When I was about ten years old I was sent every week to buy from the butchers shop a pound of horsemeat for the dog and I used to hate buying it because of the offensive smell especially if it was boiled up and left in the pan for a few days. It stank to high heaven and when the dog came anywhere near its breath was horrific to say nothing of its farts. I used to run from the kitchen with my hand over my gob and nose to avoid the stench but still ‘the dog has to be fed’ we could not afford tinned dog food as it was too expensive so it had to be horsemeat. (I’d of sooner have got rid of the dog)

Several years later I was in The Life Guards doing my National Service in Windsor, during training we were not allowed out of barracks until our training was completed 8 weeks later. The rest of the lads agreed we would have a meal in Guildford once we had completed all the training to make us fully fledged recruits. On the night of the celebration we trouped off to a new Indian restaurant and took our turn to order. I ordered a steak medium to well done with vegetables & chips. When the meal arrived I instantly recognised the smell of horsemeat and told the waiter that I refused to eat it because it was most definitely not steak. The attitude from the waiter was he got stroppy threatening to call the Police. I, in the meantime was getting well bollocked by my mates being told ‘you should have eaten the meal Wiles, look you haven’t even cut the meat Wiles’? I sliced a piece of the meat off and put in a serviette and the plate was taken away. Shortly after the Police arrived got the manager’s story and came to our table. The officer asked me to prove I could have paid for the meal, I told him the meal was advertised as steak and was in fact horsemeat. The waiter in the meantime had fetched a piece of steak that he claimed I had refused to eat which was entirely different to the piece I had kept in the serviette. Even the officer recognised the smell of horsemeat and said the matter was a civil matter but he had seen the evidence he needed as to why I refused to pay! Gobsmacked by the proceedings my mates said “Right that’s it Wiles lets go somewhere else” and without paying we all got up, walked out and went to the Chinese! But we did pay for our drinks!

We are lucky enough to have a grass field site next door and the farmer has put 2 really good looking horses to graze but they do sod all else! They look over fences for hours on end or stare at a blade of grass looking gormless and lonely and unloved. There is no ‘let’s run around the field to get some exercise’ or ‘let’s play chase me’ or lets watch the traffic or ‘leapfrog? Nowt! They just stand and stand in their sublime stupidity and misery with pissed off faces and soaking wet skin under a soaking wet heavy blanket with sodding wet feet to say nothing about their drenched under carriages and private parts but no-one cares. My missus says they are garden furniture, the pity is that the posers who own most of this living ‘garden furniture’ hardly ever come to see their horses, why? If you know anyone who poses in their put on posh voices “I’ve got my own horse” ask them why they leave them in fields all day, and why they don’t go to see them and talk to them and groom them and exercise them and why not bring a treat like a couple of carrots or some mints and while you are at it clean up the piles of horse shit and put it in your school satchels and take it to your grannies for her roses? Or why not get yer riding gear on and your posing high visibility tops and your hat and take your horse for a ride around the roads or down town and hold up the traffic? Horses have feelings you know, I think??