Club Foyer>The Riding Mac>Riding for Pleasure>
by
The two girls had never met before. Tammy lived in the Lake District and Sam on Exmoor. Tammy was tall and slim and blonde: Sam was beautiful in a darker and rounder way. They came from similar well-to-do backgrounds, loved riding and were a real handful at school and at home. Their parents had finally tired of their complaints about being made to do academic work when all they really wanted to do was to ride and learn about horses. Thus it was that they met up at New Street Station, Birmingham one wet October afternoon to travel together to Ireland where they were to start a course at an equestrian college there.
They had been sent joining instructions which made clear that the college was in a wet part of Ireland, that there was no indoor school and that they would be expected to work and learn and ride in all weathers. The year was 1973 and as they both came from hilly and rainy parts of Britain this did not dismay them. “Bring as much wet weather gear as you can - rubberised riding macs, of course, rubber wellingtons, rubber riding boots, mackintosh overtrousers - anything you are short of will be provided here”. Independently both the sixteen year olds read something mildly sinister into these words. The letter went on “Meet your fellow new girl at the front of the 2.17 pm train from New Street to Holyhead on 3rd October. You will know her by the fact that she will be wearing or carrying a riding mac!”. While in the 1970’s riding mackintoshes were still worn everywhere in the country, few were seen on buses and trains. Two girls wering or carrying one would stand out in a crowd.
And so it was. There were few people around at the front of the platform waiting for the train and as it was raining gently both girls were actually wearing their white riding macs, Tammy was also carrying another, older one and both had bags with riding whips sticking out of the end. They could not mistake each other. They had just started talking when the train pulled in. They picked two seats side by side in the front coach, heaved their bags onto the luggage rack, took off their mackintoshes with a rustling sound that attracted the attention of all those other passengers who had not already looked up at the two lovely girls, and with a jingling sound that only the buckles on the leg straps of a riding mac makes, threw them too onto the rack.
During the journey the girls got to know each other well. They exchanged stories about their families, their schools and their homes and found they had a lot in common. It was not, however, until they boarded the ferry and fitted themselves and their baggage into the diminutive cabin that had been reserved for them that they broached the subject that both had been longing to discuss. By the time they had hung their riding macs on the back of the door and manouevred their bags so that they could clamber into their bunks there not only seemed little room left but the aroma of rubber was becoming overpowering. Not only the mackintoshes but the gum boots and rubber riding boots in their bags were starting to give off a smell that could not be disegarded.
They began to talk about their riding experiences and slowly the conversation turned to wet weather riding and to riding mackintoshes. Yet again they found themselves on the same wave length. They both professed to adore riding in the rain, the heavier the better, and to love the feeling of their heavy rubber mackintoshes giving at once a feeling of protection and restriction. Tammy told of long rides through the hills of Cumbria with her friends, getting home soaked because she had not done up her mac properly and then being made to wear two macs next time she went riding in the wet. Sam related in detail about how hunting on Exmoor on a wet day resulted in fifty or sixty riders being dressed in mackintoshes of an endless variety of whites and fawns and how as the rain poured down all the mackintoshes got heavier and darker in colour.
As the ferry pitched and rolled its way across the stormy Irish sea, as their riding macs swung and slapped against the back of the cabin door and the buckles of the leg straps jingled continuously with the movement, the girls talked long into the night.
They told each other about their families, their homes, their ponies, their schools, their naughtinesses, their boy friends and their punishments. At length, when she felt she knew her new friend well enough, Tammy brought up the subject of the letter that they had received from the College that they were ging to. “Did you think there was something funny about that letter?”. she asked somewhat tentatively. Sam hesitated - she was the less outgoing of the two and was careful not to put herself into a position of suggesting something that Tammy may not have thought about. “Well, yes, I suppose so. What makes you ask?”. Tammy jumped in, glad of the opportunity to talk about something that had been worrying her for the past week. “Well when they wrote about gum boots and macs and things they seemed to use the word rubber far more than was natural and”, she paused, “I can’t help wondering what they meant about discipline and punishments!”
