We have come a long way

[Tarragon]

 

[Tarragon]

What is even worse is it comes in the section called “equipment and facilities“ along with lunge reins and a good pair of glove ?

 

[MrsMozart]

Where is it taken from?

 

[ycbm]

View attachment 48758

???

 

[Tarragon]

A book called From Paddock To Saddle by Captain Elwyn Hartley Edwards. Published in 1972. It’s horrifying isn’t it!

 

[MrsMozart]

Oh I do so like to be an abomination... I bet his mother was reet proud when she read that (if she did, etc.).

 

[be positive]

We have come a long way but he was actually an extremely knowledgeable man, was very involved with charities, wrote books and edited magazines and at the time was probably ahead of his time, I think he also did a tv programme on how horses had been used throughout history, he was also very amusing with a great sense of humour and did not come across as chauvinist but he did not have time for fools and would probably dislike many things about the way the horseworld has gone.

 

[Tarragon]

I think that it’s a very sound horsemanship book ... just his views on women are a little questionable

 

[be positive]

I think that it’s a very sound horsemanship book ... just his views on women are a little questionable

He was not like that at all in real life but did have an old school attitude generally, his talks at our RC, mainly female members, were always entertaining, he was opinionated but also very open minded to new ideas, an old fashioned horseman who I enjoyed spending time with, he certainly never told me to shut up

 

[Welsh Dragon]

"round puddings are not best fitted to this kind of work" - That's me out then! ?

 

[be positive]

I think he was the first person I know who brought up the idea of ad lib forage being beneficial, something in the back of my mind remembers a conversation about it, he probably had a feeling they could suffer from ulcers long before it was known, this would have been early 80's.

 

[KittenInTheTree]

He's not wrong.

 

[Bonnie Allie]

That is just horrific. Thanks for sharing.


I don’t care how great his horsemanship skills are/were - if that stuff is going on in his head and he is stupid enough to write it down, he does not have the emotional intelligence to be addressing any audience.

I am faculty for an organisation that educates up and coming board members on technology skills required for board decisions. You should see the look of surprise (and distain) from your white, male and stale wannabes when the see a woman is going to be coaching them on Tech.

We have a couple of passages similar to this example that show the most hideous gender bias, that we read out as icebreakers And to frame the conversation before we start.

Some of them are rippers and only from ‘70’s and ‘80s. I would like to use this one as well as it not only demonstrates sexism, stereotypical behaviour but assumes the assistant is not going to have the technical skills to be executing in any other role other than an assistant.

What a pig of a man.

 

[rextherobber]

I think it reads tongue in cheek

 

[be positive]

He was of his time, it does read tongue in cheek although he may well have been a little biased he was a true gent and well thought of, no different in many ways to some people doing demos now with their macho ways directed at bullying the horses, posturing and showing the, mainly female, audience how to train a horse using often dubious methods, they have made a fortune out of it.

He made a tv programme, horses in the history of man which I remember being very well received long before war horse.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Horses-History-Channel-Scottish-Television/dp/0002182165

 

[Goldenstar]

It’s not tongue in cheek it’s casual misogyny it was common in the mature generation at that time .

 

[suebou]

It does make everything easier if your assistant is quick thinking, lightning fast and not talking all the time though! Which is basically what he said........

 

[ITPersonnage]

Different times...

 

[Errin Paddywack]

Elwyn was one of the loveliest people I have ever met. He was President of the British Appaloosa Society for a while and one of their judges. My husband and I became very friendly with him and liked him enormously. He had a wonderful sense of humour and I remember him giving a talk at the AGM one year which had us in stitches. He was judging the ridden classes at the BApS National Show one year and there was a horse entered which was a very good dressage horse called Cockley Cley Weatherman. When Elwyn rode him he was cantering round with the biggest smile on his face, I really envied him, we were wondering if he would ever get off The horse very deservedly won the class.
He was a very good judge of a horse and could see past colour, very necessary with appaloosas, which a lot of judges can't. He was judging a class I had my little mare in once and I remember him putting a hand on her withers and one on the point of shoulder so that he could see the slope of her shoulder without the spots obscuring it.
He judged the appaloosa classes at Rugby Riding Club's Summer show one year, this would have been in the 80's. He had passed a string of the local riding school horses being brought back from their turnout fields down the main road. He commented that they were slopping along, no hats and brains in neutral. Brilliant summing up I thought.
We could do with more people like Elwyn.

 

[Trouper]

Having been taught by an ex-cavalry trooper, I have had a lot worse said to my face!! I think he makes a very sensible point - just maybe not in the sensitive language we would use today.

 

[Tarragon]

It does make everything easier if your assistant is quick thinking, lightning fast and not talking all the time though! Which is basically what he said........

Yes, I agree!

