A heartwarming read about a ‘man who takes his horse for a walk’

When one considers how modern machinery has completely changed the face of farming in recent years, it seems hard to imagine that less than 80 years ago many farms in Ireland didn't even have a tractor, with working horses being used on most small farms for heavy tasks like ploughing, mowing and carrying loads.

Reports say that there were around 400,000 horses and ponies in Ireland in the 1940s, a figure that began to fall rapidly in the late 1950s with the introduction of the T20 Ferguson tractor.

Nowadays, it is often only at vintage fairs that one might see a working horse in action.

Recalling memories of a working horse on every farm in his own Rostrevor area in the 1950s, and telling his story of buying and schooling a young Cob horse to work in his garden in later years, is the subject of Do Nothing Sudden, Do Nothing Rash, written by Ian Sherry and published by American publisher Lynn R Miller.

It is a wonderfully told story, full of wit, musings, and little anecdotes, that will bring back many memories of rural life in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s to those who lived through it. It recalls horse fairs in places like Castleblayney, Muff, and Ballinasloe.

It mentions how following the dawn of the tractor, carts and traps were then consigned to blocking a gap in a hedge, with harnesses and leather collars left to rot in sheds. For this reader, some of these could still be seen rotting away in hedges and sheds growing up – by now they are long gone, in many cases the hedges along with them.

When picking the right horse, and later for its schooling, the author talks about the advice given to him by a couple of older men, advice which is gladly welcomed and put to good use.

Later in the book, he talks of how Teddy, the name finally settled upon for the Cob after some deliberation, gets colic and requires the assistance of a vet with a colic injection, and a feed of bran mash, which is made from the refuse of oats.

Teddy recovers from the bout of colic and is successfully schooled, with Ian later using Teddy for “ploughing and slipping up soil”.

Do Nothing Sudden, Do Nothing Rash, which Ian dedicates to his wife Stasia, is a thoroughly enjoyable read.

It includes a heartwarming introduction by Lynn Miller.

Look out for it in local independent bookshops.