Donald’s exciting day

I wonder if I get my story-telling from my dad Donald… he had some great stories…

One day Donald’s father Rue asked him to take a horse back to a farmer on the other side of Cambridge. Donald would have been about nine, but this was in the 1920’s and the city was little more than a market town with a University attached then, not the busy traffic-ridden place it is now.

It was a great big horse and Donald was hoisted onto its back, a slap on the rump from Rue and off it set, with Donald feeling the king of the world! All went well until the horse decided it wanted to go along Mill Road, which wasn’t where the farmer lived at all. It began to trot, it began to canter, and Donald who was a slim, small boy was bouncing about, heaving on the reins, trying to stop the beast.

As it got to Mill Road bridge it slowed down and luckily there was a policemen who saw Donald’s plight and stepped up and caught hold of the bridle.

He turned it around, gave it a smack and set it off, back in the right direction. When Donald reached the farm he was more than grateful for the sixpence he was given, and even more grateful for a lift home on the farmer’s motorbike… except it wasn’t exactly on the motor bike, it was in the side-car that the farmer used to take his pigs to market.

And the reason for the horse’s wayward behaviour? It used to belong to the milkman and when the milkman headed along Mill Road the horse knew it was heading for home at the end of the round!