 

[Tarragon]

Elwyn was one of the loveliest people I have ever met. He was President of the British Appaloosa Society for a while and one of their judges. My husband and I became very friendly with him and liked him enormously. He had a wonderful sense of humour and I remember him giving a talk at the AGM one year which had us in stitches. He was judging the ridden classes at the BApS National Show one year and there was a horse entered which was a very good dressage horse called Cockley Cley Weatherman. When Elwyn rode him he was cantering round with the biggest smile on his face, I really envied him, we were wondering if he would ever get off The horse very deservedly won the class.
He was a very good judge of a horse and could see past colour, very necessary with appaloosas, which a lot of judges can't. He was judging a class I had my little mare in once and I remember him putting a hand on her withers and one on the point of shoulder so that he could see the slope of her shoulder without the spots obscuring it.
He judged the appaloosa classes at Rugby Riding Club's Summer show one year, this would have been in the 80's. He had passed a string of the local riding school horses being brought back from their turnout fields down the main road. He commented that they were slopping along, no hats and brains in neutral. Brilliant summing up I thought.
We could do with more people like Elwyn.

Having read the whole book I can quite believe that. It is written with humour and buckets full of horsemanship.
My mother bought the book when she got an unhandled dartmoor pony straight off the moor and it was her bible. Probably not the sort of pony he had in mind when he wrote it but it still applied.

 

[Cortez]

That is just horrific. Thanks for sharing.


I don’t care how great his horsemanship skills are/were - if that stuff is going on in his head and he is stupid enough to write it down, he does not have the emotional intelligence to be addressing any audience.

I am faculty for an organisation that educates up and coming board members on technology skills required for board decisions. You should see the look of surprise (and distain) from your white, male and stale wannabes when the see a woman is going to be coaching them on Tech.

We have a couple of passages similar to this example that show the most hideous gender bias, that we read out as icebreakers And to frame the conversation before we start.

Some of them are rippers and only from ‘70’s and ‘80s. I would like to use this one as well as it not only demonstrates sexism, stereotypical behaviour but assumes the assistant is not going to have the technical skills to be executing in any other role other than an assistant.

What a pig of a man.

No, he was a lovely man, a real gentleman, fine horseman, and I agree with what he says, not how he says it - although it was written tongue in cheek. Calling anyone a pig is uncalled for and undermines your very PC argument.

 

[Errin Paddywack]

Bonnie Allie, that is the most judgemental totally wrong comment to make about a man who was a gentleman through and through. He would never have descended to the sort of language you have used about him. I can only assume you are one of the younger generation who likes to apply today's PC thinking retrospectively. I am very glad Elwyn is long dead and can't be hurt by such biased and short minded views, though I suspect he would have been amused by them and would have had some sort of humorous retort to make.

 

[Ownedby4horses]

Bonnie Allie, you do realise that this was written 48 years ago??

You certainly lost the PC argument with the childish name calling.

Perhaps, have a read of books on husbands views about their wives from around the 1940’s (I got bought a book as a little joke from my best friend on my wedding day), it is hilarious. It doesn’t shock me, just makes me glad that I don’t live in those times.

 

[Sprat]

I think Bonnie Allie may have got out of bed on the wrong side today.

It read to me as tongue in cheek, and while this style of writing wouldn't sit comfortably in this day and age, it very much was the norm back then. I think sometimes we need to stop being so over sensitive.

I've heard that he was a cracking horseman.

 

[Errin Paddywack]

I don't think the younger generation realise just how much things have changed in what is quite a short period of time. Back in the late 60's women were only allowed into the Lounge area of Working Men's Clubs. Banned from the Games room. At that time my husband to be and I played skittles at the local pub. Pub decided to put a team into a skittle league in the Leicester area. It was men only, women had a separate league. I travelled with the team to keep the score book., however we ran into problems when we played at WMCs. I used to have to wait in the car while they argued the case for letting me in to the Games room. Things changed a few years later with legislation for equality but some men still didn't like women invading their domain.
Things are very different these days thank goodness.

 

[Cortez]

Things certainly are different these days, you only have to re-read Enid Blyton, or even the Jill books, to see shocking casual racism, sexism, colonialism, classism (is that a word/thing?), etc. all over the place. But these things should be read with a clear vision of the era they are from. I am a sometime historian and it is fascinating to discover the mindset of people from the past.

 

[Errin Paddywack]

Totally agree with you Cortez. Fascinating and is our history.

 

[Tarragon]

I showed my 3 daughters, aged 18, 19 and 21, and they were really shocked that this sort of text could be in print.
Whereas I could picture my old Pony Club District Commissioner from the 1970's and knew exactly what sort of person he was and would have probably been both scared and in awe in equal measures.
Secretly, though, I like to think that I am the sort of assistant he was describing ...