Rocking Away the Pain

October 12, 2013

Rocking Away the Pain

For some time now I've been thinking of buying a Rocking Horse. I have a good excuse of course: to lure my curly-haired Grandson, Graham, over to his Granny's more often. But the truth is that I'm buying it for myself. Like the complete set of Noggin the Nog and Beatrix Potter books that I bought regardless of the fact that Graham would not be able to read them for at least five years, this horse is the latest step in the wonderful trip down memory lane to our own childhood that grandparents are entitled to indulge in.

I started off casually perusing the web only to find that Rocking Horses of the kind I was looking for barely exist in the U.S. After much searching I found a lovely pair of battered old nags on Etsy. I thought of doing them up but the transport logistics, involving a Greyhound bus from South Carolina to the Port Authority bus station, NY, then somehow carting them across Manhattan were complicated. They were not quite as large as I had hoped for, and I wasnt sure I had the skills to restore them from their precarious state. So although I see a nice business development opportunity opening up here once I retire, find a stable and a woodwork class, I decided to take a pass.

One of Two Horses at the Parson's Pleasure Shop on Etsy

I turned instead to investigating how to bring a new horse over from the UK. There is only one US shop in Pennsylvania, PucciManuli, that will order hand-carved horses from Stevenson Brothers. These are the kind that Vogue features and the Queen endorses for her Gt. Grandchildren. The steel grey dappled steed was very tempting and I nearly went ahead. But, his daintiness gave me cause to pause, as did his prohibitively expensive price tag and shipping costs, which would have put a serious dent in my Grandson's college fund.

Stevenson Brothers Dappled Steel Grey Horse

There were many beautiful old hand-carved F. H. Ayers horses on Ebay but few were large or could be shipped abroad and many were more collectors items suitable to be viewed and admired rather than ridden. Then I found what I was really looking for, a huge sturdy old Collinson's horse, named Sudbury. Collinson's were one of the longest running family firms of rocking horse makers in the UK. Queen Victoria is said to have visited their Liverpool factory and picked out a dappled grey. For me Collinsons horses are linked to hospitals. As a child I underwent what was almost a universal right of passage for my generation, having my tonsils and appendix out before starting school. It was a bit traumatic, not the operations of which I have no memory at all, but because visiting hours were very strictly limited to 30 minutes/evening and you were wrenched away from home for a week while feeling poorly. Two memories linger: one of being smacked by a bossy nurse to make me swallow ice cream for my burning throat, and the other, more comforting one, was of riding the huge Collinson Rocking Horse that stood in the middle of the ward. Sudbury looks just like him. He's the right vintage and is a big old powerful steed, a noble charger you can gallop on all day.

Sudbury from Sally's Rocking Horses

I thought I was alone in this desire for these stylized old horses with their fiery red eyes. but this is not the case. In my websearches I came across Blackie an enormous horse that belonged to the Liverpool Department Store, Blacklers. When the store closed after 60 years of service Blackie was "put out to grass" at Alder Hey Childrens Hospital. The beloved Blackie brought so much joy to so many shoppers and poorly children that he has been installed in the Museum of Liverpool. His website is filled with torrents of love and reminiscences from people of my age group who rode him as children all those years ago, some like me to rock away the pain of their sore throats.