I WOULDN’T ask any horse into the house,’ declares Celia Knight in the opening scenes of The Englishwoman and the Horse, Candida Lycett Green’s delightful documentary of 1981. The horse in question, Sam, is seen gently taking a sugar lump from his mistress’s teeth as the family gathers in the drawing room after lunch.
‘He just loves human beings and he’s very placid, so he usually comes in once a week, after lunch, when we’re all sitting around having coffee,’ Miss Knight (later Lady Vestey) explains, as the camera pans back to reveal an enormous skewbald horse standing among the sofas and side tables. The speaker’s sister, Henrietta—the future racehorse trainer— is seen curled up in an armchair, sticking photographs into an album, as their mother pours the coffee and gently chastises Sam when he rattles the cups, looking for sugar.
‘As far as house training is concerned, he hasn’t had an accident yet,’ Miss Knight continues, ‘but I have a feeling that the time he does disgrace himself, that will be the end of his invitations into the drawing room.’
That the film’s narrator is completely nonplussed by this scene is hardly surprising. Lycett Green’s mother, Penelope Betjeman (née Chetwode), thought nothing of taking her grey Arab, Moti, to tea with their neighbour the 14th Baron Berners (he of the dyed doves and the inspiration for Lord Merlin in The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford). Lord Berners, who painted Moti in the hall at Faringdon House, Oxfordshire, was said to be delighted by the steed’s ‘perfect manners’.
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