Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The return of the work horse?

Years ago I ran a horse-and-cart waste-paper collection system in Bristol, convinced that horses would do a better job than lorries. Well, they did, though the area they worked in was limited to a smallish circle. People queued up to help, to clean out the stables and to ride the beast. The local council even turned blind eyes to every council property 'stable squat' we used, though horses were never seen to squat. Eventually the horse and cart moved on to Radstock when the driver fell in love with her supervisor. But I remember interviewing an elderly Polish man for the job; he had worked horses in Poland before the war and then in Bristol for the railway company, shunting carriages about with heavy horses. So I was utterly delighted to bump into an old friend, Julian Rose, who has gone to live in Poland and is devoting his vast energies to helping to save Polish agriculture from the fate that has befallen ours - with few now on the land, communities struggling and farmers facing rising costs etc. He has been hugely impressed by the continuing and efficient use of horses, so much so that he plans to open a retraining centre for horse-handlers here in the UK.

Have a look at his website