Club Foyer>The Riding Mac>Riding for Pleasure>
In 1974 I was 19 and had just left school. I had a lovely redheaded girlfriend whose face was a mass of freckles. She left school at the same time at 18 and was going on an equestrian course at one of the top agricultural colleges in the autumn. Unusually for a boy I was also a keen rider: I was destined for a job in the family firm but was told to go and enjoy myself for the summer.
To our parents' absolute horror we decided to go off on a riding trek together. Cutting a long story very short we were determined not to be put off the whole idea and steadily made our plans for a two week ride along the Pennine Way to which we could easily hack in a couple of hours.
We made elaborate packing lists and as the day of our departure drew near I became aware that she was constantly, rather too constantly, mentioning the absolute necessity of having really good riding macs. She told me that as her college insisted on her having two mackintoshes she was going to buy a new one before we went on our ride. She made me come to the saddlers with her and she took a long time to choose a new mac eventually settling on an exceptionally heavy one with a very high collar and wide skirt. She was very particular about the fastening on the collar and took a deal of trouble to make sure that when buttoned across her chin it was extremely tight so that the rain could not trickle down her chin or neck.
For the first time in my life I felt a special kind of excitment while all this was going on. I had always fancied girls in the rain with wet wind blown hair and had seen her often enough out riding in that state wearing a riding mac. But I had always assumed that it was the wet and rain rather than the mackintosh!
When we eventually set off with our one small tent - more horror from the parents! - the weather was great for a whole week. We almost began to wonder why we had brought our mackintoshes with us. On the ninth day everything changed. It started to pour. We rode all day in driving rain huddled into our macs. Hers kept her almost totally dry which I thought was why she was so cheerful! - I was wet through after a couple of hours. Have you ever smelt a really wet riding mac? It is quite different from a dry one and really unbelievably lovely. In our tiny tent that night it was all pervasive. After riding all day we always had sore bums in the evening and had quickly taken to rubbing cream into each others bottoms -and doing various other things! - before going to sleep. That night everything was incredibly more exciting than it had ever been before. Next morning we rode down into the nearby town and I bought myself a new mackintosh as near as I could find to the same model as hers. Two days later we had another wet day. For the first time ever and at her bidding, I wore both my macs one over the other. The feeling was heaven. By the end of the fortnight we were admitting to each other that we were not only in love but that we were totally obsessed by riding macs as well. She had been since puberty, I was just learning about it all.
It was, of course, just a teenage affair - but it had a difference. Although both of us had other boy/girl friends over the next few years, neither of us found anyone who had that riding mackintosh affinity with the other. When we were both 24 we married. We lived in the country and had horses. That was 1979. We must have been about the last people to keep wearing proper riding macs well into the '80's as they started to be overtaken by waxed coats.
Patrick
SHOP | CLUB FOYER | CHILLOUT ROOM | ASK LORRAINE