Lou's look-alike nephew, Billie
My first TV adventure.
The village of Shillingbury is a tranquil place, staunch to the old fashioned values of rural England. It is a picture postcard place of honeysuckle and home-made strawberry jam teas, fine thatched roofs, a timbered pub and contented folk…
I had been chosen because one of my class, chatting with one of the crew, had told them his teacher kept horses.
I imagined me intrepidly galloping round the pond, a la John Wayne, my trusty steed ready to leap into the water at a moment’s notice or even riding hell for leather down Stocks Road like Paul Revere.
Still, I hesitated. It was a great deal of work to bring a horse in from the field, shampoo the dust off his coat, brush it to a shine, wash mane and tail and present him to a suitable standard for appearing on film...
...I took him to the edge of the pond and allowed him his drink.
Unfortunately his ironclad hooves clip-clopped on the short length of road, as we made our way there.
‘CUT, CUT’ yelled an annoyed voice from outside the cottage.
‘Who the hell let a horse loose… we’ll have to do a re-take.’
‘Oh dear,’ muttered a voice in my ear from one of the other extras, ‘that’ll cost a packet. Trevor (Howard) is in this scene – he’s very expensive.’
When Shillingbury Blowers was finally shown on ITV, I was on tenterhooks.
I still didn’t know if I was in it.
The music started and the camera showed a bird’s eye view of this stunning village with its pond, and idyllic country roads.
However the plump rump of a chestnut horse gently swinging its silky strawberry blonde tail glinting in the sunlight and the plump rump of its rider with a gently swinging ponytail of strawberry blonde hair moving slowly past the pond were nowhere to be seen...
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Julie's pure bred Arab horse is so like my Ludraz (Lou for short) that I had to give him a place here
