Since the writing of this story, I am sad to announce that the Ford D series wagon 'Sophie' that took us on our fateful Journey has been relegated to the back of the garden and is now part of a static display of ancient farming and agricultural equipment.
Terry Davis is well known in the heavy horse world. One of the few people in the country and even on the planet with the expertise and skill to make a horses' collar. These pieces of equipment have been around for hundreds of years, and even today the only way to make a traditional English collar is to sit down and make it by hand.
Lucy's collar was starting to get a bit small and bedraggled, and Chester didn't even have a collar at all except a breast harness kindly lent to us by Mick Morris. The breast harness was great, fully functional for pulling harrows, sledges and the odd bit of timber snigging. But when Chester got used to having the breast harness and actually doing some work, it was decided. He needed his own, a traditional collar.
So on the Shirehorse awareness weekend at Terry Keegan's (May 1999 I think) we grabbed Terry Davis, nailed his foot to the floor, threw a couple of signed cheques at him and said "two collars and two cruppers please". He gladly took the cheques and measured up the two horses. We were fully aware it would take a while. It's not like he has a few in a store, changes the size and sells it on. He spends days and weeks making these pieces of equipment.
August 1999. Terry phoned Phil. He needed a favour. A collar is tightly packed with rye straw, a special type of straw only grown in a few places across the UK. Terry had ordered some from the Weald and Downland Museum near Chichester, run by Chris and Diana Zeuner. The catch was, he needed someone to fetch the straw. Phil thought about it and of course decided to help Terry out, we wanted our collars.
Sophie, named after Phil's first shire is a 7 1/2 tonne Ford 'D' series delivery lorry converted into a reasonable horse box. Formally owned by Ray Stevens, the box was noisy and drunk diesel like it it was on special offer but it could get you from A to B and started first time, every time. We stocked the back up with the cooker, bacon, eggs and a selection of 'tinned alcoholic beverages'. We stocked the cab up with mobile phones, an printout from Auto route for Zimbabwe that came free with Phil's computer, a global positioning system and a days supply of wine gums and cigarettes. We pointed the van downhill and left Ironbridge at 4:00pm GMT, leaving a bit late, but as always there was work to do first.
The drive down took five and a half hours. The speedo in Ray's old box didn't work. The only indication of speed was if we went too fast, Phil's flat cap would blow off and we would break the light speed barrier doing a energetic 65 miles an hour, down hill. When your sitting on a 6 litre engine which is doing a few thousand revolutions per minuet, making one hell of a row and lightly toasting the soles of my feet through my shoes, and the trees are still whizzing past the open window, it certainly seems like the speed of light.
There was no radio only three holes in the dash were ray had removed his old Edison radio complete with valves before he sold Phil the box. I tried bits of tinfoil from a kit kat wrapper in my fillings but I could only get Radio 1, so that was a waste of time but Phil hummed the classics for entertainment, Mozart and Meat loaf.
It got dark. In the middle of a high street of a small town, in a 7 1/2 tonne truck. We parked up and grabbed a bag of chips, and headed on the last few miles to the museum. There it was. The Museum exactly where the instructions given by Terry said it would be. "Don't worry" he said "The gate will be open, so you can park up in the car park overnight". The gate was locked. Panic struck. "What do we do now then?". The answer was simple. We went to the pub. We mulled over the situation with a pint, We were in the middle of nowhere with a massive truck and the combined funds of about ten quid at ten o'clock at night. We drove round after somewhere to stay. We passed the Goodwood race course and about twenty minuets later came to some park land with plenty of car parks in the woodland. We parked up, got a fire on the go for the tea when we noticed a sign saying 'No Overnight parking, No Fires and No horseboxes'. We took the sign into consideration and after carefully weighing up the factors in the situation we unanimously decided to ignore it totally and started on the cans of lager.
The next morning we got through the bacon and eggs and left early to get to the museum. The place was already busy when we rolled up. We found Chris Zeuner who pointed us to the straw, massive piles of sheaves of rye straw. We examined what we had been sent to get when we hit a slight snag. How many sheaves did Terry want?. We phoned Terry's house and got his son who informed us he had gone shopping, but he was fairly certain it was two hundred. Chris also said two hundred. So we loaded up. after about 40 we lost count but eventually we stuffed the box with such precision it would have been impossible to get another piece of straw in the back. We had a quick look around the museum (very good if you get chance to have a look) and we left.
We happily driving home, minding our own business when we hit another little snag. Phil used to take medication to slow his heart rate. So instead of "OH MY GOD, WE'VE HAD A BLOW OUT" We got "Oh dear, the tyres blown out" Phil fought the box from heading into the traffic and pulled it to a halt at the side of the road. The Ford 'D', like most wagons and horse boxes has a spare tyre under the chassis so you don't have to go in the back and pass horses to get a tyre. Unfortunately the fittings were missing (most likely bolted to Ray's new horse box) so the tyre was kept in the box bolted to the wall in the groom's compartment. Between us and the spare wheel was 200 sheaves of rye straw. Phil started to phone around for someone to help, while I started to unload the straw as carts whizzed past. Half an hour later there was a six inch gap between the rye straw and the roof of the box. I squeezed through, climbed over the door balancing on a wipple tree (or swingle tree, depending what you call them) and dropped into the compartment. I lifted the tyre up and gradually passed up and over the straw. I am the first to admit that I am not the strongest person in the world. With the heat of August sun in the box with three square feet to move, trying to lift a trolley jack and tyre across the box I soon ended up dripping with sweat with straw stuck to me. I dropped down the road and lay down next to the box in the grass. "What about the wheel brace?". I growled and crawled back into the box. The wheel brace consisted of a normal wheel brace and a 10 foot scaffolding pole to use as a leaver. I again emerged looking like Worzel Gummage to find the police had pulled up and where giving us a bit of cover from the psychotic Saturday drivers. It was the front driver's side tyre that had burst, but the spare would only fit the back axle (don't ask), so we ended up taking the back wheel off, sticking the spare on then putting the other wheel on the front (follow that?") Eventually we pulled of.
Seven and a half hours after we left, we arrived at Craven arms, outside Terry's house. He came out to help us unload. He looked slightly puzzled and asked "How much have you got in there?" He asked. I looked at Phil. "Two hundred..." Terry sighed. "I told Chris I only wanted one hundred". Phil laughed and I head butted the side panel of the box. Eventually we had stuffed all of the straw into Terry's workshop and just managed to shut the door, so it seemed that he would be making collars in the living room for the foreseeable future.
In January 2000 the collars we ready. Two wonderful pieces of craftsmanship which will most likely out live my grand children, and one day I can tell them the daft story about the straw inside them.
Final horrid thought: If you've recently brought a new Terry Davis collar. It might contain my sweat.