Ric2013 wrote:Don't get me started on horses. They never were the default mode of transport and, in the old days, one had to be very rich indeed to be able to afford one. It gets me that while a car requires a licence and MOT, no such thing is required for a horse.
Really! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqCJJNioiGI is just one example. In the 1890s there were problems dealing with the ever increasing amount of horse waste and feed in the cities. The solution was the motor vehicle. Now there is a faction of motorists that think cyclists should have a licence and MOT.
"It takes a genius to spot the obvious" - my old physics master.
I don't peddle bikes.
I will have to look at your link when I get the time.
My point was 1. that people on horses today are not on their way to work
2. that my grandparents came from a very poor peasant background small enough to know their history and they dug the fields by hand (who could afford extra land just for horses, oxen, etc!?). There were presumably horses in the village, but those were for the rich. As for the most of them, if they wanted to travel, they travelled by foot, which presumably meant that most of them would have lived and died within a 10 mile radius.
200 years ago there was a great volcanic eruption which caused the year without a summer People were hungry and many horses were eaten so travel became even harder Fortunately Baron von Drais then invented the bicycle Than provided mobility for the lower classes, there was no need to invent unguided motor vehicles
Entertainer, juvenile, curmudgeon, PoB, 30120 Cycling-of course, but it is far better on a Gillott We love safety cameras, we hate bullies
Ric2013 wrote:I will have to look at your link when I get the time.
My point was 1. that people on horses today are not on their way to work
2. that my grandparents came from a very poor peasant background small enough to know their history and they dug the fields by hand (who could afford extra land just for horses, oxen, etc!?). There were presumably horses in the village, but those were for the rich. As for the most of them, if they wanted to travel, they travelled by foot, which presumably meant that most of them would have lived and died within a 10 mile radius.
My Dad, now in his mid 80s, grew up in a rural area of Ireland, and horses were very much part of life for ordinary people. Not just the rich. Those who couldn't afford cars used horses and carts to transport themselves and things they needed. Milk churns were collected by horse and cart to be taken to the creamery (dairy). Of course they also used buses, bicycles and walking. What they didn't have much access to was cars.
Mmmm. This one in Leeds says HORSE RIDERS ONLY. Taken literally, that might be the horsey equivalent of CYCLISTS DISMOUNT, although when does a horse rider without a horse revert to being a pedestrian?
I would argue that the London video is already modern-day i.e. post enclosures and industrial revolution, and that the factory workers are probably not in any of those cabs or ever likely to be, but, yes, Ireland and Essex are a point, because it probably wasn't a particularly bad land to farm, so, with a limited population, I'll accept that animals can gather food energy more efficiently than we do. I suppose it's only when the hills are like this: / and there is little flat land that feeding animals starts to become a competition with feeding humans. I suppose my point is that horses were never the agents of the mass availability of transportation that only became possible and affordable in the machine age (in rich nations).
I must confess a distinct anti-horse bias following a surfeit of inexperienced riders being trained on edgy horses on public roads; a run in with a pair of horse riders who had singled out 50 yds in front of me after I had been following them for several minutes at a safe distance, and then got annoyed that I passed on my cycle (wide and dead slow) because I might have made the horse jumpy, my point being was that I thought they had seen me (and I hadn't shouted out, because that would have been like sounding a horn), his point was that I should have shouted out and he couldn't possibly be expected to look over his shoulder like I did because he was in control (allegedly) of an animal; some negative personal opinions on the handful of horsey people I have had any dealings with have not done much to rid me of my bias.
I don't think, though, that horses are inherently unsafe. While in Cuba, while I was riding a tourist horse that I was totally not in control of, a motorcycle overtook and cut in front of my horse with about 12" clearance. The horse paid no attention whatsoever. I would say, however, that there are an awful lot of bad horse riders out there, but then there are probably an equal proportion of bad cyclists.
Where, out of interest, are there still working horses in Essex? I'm in Colchester and have never seen one. They, I would imagine, are probably well trained and in safe hands.
Ric2013 wrote:Where, out of interest, are there still working horses in Essex? I'm in Colchester and have never seen one. They, I would imagine, are probably well trained and in safe hands.
Where I've encountered them is Basildon and Ramsden Bellhouse. I used to work in Basildon, and I saw the junk wagon regularly, at least in summer.
I have to admit that this was 5 years or more ago, now. I don't live there anymore. But they seemed to do regular rounds then.
edited to add: I also saw someone with a horse drawn wagon taking goods to a place in Colchester once. I think was Aladdin's Cave or something like that.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.” ― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Aladdin's Cave was formerly a reclaim place down on the Hythe (river, and name of associated former industrial area) that used to have that name. Will ask the neighbouring firm if they know anything about horses being used, next time I'm passing.
Ric2013 wrote:Aladdin's Cave was formerly a reclaim place down on the Hythe (river, and name of associated former industrial area) that used to have that name. Will ask the neighbouring firm if they know anything about horses being used, next time I'm passing.
I only saw it the one time, maybe 12 or 13 years ago. But it wasn't an area that I visited often, either.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.” ― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Now there is a faction of motorists that think cyclists should have a licence and MOT.
