It's
a Rum Life Book Four Volume One
“Northcote
Diary 1984
to 1994”
WEDDING
AT WYBERTON
(about
1986)
This
episode from the late 1980’s, will always stick in my memory for
the sheer anxiety it caused and huge demands it made on my
creatability and repair ability!
Wyberton
is a small rural suburb of Boston, Lincolnshire. It has its own
mediaeval church and there is still the site of its once important
castle overlooking the river and estuary to at
one time, the third most important port in
the Country.
We had
been engaged to deliver a bride and her father to Wyberton Church for
her wedding and after the ceremony transport the bride and her new
husband to their reception at the village hall some two miles away.
The route
had been surveyed thoroughly and we had selected to park our lorry
for unloading close to the village hall.
“Hebe”,
our “Dales” mare and full name “Ashwood Claire Louisa”, was
to power the carriage as the bride had selected our ultra elegant
“Bow fronted Brougham”.
CARRIAGES
I should
explain that at this time we were using two carriages for weddings.
Jupiter,
our extrovert part bred dales, (skewbald
coloured) brown and white,
always worked with our beautiful “Victoria” carriage.
This
had wide, swept back mudguards, elegant
varnish bodywork and beautiful springing; it
followed the typical design for ladies’ made popular by Queen
Victoria herself. This carriage was basically open with a hood for
inclement weather.
The
second carriage was a “Bow fronted Brougham”. Following on a
pattern of elegant town carriage designed by Lord Brougham, this had
room for two people and was somewhat smaller with beautifully paint
work in dark red
and black. Forward facing doors on both sides allowed entry to a
green leather fitted interior illuminated by most elegant curved
glass windows at the front. Normal pattern carriage drop door
windows gave a good view of whoever was riding in splendour.
“Hebe
“worked with the Brougham as she was smaller in stature than
Jupiter and being a black horse herself, suited the “equipage”.
The
journey to Wyberton church was uneventful and the bride had been
safely delivered when disaster struck.
DISASTER
We were
all relaxing, myself, daughter Helen (the groom) and Hebe; after the
first part when butterflies always fill me with trepidation. My
thoughts before all these events are on the off chance that something
untoward should prevent us actually getting to the venue on time!
This time,
the unforeseen struck us quite suddenly as we were resting under
trees immediately outside the open church gates.
A noisy,
bright yellow fork lift truck burst out of a yard immediately to our
front and began to roar down the road towards us.
The road
was not wide by any imagination and we had nowhere to go and avoid
this “monster” which had immediately caught “Hebe’s”
attention and set all our hearts to our mouths.
To our
right side, behind and ahead of us we were contained by the
churchyard wall which continued in solid stone splendour about four
feet high as far as we could see.
On our
left were a row of smart houses with large front gardens and
boundaried at their front by a long, large and deep dyke.
The fork
lift rattled and banged and roared its way forward totally oblivious
to the terror it was creating in the mind of the horse never mind the
human attendants.
Despite
all our efforts to attract his attention, the driver seemed in a world of his own.
Then, in
the blink of an eye, it was all over.
“Hebe”
made her decision which was to avoid the truck the only way possible.
Like an
arrow from a bow, she ripped the reins from my hands and dived
sideways through the church gateway. There had been no time to take
any preventive measures, it had made no matter to her that the
carriage was still attached.
Her only
concern was for the yellow monster that had filled her vision and
mind with unaccountable terror.
The
nightmare then began. The damage was stupefying.
“Hebe”
was now stood just inside the gateway with carriage attached as
normal.
The church
gateway had not been sufficiently wide to allow the carriage through
when we
had first arrived! Things had now changed.
CHANGES
The right
hand gatepost of solid stone and some four feet square and five feet
high, was now lying flat inside the churchyard and its gate still
attached, beside it.
It had
been pushed over, quite intact by the pressure of the carriage body
as it twisted thorough an acute 90 degree angle, propelled by the
horse.
The off
side, previously beautiful, wooden carriage body was to say the least
badly damaged. The door would not open.
But there
was even worse to see. All four rubber tyres from each of the wheels
were lying on the ground at drunken angles.
By now the
horse was calm and happy to be facing away from the road.
Our major
problem as I could see was in getting the bride back to her reception
two miles away in a damaged carriage with only one working door and
no tyres!
I left
Helen to speak sweet nothings to Hebe I began my search for something
to help me remount the tyres.
Now
a little explanation.
Wooden
horse drawn carriage wheels have either the older iron rims around
the wooden wheel. These are incredibly noisy and vibrate in a foul
way as they were designed to cope with unmetalled roads.
More
modern sprung carriages had a slotted clincher rim system attached to
the outside of the wheel. The specially designed rubber tyre is
designed and extruded with a thinner line of rubber of either side of
the tyre itself. The whole fits snugly in the grooved rim. But it
has to be slid into the groove from one end with plenty of lubricant
and gradually slide, in that groove, completely round the wheel.
BACK IN
WYBERTON
We
had neither lubricant, a jack for the wheels
or time on our side. I estimated that now we had about 20 minutes
before the bride emerged from the Church for the group photographs
and then, a maximum of one hour.
Just down
the road I did find a lady cutting her lawn and decided that she was
our best hope.
In fact
once the situation was explained, she was a marvel. Somehow she had
her son’s tool box at hand and I selected a number of screwdrivers
and various hammers to aid my endeavours.
We moved
Hebe and the carriage back on to the road and faced her in the
direction we should take for our return. This put the undamaged
side on view and problem one was solved.
The tyres
were a complete nightmare on their own.
At no time
were they ever designed to be fitted the way I was trying. But bit by
bit, by levering and hammering; tugging and pushing, they were almost
back.
Almost,
but not quite!
The rubber
just would not push back exactly is it had been.
To anyone
who knew about these things, the wheels looked dreadful, but I
thought they would get us the two miles we needed to go.
I returned
the tools to the lady with my profound gratitude and returned to the
carriage with five minutes to spare.
Some
serious explanation had to be made to the vicar about his gatepost
and all in all the wedding party were disappointed to have “missed
the fun!”
We managed
the return journey without problems.
The
gatepost cost in the region of £500 and the repairs to the carriage
cost over £2500. The complicated wrought iron steering turntable
beneath the front of the carriage had been bent out of line too!
Such is
life as they say!
Hebe with the actual carriage, (at a different venue). The telephone No is very old!
