Lord Ilsley’s Blog No2

Greetings all!

A Master at Work

I won’t bugger about:

I think we should kick off by addressing the elephant in the room. The elephant holding up a giant placard that states;

“THE WEBSITE HASN’T BEEN UPDATED FOR BLOODY AGES MICHAEL!!!”

It’s been annoying me as much as I annoy myself to be honest (and three months of elephant shit in the front room has started to block my view of the telly at six o’clock every evening), but I do have a fairly good excuse.

Here’s a list of distractions that have basically seen me come home completely knackered, open a beer, watch The Chase on the +1 channel, have some dinner and then fall asleep on the sofa every evening.

Since the last Blog we’ve achieved the following:

• Filled up one giant, five metre long, three metre high skip with scrap metal - Twenty one radiators, seven ovens, six cast iron baths, eight washing machines, the remains of a Subaru Impreza, two punctured oil tanks - along with the prehistoric clutter cleared out of the workshop including six broken drills, ten rusty blunt handsaws, a sawdust extractor slightly larger than a Subaru Impreza and the famous West Ilsley hammer that had no handle and predated Stonehenge.

• Filled a further four yellow skips with a total of 17 tellies, twenty one windows from the Flats above the Queen’s Row of stables, five kitchens, seven sofas and a mountain of clutter from the tackroom.

• Filled a flatbed truck from Newbury that collects old bikes for a charity initiative that gets youngsters onto a starter course in mechanical engineering. There were 21 bikes in all.

• Had one hell of a bonfire night.

• Refurbished Bungalows 1, 2, 10 & 13, along with the three flats above the Queen’s Row.

• Jet-washed, painted and replaced 9 doors in the Main Yard, along with the rooves, which I don’t think have been done for about 80 years.

• Kept getting quotes for tarmac in the Main Yard - then decided that we can’t afford that - so we’ve cut out the worst bits and botched them with concrete.

• Raked, levelled and spread 4 furlongs of woodchip on Hodcott Down.

• Sworn daily about the constant flow of flood water from the village that has been running down the driveway for three months, lifting all of the tarmac, making it’s way through Mick’s garden, across the paddock in East Wing and the horse-walker before heading off across the lowest point of the Downs before flooding the basements of the residents in East Ilsley.

The start of the ‘Great Skip Purge’ of 2023

OK, so swearing at flood water isn’t exactly an achievement but it’s definitely been a distraction - and that’s why I included it in the list above. Because that elephant has been doing my head in.

To say that the first seven months of my return to West Ilsley has been a very steep learning curve would be an understatement. I thought that when you set out to achieve something you would simply achieve it and then move on to do something else. But it simply doesn’t happen that way with a place this old and this ‘wonky’.

And the West Ilsley estate is very, very wonky.

No. 9 is at the bottom and East Wing is at the top of shot.

It’s all over the shop and although we’d all kill for areas of open spaces, generous gardens and rolling countryside to live and work in, it’s hardly 'a ‘time efficient’ set up.

Getting a call to say that the pipes have burst over at East Wing when you’re wondering how to install an oil tank 400 yards away in the garden of No.9 demands traipsing all the way across the yard, remembering you’ve left the adjustable spanner in the workshop, going back for it, walking back over and then remembering that you have no idea how to repair a burst water pipe.

West Ilsley maintenance basically involves walking further than Ian Botham, but without raising any money for charity, and spending the best part of an hour to neither fix burst pipes nor fit an oil tank.

So I sought out an ‘assistant’ who has skills, experience and knowledge.

It seems that to work in maintenance at West Ilsley you must be called either Rob or Darren. We now have three Robs and two Darrens. There’s ‘Yard Rob’, ‘Gallops Rob’, ‘Michael’s Rob’, ‘Darren the Plumber’ & ‘Darren the Chippy’.

All of them are specialists in one way or another.

I carry a sledgehammer.

‘Michael’s Rob’ is the bloke who I work with most closely although he mainly mocks me, carries me about in a cage or sends me up a roof for days on end.

And I’m happy with that - although the mockery has become something of a plague. It’s spread through about 90% of the staff here, with seemingly no antidote on the horizon for the foreseeable future.

I see it as great for morale though - even as I cry myself to sleep at night to the sound of Cat Thing dragging assorted corpses through the cat flap.

It’s a team effort after all and we all have a role to play.

Having been put on the market over two years ago, the decision was made to stay at West Ilsley with the sole intention, in the words of Mick, to have a, “Fucking right good go!”

So that’s what we are doing.

We’ve not been helped by being knocked back on the planning permission to redevelop the dilapidated Colts Yard. A new barn was planned to make the place more efficient for staff to work in. But for some reason, which I don’t think would have been based on the old yard being a heritage site (it’s certainly not a site of ‘outstanding natural beauty’ - I’m too embarrassed to post a photo of it on here).

In short - it’s a dump.

So we’ve set about upgrading everything else.

We started with the Queen’s Row - a line of nine boxes situated under the flats where the majority of the Queen’s most famous horses were stabled in the days of Dick Hern.

Firstly, the downstairs windows came out. I guess times have changed - when there was once the thought that horses should be locked up and incubated, now better ventilated and less stuffy housing is coveted - which suited me down to the ground.

Because I’m deadly with a sledgehammer.

We then moved on to the interior. We jet washed, scrubbed down and painted the walls, whilst the ancient hardwood panels looked like they’d come up a treat with a bit of sandpapering. A couple of hours and I thought the job would be done.

And they did come up a treat - but that was four days later.

My girlfriend describes such obsessive behaviour as a, “Tendancy to hyper-focus”.

I’m seldom in a position to disagree but it was worth it……..

Oh yeah - the drains. I forgot about the two days spent unblocking them. That was a lot of fun.