Sam was silent for a moment. “We’ll find out soon enough: but I agree. Normally you’d just refer to riding macs not rubberised ones - they’re all rubber. And you’d say gum boots not rubber ones. Perhaps the Principal’s got a thing, do you think?”.
“That’ll suit me fine” Tammy replied. “I love wearing my riding mac in the rain. It gives me a real thrill to do it up really tightly and get soaked”. Sam was silent again, but she was the next to speak: “I wasn’t too happy about the reference to discipline and punishments. I’ve always reacted badly to strict discipline but at least I am used to most sorts of punishment so however we get punished shouldn’t bother me too much.”
Eventually they slept and when they woke the motion of the sea had moderated and the boat was almost alongside in Dun Laoghaire. Dressing quickle they grabbed their things and made their was on deck. The drizzle of the day before had turned into heavier rain here in Ireland and they were glad to pull on their riding mackintoshes as they surveyed they quayside looking for the Landrover that they had been told would be sent to fetch them. Sure enough it was there and alongside it stood and tall young woman dressed in riding boots, breeches and a mac of her own. When they got down the gangplank she greeted them warmly and telling them to take their macs off and throw them in the back with their bags, she drove them out of the town and into the lush green Irish countryside. The windscreen wipers worked hard to counter the rain and Tammy asked if this was typical Irish weather. The older woman smiled. “You’ll get used to it. It rains here about four days a week but we don’t let it interfere with the college work. As you’ll find out, we just push through it but make certain we dress for the weather.”
Small talk fllowed for the 90 minutes journey to the college and eventually the Landrover turned in through the imposing gates. After lunch the girls were taken to the Principal and head instructress’s office where they were told a little more about how the place worked. The Principal was only a litle older than the woman who had met them, whom they discovered was the assistant instructess who would oversee most of their work both in the schoolroom, in the yard and when they were actually riding.
“We have virtually no rules here - just two”, the principal told them, “and provided you obey them you will enjoy yourselves here and after two years you will leave with a diploma that will open every door in the equestrian world to you. So remember them.” She handed each of the girls a card. They read them apprehensively but in truth there was nothing in the wording to frighten them.
RULES
1. Pupils will obey every order given to them immediately, without question and to the letter.
2. Pupils will be provided with the necessary protective waterproof clothing (in addition to any of their own that they have brought with them) to keep them dry when out of doors either mounted or on foot in the worst weather. Should they get their breeches, jeans, sweaters, shirts or any indoor clothes wet, they will be punished.
When Tammy and Sam had read these simple rules they looked up at Miss McIntosh questioningly. “We will provide you with a mackintosh, mackintosh over-trousers, a second riding mac if you have only brought one with you, a mackintosh hunting apron and a heavy-weight shiny black rubber riding mac for the dirty jobs! So there will never be any excuse for you to get any of your indoor clothes wet! Should you do so I, or Miss Clare, will know that you have not dressed appropriately for the weather and you will be punished. Do you understand?”
Both girls nodded. “Do you have any questions?” Tammy, up front as ever, quickly asked what sort of punishments were employed at the college. “We make the punishment fit the crime. For instance, if you don't wear enough waterproof clothing to keep dry, you will have to wear a mackintosh or maybe two or three indoors for a number of hours. If you do not muck out properly, you will do it all over again on your day off. If you do not learn well in your riding lessons you will have extra lessons. But you will always be given an option. Should you prefer it you can always opt to receive corporal punishment instead of accepting any other sanction. But I don’t advise that!”.
The first three full days were typical of the whole course. They worked all day, come rain or shine (it didn't), half of the time out on the hills, the other half having drilled into them the day-to-day chores of running a stables. The girls loved it of course, just what they longed to do, be with horses, and do everything for them, and ride, ride, ride.
The learning from mistakes bit wasn't so wonderful, with the Principal quite the perfectionist, pouncing on every little thing not quite right and doling out little punishments left right and centre. Actually some of the things you had to do if you had got something wrong were not so little, quite Victorian really, like having to keep your mac on for lunch because you were late coming in from the barn, or going round again but wearing your mac if you came bottom in the circuit-training.
