Club Foyer>The Riding Mac>Riding for Pleasure>An exhilarating time
Dear Lorraine,
I
met a lovely girl at a very wet horsey event near here a week or so ago. She
was wearing a beautiful off white riding mackintosh - the proper old fashioned
sort - and as I have always been very attracted to these waterproofs I got talking
to her and, not without some diffidence, she told me about your website and
after I had taken my courage in both hands and explained how riding macs turned
me on and why, she said she was sure you would like to hear my story.
Having visited your site I think you may find it of interest so here goes!
In the late sixties I was at a co-ed boarding school on the western edge of the Pennines. Most similar schools at that time were of the "do as you please" variety but this one was the reverse. There were strict rules and a definite uniform and we were punished harshly for any misdemeanours. The boys would get caned but the girls only had to go for a run unless they were really bad in which case they could be beaten as well. We boys thought this very unjust!
Anyway, the uniform included a navy gaberdine raincoat. Parents always complained about this as not only were these coats totally useless at school - any serious rain just went straight through them - but could never be used as a waterproof when we were at home for the same reason. We all had a proper mackintosh of some sort at home which would actually keep us dry and buying a gaberdine just for school was a pointless expense. The Headmaster, however, thought they looked better as obviously all navy raincoats looked roughly the same and had we been allowed to wear any old waterproof we would all have looked different! Eventually he was forced to change his ideas and at the end of the summer term before my last year we were told that next term we must all have either a white or fawn riding mac or a long SBR mackintosh. Both these were at the time readily available in most shops. Additionally we were told that all waterproofs must have a storm fastening on the collar. This rule was aimed at the parents who had made a fuss about gaberdines not keeping us dry: the Headmaster said that if we must keep dry we needed to stop the rain running down our necks!
A large percentage of the pupils came from country homes and a lot of us, boys as well as girls, rode in the holidays. As a result when the autumn term started the majority of the 240 pupils went back to school with a riding mac and the rest had shiny black waterproofs. It was an amazing turn around and whilst then it did not seem unnatural, the sight of all the school dressed like this on a wet day would be extraordinary today. I used to ride in the holidays and was delighted that I could in future wear my rubber riding mac at school as for some reason I found it a big turn on.
It was true that all uniformity had gone as although there was a fair sprinkling of new riding mackintoshes amongst the 180 or so in the school, there were also a large number of older ones that had already been owned by some children before the rules were changed. Thus there were some in black macs, some in pristine white riding macs and others in various shades of dirtier and older riding mackintoshes. The aroma in both the girls' and boys' changing rooms was amazing - a total of 240 rubber mackintoshes is quite something!
I could go on about this for a long time but will move on to an incident that changed my life. In my last year I was made a prefect - there were about six girl and six boy prefects and we had jurisdiction over all the pupils not just our own sex. We were expected to report any pupil who disobeyed the rules in any way but as we knew that any boy reported would get a good thrashing we male prefects rarely reported a boy. If a girl was naughty we were more prone to do so as we knew she would just be made to go for a run!
One very wet day there was a rugger match and all the school had to watch it. I was in the team but was injured and was, by chance, the only boy prefect in the crowd spectating. We had been told before the match that everyone must wear mackintoshes and gumboots and that all mackintoshes must have the top button and the collar fastened against the driving Pennine rain. Early in the game I noticed a girl with neither her mackintosh top button nor the storm tab on the collar done up. She was a pretty 17-year-old on whom I had something of a crush but she was also habitually in trouble and I very unpleasantly thought it would be fun to report her and get her sent on a run. I went over to her and said something like "Julia Carter (as I will call her), do up your mackintosh properly at once. I shall report you for disobedience." She was wearing a wonderful riding mac, not new but not very old and she looked a picture in it, tightly belted and, I saw, with the leg straps fastened as well. (Why as she was not riding?) She quickly did up the top button and collar fastening but then started to plead, asking me not to report her as she had already been sent to the Headmaster for an identical infringement of the rules a week before. I did not know about that - it had happened on a "girls only" walk in the rain - and thought she was probably trying to get me to let her off as she might get caned if it really was her second similar offence but I thought it was a try on and did not believe her. As we were arguing a mistress came up and asked what was going on. I explained and now had no option but to go through with the matter.
It turned out that Julia had been speaking the truth and next day she was duly caned.
I had very mixed feelings - some certainly of regret at having been responsible for her extreme discomfort (girls' canings were administered on the bare bottom just like the boys' beatings and never consisted of less than six strokes).
I left at the end of that year and did not expect ever to see Julia again. However, some five years later our paths crossed when we met at an equestrian event. It was a dull damp day though not actually raining and she had a riding mac over her arm. I was wearing mine as were many other spectators - it was now the early '70's and real mackintoshes were still prevalent in the country. We got talking and reminisced particularly about that day at school! She bore no resentment although she fingered her bottom and said she remembered the pain well enough! After this we had a long affair lasting some years during which we lived together on and off.
As we both now knew what each other thought about riding mackintoshes we used to have a great deal of fun with them. Not only did we both wear them on wet days but we had an arrangement where if either of us displeased the other, their mackintosh would be placed over the back of the sofa in the evening with a note simply saying "2 hours" or any length of time up to 12 hours i.e. next morning. This meant that whoever was in trouble had to wear their mackintosh, fully done up, for that length of time. As you can imagine this resulted in a massively heightened sense of excitement! I will leave the rest to your imagination but we also had a code under which if anything like a gym shoe or slipper was left on top of the mac on the sofa a little bit of extra punishment would be involved. Julia still rode at this time although I no longer did so and on rare occasions one of her numerous riding whips would be on top of the mackintosh!
We gradually expanded our wardrobe to include at least a couple of white riding macs each and generally an SBR one as well. We used to put extra holes in the belts and leg straps and move the top buttons and the buttons fastening the collars so they were extra tight. It was an exhilarating time."
I will not tell you how things ended as it was sad and unsatisfactory.
Why do a lot of your correspondents refer to gaberdines, plastic coats, PVC etc. as mackintoshes? A mackintosh HAS to have rubber in it!!!!
David
Dear David
Very good of you to write – thank you.
So sad for you to have to record a miserable end to what sounds like a terrific relationship. But I suppose nothing goes on forever.
I think you are hinting that there is more to tell of life with those 180 mackintoshes on the premises. We would all love to hear it, if you had time …Best wishes
LorrainePS I know some people use ‘mackintosh’ in a rather general sense, but I don’t mind a bit. The word itself is a bit magical for me, and the more I hear it the better! I would like to lay out a mackintosh on the sofa, with a cane across it, for everyone who didn’t use the word at least once in the day.
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