Anyway, with that done, it was time to make a fuss of the plaques that adorn the old stables. A bit of Brasso did the trick. Just reading the names of the Queen’s horses make you understand how privileged we are to live and work here. I’m (genuinely) obsessed with making this job a proper one.

‘Plaque Day’ involved a slog in the old workshop which we completely gutted of all of the clutter during the ‘Big Skip Purge’ last autumn. It was in there that we unearthed another very special piece of West Ilsley’s history.

Troy’s Bench - A summer project.

Willie Carson even visited the workshop with Mick when he arrived to drop off a two year old he has in training here. He was chuffed to see it. I did offer it to him but he was of the opinion that it deserves a special place at West Ilsley and took a bench drill home with him instead. He didn’t offer us any money for it, but has reported back to us that it works a dream. Probably the only tool in the workshop that did work.

I feel like an idiot.

I got robbed by a bloke who is two and a half feet shorter than myself.

I even carried it across the courtyard and put it in his horsebox.

What a mug.

The day after, in a fit of rage, the bottom line of the Main Yard got the sledgehammer treatment. The top doors were removed and it’s been transformed.

This was the five day period when Rob put me in a cage for hours on end with the jet washer.

I’m quite happy with it - especially when looking at the photo of Willie aboard Henbit in 1980 with the same backdrop.

Henbit (W. Carson) 1980

Eventually we got to the stage above the Queen’s Row where, the flats now refurbished, we finally got the new windows installed. Another glimpse of what a place this once was and can be again - although the hope that the monarch would have thirteen horses in training here - might be a little too much to expect….

Major Hern with ‘All the Queen’s Horses’ in 1977.

The Queen’s Row (windows going in) in 2024.

Whereas we can’t promise to benefit from a raft of bluebloods being sent here, we have to play to West Ilsley’s strengths and what we do have is accommodation, eighteen properties to be precise, and we’ve set about refurbishing them with as much gusto as we have the horses’ dwellings.

The only trouble is, they were built in the 1960’s and you can tell. So, this winter we concentrated on the interiors, although not without certain challenges along the way. Bungalow No. 2 is exacty the same layout as Gma’s bungalow two doors along where I live these days. The layout was the only similarity though.

Digging in to Bungalows 1 & 2

Bungalow No.2 has always been known as the apprentices’ digs, a place where young jockeys just starting out would live - the likes of Harley, Cremin and Bishop being the ones that immediately spring to mind.

I was young once and I wince at the memories of the student digs I shared with five lads when I was at university in Liverpool (Britpop and Ladism were all the rage back then), but this place was another level entirely. Marry up the lifestyles of teenaged lads thrown in to one place together and the fact that the bathroom was primarily used as a place to sweat and lose the pounds - it was a mouldy disaster zone.

I’d never removed a cast iron bath before and once I’d done so (with a sledgehammer obviously), it became quite apparent that this was going to be a tricky turnaround.

Mainly because the entire bathroom wall fell in.

So Rob and I spent our evenings looking at You Tube videos having searched, “How to rebuild a wall”.

It took us the entire weekend to complete.

Perfection - I think you’ll agree.

We got a plumber to fit the actual bathroom suite (not Darren the Plumber), although I did make my debut as a wallpaperer, mainly because it’s a horrible job and nobody else wanted to do it.

Once finished in the lounge though, I was quite surprised.

I’m fucking dreadful at it.

Lessons were learned though. Bungalows 1, 10 & 13 were turned around in quicker and quicker timescales and we tried all sorts of different tactics when it came to removing the baths - although to be honest, Rob’s efforts in 10 were only slightly less refined than my sledgehammer technique employed in Number 2.

But at least the wall didn’t collapse.

So we have a system in place and something approaching a plan, albeit a plan with someone with my skill and mindset very much at it’s centre. And we’ll probably be in great shape by the end of the year.

I’m just not sure which year.

The current to do list:

• Jetwash every staff roof and replace the guttering on the Woolaways.

• Paint the exteriors of all staff properties.

• Install new doors and refurbish the Brigadier’s Row of boxes next to the office

Ready for the Refit

• Install the new Colts Yard into the horsewalker barn (Don’t forget to remove horsewalker).*

• Fix the rooves of the Big Barn, the Tractor Shed and the Workshop.

• Sand, treat and install Troy’s bench somewhere before Willie comes back.

• Repair the bathroom in No.2 Cottage.

• Give Jack the best chance to establish himself with the best accommodation for staff and horses alike.

• Top the batting and bowling averages for West Ilsley Cricket Club (Cherwell League Div 6C).

• Be a better boyfriend.

• Get a life (see above & above above).

• Get the book published.

*An interesting development regarding the new stable block that will go in when the floods subside.

It all arrived from Poland last week and as long as I’m not over involved in it’s construction it’s going to look magnificent.

The new stable block - ready for assembly.

What wasn’t magnificent was the delivery technique of the lorry driver who inexplicably reversed all the way up the driveway to West Ilsley Stables - about 4 furlongs all told.

It didn’t go very well.

Mick was a contortion of rage, hysterics and downright bafflement.

We’ve just spent two days trying to tidy it all up.

I’ll even go so far as to describe it as ‘an absolute fucking shambles’.

And that’s coming from the bloke who took a sledgehammer to the bathroom in Bungalow No.2.

Until next time then, when things will probably still remain half finished!

Enjoy your springtime - the best time of year when anything seems possible.

Until you realise that it isn’t.

Best,

Michael.

https://twitter.com/MichaelJohnCh11

PS: Not a single mention has gone to the brilliant staff who tend to, care for and look after the horses in this Blog. Mainly because they are always taken for granted.

I was once a stable lad.

It shouldn’t happen but it has in this post, in the past - and it’ll keep on happening.

They are as important as our horses.