As time passed though the thrill of those first days for most of the girls anyway faded rather! The strict discipline and the mackintosh punishments - sometimes involving a girl in holding her hand out in the traditional way, or even bending over (wearing their mac of course) - which the girls weren't at all used to, and what seemed like having to wear a mackintosh 24/7, made them feel quite a bit put upon. They really enjoyed riding out in the rain with their macs on - and properly done up according to the Principal's detailed instructions. (Each girl was told which eyelet to use on her belt, and on her mouth strap, and on her thigh straps, settings which were chosen to make the girls feel almost straightjacketed) And they sort of enjoyed having to wear a second mac on top of the first for the famous and promised Irish stair-rodding downpours, in spite of (or actually, because of!) the extra restriction it meant.
But they were made to wear dirty old black mackintoshes for their duties around the stables, always done up tightly and inspected, and they didn't much appreciate that, and they liked even less the heavy mackintosh overtrousers they had to wear with them. The heavy kit undoubtedly kept them from the rain and the muck but it also kept them very uncomfortable. As well, it wasn't always raining - and there were plenty of clean jobs they had to do which didn't require heavy-duty protection at all.
Tammy raised all this in a reasonable sort of way one morning towards the end of the course when they were getting the day's briefing. The Principal always asked at the end if there were any questions, but no one had dared to question the rules that had been explained so very carefully at induction.
"Please Miss, it's a bit warm today," Tammy began brightly, "so can I do the harnesses without getting dressed up? I'll be in the North Barn, so no need for a mac?"
Silence form the Principal.
Tammy felt the need to fill it.
" I mean, doing the harnesses is not terribly dirty and I've got an old jacket I could wear."
Still silence.
"Only, it gets so hot and uncomfy in those work macs and I don't really need one for doing the harnesses ..." Tammy trailed off.
At last a response. A real bark:
"Tamsin, don't be such silly little girl. What are you thinking of? Haven't you learnt anything yet? Of course you need to wear the proper College things when you're doing College things! You wouldn't expect a nurse to turn up for work in a bikini, would you?"
Tammy know she was supposed to say No, sorry Miss, or something abject like that, but she was boiling inside - absolutely not used to that kind of humiliation. She got very red but said nothing.
Tammy's defiance was not lost on the Principal. The girls were dismissed to get ready for inspection, but a sting in the tail for Tammy: "Tamsin, you had better come and see me. Ten o'clock this evening, my office please. Ask Julie how to get ready." Then, when Tammy still didn't make any acknowledgement: "Understand, Tamsin? 10 o'clock my office?"
Still Tammy bit her lip just grew redder.
"Tamsin, do you understand?"
Under this kind of pressure Tammy said Yes. And added a quiet, and she hoped friends would think menacing, "Miss."
"Good. Don't forget to get Julie to brief you."
The Principal tried to lighten the atmosphere when the girls came back from getting their kit on for the morning's activities, not finding fault, admiring people's turn-out, what she thought of as good-humoured chat. Tammy was there of course, in her black rubber mac after all, tightly belted and buttoned up as per the regs. She was even redder now, partly because of the mac, but mostly because she was still nursing the dressing down she had been given, as she thought, for no good reason at all.
"I'm sure you'll make a good job with the tack," the Principal said when she reached her, attempting with her smile to disarm T's pretty obvious hostility. "And very smart turnout. Well done."
Tammy was not disarmed. And was even less so when after a hot and uncomfortable morning she got hold of Julie at lunch and was told it must be the crop and she should turn up changed for bed with her best mac on top.
"It's bloody well not fair," she exploded to Sam. "I only asked her a question, perfectly reasonable, and now she's doing this. It's just not fair."
Sam was sympathetic. "She's mad. It's awful. What about your Mum? Ring your Mum?"
But ringing England from a call box in Ireland in 1972 was not quite like thumbing six numbers into your mobile.
Actually, Tammy wasn't one to cry to Mummy anyway, nor to bother too much about the worst that teachers and even Principals of Riding Colleges could do to you. She would get her revenge, she had decided that, but this evening at 10 o'clock she would knock on the door of the Principal's office and take as many as the bitch had to offer.
