by all. Training in how to set off, stop, steer, turn and make effective transitions was completed first on the rein machine, followed by long reining three donkeys, and then driving one. With Sage, Wild Thyme and Pimento.

A few weeks' back I did a couple of posts on people teaching their horses to drive in WW2, when there was petrol rationing.

Here is someone who did just that, and who drove into the office. Cecilie Hall worked in central London, and used to drive in to the office from her home in Epping Forest, a distance of about 16 miles.

When petrol rationing came in, she and her young pony both learned together: "very rapidly we taught one another our ideas about driving, with quite successful results."

Of course the vital thing once you have got as far as the office is finding somewhere for pony (and indeed trap) to wait until you're ready to go home. The answer to this really does show it was a different world then:

"This is an easier problem that you'd think, because you'll find that in every town, besides the usual one or two riding schools and livery stables, there are tucked away just around the corner, stables belonging to the milkman or the baker ... and they will all be only too interested in the enterprise. I'm very lucky in that there is a stable just across the road from my office where they look after the pony for me."

Cecilie was (entirely understandably) very worried about how the pony might react to the London traffic, and so made their first journey on a Sunday evening. But again, things went well. She said:

"Driving successfully in thick traffic is, as I very soon, discovered, simply a matter of keeping the pony well up into his bridle, and anticipating what the other trafffic is going to do. I've found it continually fascinating to study the horse's point of view... These differences of opinion are liable to crop up over very petty little points, and they must be foreseen and avoided at all costs."

The only drawbacks Cecilie found were the early morning starts, and getting very wet when it rained. Otherwise she said of driving into the office, "I don't know why many more people don't."

The picture is from Riding, Spring 1942 issue.

Magpie has graduated from driving school! Here is his learning journey!