Thursday, 14 August 2008

old webfrontpage


I am always advised to produce a nice simple web site that says what the Saddlechariot is and what it does, and if anyone knows how to produce such a website, I am listening. The Saddlechariot is a safe , fun, pony or horse drawn vehicle, accessible to all people and all ponies. The Saddlechariot is hated by the British Horse Establishment who refuse to look at the Saddlechariot or talk to me or even answer recorded delivery letters. To understand how a safe, fun, people friendly, pony friendly vehicle can attract the sort of vitriolic abuse it gets from people who have never looked........you need to understand the Philosophy .
Before we get onto the Saddlechariot and what it does, lets look at the people and ponies who will use it.

People love ponies and ponies love people. People includes all members of Homo sapiens, ponies all members of Equus caballus.
All Homo sapiens can interbreed, and have, and the result is you and me. I cannot in law discriminate against any of you, my readers, on the basis of parentage or physical conformation. If I insist on White, Anglo Saxon, able bodied, employees or customers I will be prosecuted.
All Equus caballus can interbreed and have, and the result is our ponies and horses. I will not discriminate against ponies and horses on any basis that would be illegal if applied to their owners.

Henry and I have just been working in Balsall Heath at the St. Paul's Trust City Farm. I call it working, but it was pure magic to watch the pleasure that Henry can spread just by being there. Henry was mobbed wherever we went, by all ages, all backgrounds. And over and over I was told "At home we had........" and home was Jamaica, or Yemen, Iraq, China, Ireland..............

With fuel going through the roof, and Global warming in every headline, pony power is the answer. For recycling projects, street cleaning, local deliveries, pony power makes cold economic sense. The goodwill in the community, something that unites all communities with a smile, that's just a free bonus, but may be worth more than all the other factors combined.

I was told endlessly that Henry was the first pony most of these kids had ever seen. That is a truly tragic statistic, but we can do something about it so easily. Bring ponies back to the cities, back to the people where they belong and always have. Ponies are urban animals.

Cities are full of statues to War Horses, as they ride roughshod over the vanquished, but those aren't the horses that people love. Millions remember the milkman's horse with real affection yet those have no statues. Possibly because no bronze monument could replace them, only flesh and blood will do. Henry is making a start and the Saddlechariot allows him to work safely in cities, on the beaches, at the Royal Cornwall Show. HRH the Princess Royal can look at the Saddlechariot, but Riding for the Disabled of which she is Patron have for 8 years refused to look at any vehicle I build or even talk to me. And if you want to know why, ask them, as I said they refuse to talk to me. The page on people may explain why.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As soon as I can save up to buy 1 of these, I'll do so & tell you how I use it as a partially hemiplegic driver. I fear that I may have to hold the reins "carriage" style, albeit in the "wrong" hand as my left hand will grip, but not let go & it has no strength in it. Still not tied daughter up to measure horses, but my father is coming over next week, so I'll ask him to help (my mother is terrified of anything that big!). This terrified disabled driver WILL talk to you!

On a separate note, I told the Welfare Officer (village is worried about daughter going over 2 miles in the dark & rain to catch the school bus & sent him up) about your chariot & he asked why I didn't get a scooter! I was in the sidecar of a motorbike when I was left paralysed after being driven under an oncoming tanker & have no sense of balance now... On explaining that I couldn't even ride a bike he suggested a sulky. I doubt he has ever seen a true sulky ~ a frame attached to a horse, as light as possible & driven at high speed. How does he expect my daughter &/or shopping (our 1 bus a week is under threat)to cling on to that? They are prepared to help my get my trotting cart over, so I'm trying to plot to get both rigs over as cheaply as possible & still madly save for your chariot & use that instead!