It turned out to be just the one. And over her pajama bottoms. It hurt like hell, of course, but with one it hardly matters at all, you don't have that awful business of knowing exactly what it feels like and yet having to stay still and controlled knowing that it's going to come again, just as bad, probably worse. That's the terrible bit. You can burn your hand in the fire and it hurts but knowing how much it hurts and putting it back in - that's awful.
Just the one, but the Principal took ages even so. A long lecture first, the usual, only longer, with Tammy standing in front of the desk. Then - inspection. Of course, Tammy realized a bit too late, there had to be an inspection, this was Kilcullen College. She had to take a step back while the Principal went through each and every one of the turn-out rules, noting every mark she hadn't managed to clean off her mac (there were three slight ones under the collar at the back!), the correct positioning of the belt, the fastening of the skirt tab, the wrist tabs, the neck straps, the thigh straps, the buttoning etc etc etc.
Of course there was lots wrong and she was told how 'disappointing' it was and how she must start dressing properly from tomorrow. For now she was to fasten her thigh straps, her skirt tab and the neck strap.
Partly it was rubbish because Tammy hadn't realized she was meant to wear the mac as for a foul-weather ride - and partly because in her defiant mood she had been deliberately casual about her appearance. It was meant to say to anybody seeing her on her way to the Office at that hour What did she care?
Anyway, inside the office she tidied up as instructed. Another lecture, and then at last bending over the chair, having the back of mac folded away from her derriere, long pause, and the single cut. Then ten minutes in the corner, hands on head, for a third lecture, and that was it.
So - besides the over-the-top mackintosh- wearing there were the punishments. Julie hadn't been the first, Tammy wasn't the last. Pretty well everybody at some time or other had had something done to them, and they were usually felt to be completely out of proportion. They were just the Principal going off on her thing. Not fair!
Bloody well unfair, in fact, it was felt by everyone, and Tammy got all the support she needed for her revenge.
She had left it very late though. Fortunately, on the very last day before departure, Sam was discovered taking a breather with her throat strap half undone and was the given a ten o'clock appointment.
She changed for bed as instructed, put on her mac and went down to the office at the appointed hour.
But unbeknownst to the Principal, so did Tammy. And so did every body else!
And when the call came to "Enter!", in they all filed and gathered round the nonplussed Principal in a semi-circle.
"Ah ha," she barked, attempting recovery. "A deputation I suppose. No, we don't have deputations in this college. Off you go you silly girls. It's Samantha I wish to see."
No-one moved. Following Tammy's masterplan, the girls stood quietly in the semi-circle saying nothing but looking directly at the woman behind the desk.
The Principal half-rose. "Dismiss, you girls," she instructed, her voice half-rising too.
The light was on the papers on her desk and she couldn't really see who was there. Squinting into the shadows she picked out out one or two faces.
"Tamsin! Julie! Leave the room! Immediately!"
No response.
"Greta! Leave!. I'm telling you to leave!
No wavering of stares, no movement at all.
"Well, this is intolerable. You are wicked, wicked girls and you are all in really serious trouble. I will need to see each of you tomorrow, and ..."
But as the Principal fulminated, Tammy launched phase two.
"Evelyn," she said quite quietly but very firmly, ending the Principal mid-tirade. "Evelyn!" Quiet, firm, requiring her attention.
"What's that? What did you say?" said the Principal, completely taken aback to hear herself addressed by her first name by one of the students.
"Evelyn, I'm afraid we don't think much of your course. We think you're a thigh-strap short of a riding mac, if you know what I mean."
"Well, I, I ..." the Principal spluttered, scrabbling frantically with her right hand for her phone - which Sam had quietly removed.
Realizing that she couldn't use the phone to summon help she tried calling for Clare, the tutor, though she was unlikely to be around the office at that hour.
"Clare," she shouted trying tomake herself heard in the next room. And then again in her rising panic, "Clare!"
In fact Clare was within earshot. "I'm here," she said quietly - from the left end of the semicircle, and stepping forward. "I've brought your riding things for you."
The Principal was at last lost for words, to find her assistant part of the rebellion!
