RAGS TO RICHES

Sir — Way back in the 1950s, I was getting ready for the round of gymkhanas one year and needed a fancy dress, so my father came up with the idea of horse and hound.

We painted brown patches on to an old flannelette nightdress of my mother’s and stitched a tail on. Then we added a mask that was altered to look like a dog and my grandfather wrote Whyte Melville’s well-known quotation on to a board: “I freely admit the best of my fun, I owe it to Horse and Hound.” This was to hang around my pony Apache’s neck (pictured, left).

The first show of the season was in Oakley, near Basingstoke, and I hacked the six miles over there to meet my father, but in the back of his car my outfit looked like a heap of rags. With much persuasion from my father, I went into the ring and was delighted when we took home a red rosette — and twice more that summer.

It was such a simple fancy dress, yet I have never forgotten it. Susan Walker

Whitchurch, Hants