I remember back in 1988 doing 5 ploughing matches in 5 days. I ploughed at Brailsford nr Derby on the Wednesday, Trunoet nr Hereford on Thursday, Leicester on Friday, Curckton Nr Shrewsbury on Saturday and our Local match Sheepy Nr Twycross on Sunday. By the time we got to Sheepy I was pretty fed up becasue it had rained all week and then on the fifth day the sun came out in all its glory along with all the locals who knew us. Therefore our harness looked terrible as there had been no time between matches TO CLEAN IT particularly as dad had had a big operation so I had had to do everything myself including driving myself there and back each day as well. Someone we knew stood at the top of my headland and told me loudly that if that was how I kept my harness then they wouldn’t be booking me for a wedding as they had heard I did carriage hire. A woman in the crowd stepped forward who I recognised from Brailsford and told the gentleman that there had been nothing wrong with how I had turned out at brailsford on the Wednesday and there was most certainly nothing wrong with how I turned out for weddings as she had brought some photos of me today which had been taken only 2 weeks ago at her friends daughters wedding. She promptly produced them out of her bag and showed them to him. He went red, made his excuses and disappeared.
This story goes to show you how you can get the wrong idea about something quite easily.
Someone once told me: Ann he said, people always believe bad things easier than good things.
I was at the British National Ploughing Championships one year when on the 2nd day
the judge came across to me and asked why I hadn’t put that lovely set of harness
on the horses yesterday? I just stood there and shrugged my shoulders. He then went
on with -
Jimmy Elliot a many times ploughing champion had heard the judge and looked across in disbelief himself at that one.