Rachael Clegg's Milestones explained -part II
In the second part of a two-part feature, some more of the inspirations behind the Milestones calendar images are explained.
Crosby
The TT's history never fails to amaze me and some of the most extraordinary tales are from the late Geoff Davison's TT books (Davison was himself a top TT racer in the 1920s), including Racing Through the Century; Racing Reminiscences and The Racing Game. And it was buried within one of Davison's books that I encountered this story ...
In 1931, a group of horses appeared on the track at between Union Mills and Glen Vine just before the first man came through for the morning's practice session. The horses were swiftly herded into a neighbouring field but then freed themselves and rejoined the course at Crosby. As the riders raced past the horses increased their speed but were eventually stopped at the highlander.
It would have been wrong not to illustrate this story with actual horses and farmer John Quine and his daughter Libby came to the rescue. Libby's friend met us with a horse truck at a small track near their farm in Bride. The horses were beautiful ex race horses and the plan was to clamber on top of one of them and lie sideways, but a trial of this in my dressing gown proved too precarious with the horse moving and me pivoted on my stomach. So we decided to have them run down the track with me chasing after them wearing sidecar passenger Chris McGann's racing boots that were at least five sizes too big!
There was no opportunity to practice the shot - it was a one-take affair. So Libby's friend walked miles down the road with some food and as soon as she called the horses they bolted! Trouble was, they didn't stop! The lady with the bucket had to walk for about three miles to bring them back.
This was also one of the first shots we took with photographer Ian Parry. Ian took over following Peter Greste's arrest and imprisonment in Egypt - barely a few months after our first two big shoots had finished. Peter - an award-winning Al Jazeera reporter - was arrested in a Cairo hotel along with two colleagues. The reporters were charged with broadcasting misleading information about the increasingly heated political situation in Egypt. They staunchly denied the charges. Such was the controversy and significance of Peter's arrest that the Australian Prime Minister personally pleaded for his release.
During our first shoots, Peter would always joke that he was less worn out working in war zones than shooting Milestones with me, but I'm not sure he envisioned being arrested at that time.
Peter is still in touch and I keep threatening him with another shoot.