The end of part of England

As soon as I see Bertha’s rear end backing down the tailgate towards me, I think there has been some mistake. They told me they would find a nice quiet mare, given that I have never been riding before. Advancing upon me are the towering bay buttocks of the biggest horse I have ever seen.

In a daze, I mount the stool, held for me by Di Grisselle, joint master, shove one foot in the stirrup and try to swing myself over. Bertha chooses that moment to reverse, and I begin my first day’s hunting, in the last week of that ancient custom, by slowly and dreamily falling to the concrete farmyard floor.

So let us leave me there, between the stirrup and the ground, and review the reasons for this desperate act. ‘You’re very brave,’ everyone keeps saying, ‘not to say foolhardy.’ In fact, by the time I come to grips with Bertha I have been made — I suspect deliberately — apprehensive.