"You are to put them on, Evelyn," explained Tammy, who had recruited Clare some days ago.
"Everything off and your mac and boots on. Then it's over the chair with you."
The Principal of Kilcullen College was transfixed.
She went bright red.
But her eyes went down: and she simply took the mac that was being held towards her.
"Everything off?" she said. And again quietly, to Tammy, deferentially - a completely different person: "I have to take everything off?" She was standing holding her mac her eyes down, not defeated exactly, but playing a completely different role from the outraged figure of two minutes ago.
"Yes, and take the boots as well," said Tammy, as Clare held them out to her. "You can turn round and we won't watch," said Tammy, almost kindly now that the situation had been accepted.
The Principal did as she was told...
And was soon having her turnout inspected by the girls, each one taking it in turn to run leisurely through the checklist that they had got so fed up with when applied three or four times a day to themselves.
Belt at the correct hole? End tucked neatly away? Collar neat and tidy? What's this mark here? Dear oh dear! Throat tab done up at the right button? Pocket flaps neat? Wrist tabs? Thigh straps as they should be?
The Principal had to raise each leg in turn and let each of her inspectors pull at the straps and 'check' which eyelet had been used to 'make sure' they were sufficiently tight.
She just took it all, red-faced and staring into the distance exactly like a person being inspected should.
Then the whip, one stroke from each girl, Evelyn bent over with the skirt of her mac folded up. And no pajamas for her, so - quite an ordeal! Not a word though - just a sharp hiss of breath drawn in at number 5 and 6 (6 was Sam, whose low cut hit home so hard that the victim couldn't help raising her right leg for a moment as well as making her whistle) and an actual cry plus groan plus leg raise at the very last, which came from Tammy herself.
They made her stand facing the wall for only five minutes, and didn't deliver the long harangue which they had themselves received on these occasions. Tammy just said before sending her 'off to bed': "Now Evelyn, let that be a lesson to you! Keep things in proportion! Don't be silly with your students. Discipline yes, getting off on punishments, no. Proper riding gear, yes, mackintosh wear absolutely all the time, no. Do you understand?"
Evelyn, facing the wall with her hands on her head said Yes.
"Yes who?" insisted Tammy. "I'm Tammy."
"Yes, Tammy, I understand Tammy, I will do my best, Tammy. Thank you all for the lesson."
For most of the girls it was a bit hard to swallow, this black-white transformation - but there was another one to come.
The following morning it was as though as far as she was concerned absolutely nothing had happened at all the night before. She couldn't have been more self-confident, - making a breezy jolly-hockey-sticks close-of-course speech in which she actually enthused about their being the 'best group of young horsewomen' she had 'ever had the pleasure of teaching' and how she 'hoped they when they were all professionals' they would have fond memories of their Summer at Kilcullen College and the friendships they made there.
Most of the girls couldn't quite believe that she was capable of yo-yoing between personalities in this way but some of them thought they understood. Officers are really good at shouting at those below them, said Sam, and sucking up to those above. The Principal had realized the night before that for the time being she had slumped in the pecking order, that somehow or other because of Tammy's genius the girls had got on top. That was Sam's theory anyway. Tammy herself thought otherwise. She thought Evelyn just loved the top/bottom thing and it didn't matter which.
Later, two days after she got home, Tammy received a letter on Kilcullen College notepaper. The Principal was offering her an 'assistantship' at the next year's Summer programme.
Tammy didn't know what theory this supported, but she found herself wanting to accept! How or why she knew not, but what she did sense, in her juices, and after that intriguing evening, was a something special between the two of them (just as Evelyn did), and that the Summer would be full of thrills as well as, very likely, plenty of spills.
She wouldn't be an Assistant however - she would have to be the College Senior Instructress, and Sam would have to be offered the assistantship. Those were Tamsin's conditions.
And a third: both Senior Instructress and Assistant would require new riding gear for their responsibilities at Kilcullen, new jods, new shirts, new boots, new whips, and of course for each of them a pair of brand new off-white double-texture riding macs.
Quite excellent suggestions, confirmed the Principal in the letters of appointment. And wondered silently, quaking a little, how she could possibly wait.
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