Title
Wymeswold Hunt
Subject
Wymeswold Hunt
Description
Ellen Smith recalls the Quorn hunt coming to Wymeswold in the 1910s and 1920s.
Creator
East Midlands Oral History Archive
Source
EMOHA
Publisher
EMOHA
Date
1986
Contributor
Photograph courtesy of The Wolds Historical Organisation. To use seek permission from cbrown.chris86@gmail.com
Rights
You may use this item in accordance with the licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/
Format
.mp3
Type
Oral History
Duration
2min 02sec
Transcription
Interviewer: I believe that the Quorn Hunt use Wymeswold as part of their land for hunting on. Can you remember anything particular…
Mrs Smith: Yes, they’ve come ever since I can remember, and still do of course. They meet in Wymeswold square. I think now they go further up the lane because of the traffic congestion they cause. But in my young day the school master used to allow us, our forms, on the wall outside, we stood on the forms, and we could see all these beautiful horses and their riders. One day when my brother was watching, he saw something, and they had to write a composition in school that morning of what they’d seen. My brother, John, was suddenly smacked across his face, and he says, ‘Please sir, what’s that for, I haven’t done anything wrong.’ He says, ‘You mustn’t write things about the Prince of Wales, that’s wrong.’ He says, ‘Please sir, it wasn’t wrong.’ And the school master gave him another smack. But when the school master read all the other compositions and found that 90% of the boys had written the same thing in different ways, he apologised to my brother John. And apparently all these boys had seen the Prince of Wales urinate down his horse’s shoulder, and the schoolmaster couldn’t believe it, so he did a bit of research on this and he found that if a man was in charge of a horse and couldn’t lead the horse with safety then that was allowed, by law it was allowed. And that law still remains today. And when this school master did his research, he finished his little speech to the children by saying, ‘…and the London cabbies bless this rule.’
Mrs Smith: Yes, they’ve come ever since I can remember, and still do of course. They meet in Wymeswold square. I think now they go further up the lane because of the traffic congestion they cause. But in my young day the school master used to allow us, our forms, on the wall outside, we stood on the forms, and we could see all these beautiful horses and their riders. One day when my brother was watching, he saw something, and they had to write a composition in school that morning of what they’d seen. My brother, John, was suddenly smacked across his face, and he says, ‘Please sir, what’s that for, I haven’t done anything wrong.’ He says, ‘You mustn’t write things about the Prince of Wales, that’s wrong.’ He says, ‘Please sir, it wasn’t wrong.’ And the school master gave him another smack. But when the school master read all the other compositions and found that 90% of the boys had written the same thing in different ways, he apologised to my brother John. And apparently all these boys had seen the Prince of Wales urinate down his horse’s shoulder, and the schoolmaster couldn’t believe it, so he did a bit of research on this and he found that if a man was in charge of a horse and couldn’t lead the horse with safety then that was allowed, by law it was allowed. And that law still remains today. And when this school master did his research, he finished his little speech to the children by saying, ‘…and the London cabbies bless this rule.’
Interviewer
S. Aucott
Interviewee
Ellen Smith
Location
Wymeswold, Leicestershire
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