Get ye to Ingarsby Hall, Melton Mowbray on Saturday February 2nd to witness the Dianas of the Chase! Sidesaddle daredevils both male and female are travelling from far and wide to take part in the Bernard Weatherill Sidesaddle Steeplechase in aid of Forces in Mind, a charity which helps former servicemen and women reintegrate into …
Category Archives: Nannie Power O’Donoghue
A (Not So) Short History of Women Riding Astride
I enjoyed talking about the history of sidesaddle on Countryfile – it was my first experience of TV and everyone was incredibly friendly and easygoing. We did a few takes of different parts of the interview and it was hard to know whether to embellish what I’d said each time or to say the same …
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Riding Philosophically, Riding Culturally
Hello folks, I haven’t been such a great blogger lately because I’ve been working on The Next Big Thing – actually the Two Next Big Things. They’re books two and three, the first of which will be underway this spring, and the second needs whipping into shape so that it can be rolled out sometime …
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Women, Horses and World War One
(Look on this as a kind of missing chapter from If Wishes Were Horses.) Part two of this post will be available here from 2nd June 2014. When I wrote If Wishes Were Horses I tried to take the story of girls and ponies from Lascaux to My Little Pony as neatly as I could. …
If Wishes Were Horses: Jeunes Filles Bien Elevées
I loved this chapter and had far, far to much to write about, some chunks of which may appear here if not used elsewhere. Meanwhile, enjoy the slideshow. The books came largely from Archive.org. J. Collinson and Sons rocking horses. A website maintained by Nannie Power O’Donoghue’s biographer, Olga E. Lockley. The brilliantly titled Unprotected …
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First Sidesaddle Lesson: Not Quite “Posed Audaciously Like a Wing”
My Christmas present this year was an hour’s sidesaddle lesson at the Pine Lodge School of Classical Education in Norfolk, with top teacher and judge Sarah Walker. Aside from actually buying me a pony, this was probably The Best Gift Ever. Not only did I get to try a style of riding I’ve been curious …
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Upstairs, Downstairs
“I once caught an abigail in an English house pirouetting before the cheval-glass, dressed in my riding-breeches, and grinning delightedly with a hand on either side of her waist. By way of punishment, I made her divest herself of the trifles in my presence, and by doing so found that she had augmented the evil …