'I did get a few odd looks when I rode down Deansway with five horses...'

IT must have been quite a sight even in the 1930s - a young girl riding a horse through the middle of Worcester with five more running loose alongside her.

Although there wasn't the traffic in those days, keeping the bunch together was a feat of which horse whisperer Monty Roberts himself would have been proud.

But wasn't exactly what Sheila King had in mind when she set off from the family farm at Wichenford that morning.

She thought she was riding to Henwick Halt, the railway stop in St John's on the west side of Worcester, to collect a couple of horses her father had bought at Hereford Market and put on the train.

Instead, when Sheila reached Henwick she found the animals had been sent on to Shrub Hill station on the other side of the city and when the ramp of the freight truck dropped down, out jumped five horses instead of two.

"I managed to get a head collar on one, so I led that, but the other four had to follow loose," she recalled.

"If they speeded up I just went faster to keep in front of them.

"I remember we went down Deansway and out over the bridge. It was a bit chaotic at times because I had no way of controlling the loose horses, but there wasn't the traffic there is now and everyone was very helpful. Although I did have a few odd looks."

Eventually, rider and all her charges turned into the drive to Kedges Farm, off the long straight road between Lower Broadheath and Wichenford, safe and sound.

Sheila's father, Jack or J H, King, was something of a local legend in farming and hunting circles.

"King of the Kedges" they called him and he was a noted horseman and "maker" of young horses.

"People were warned not to follow him out hunting," said his daughter, "because he would go places others couldn't and they might get into trouble trying."

The world was a different place in Sheila King's childhood. She grew up with eight carthorses on the farm and the little girl learned to drive them either singly or as a pair pulling wagons or implements.

"If it was a heavy roller, it'd be a three-in-hand job," she added.

Jack King had a good eye for a horse, often buying them from Irish dealers at Stow Fair, and if the working horses turned out particularly well he would sell them on to Birmingham Corporation.

Hunters too were his speciality. One of the youngsters he bought out of Hereford Market, a grey mare called Molly Malone, went on to become a champion show horse in The Netherlands

Although the family did have a car -"a big old Ford" - Sheila usually rode to school on a pony, which grazed in a nearby field during lessons.

From Wichenford, she rode to the Tan House School at Martley, run by the formidable Mrs Fidoe.

"I suppose it must have taken about 20 minutes to half an hour," she recalled. "Although first you had to catch your pony and if the pony didn't want to be caught the whole thing took a lot longer."

Later, when Sheila moved on to College House School in Worcester, which no longer exists, she continued to ride in during fine weather, the pony spending the day at Tustins stables at the bottom of The Butts.

Otherwise trips to Worcester were undertaken in the family pony and tub, a small cart.

"We occasionally went in the car, but it did use a lot of petrol," she added.

Nearly every journey in Sheila King's childhood was on horseback.

She joined the Worcestershire branch of the Pony Club in 1931 and would think nothing of riding 10 miles to rallies at places like Droitwich or Ombersley, completing a day's activities and riding home again in the evening. During the dark days of the Second World War, the children were often accompanied by their mothers on bicycles, there being no petrol for

such things.

When hunting with the Worcestershire Hounds, her father happily hacked from Wichenford as far as Himbleton or Crowle for a meet.

"I think the farthest he came home from was one day when they finished up in Weethley Wood, which is beyond Inkberrow, only about four miles from Alcester. We used to listen for the sound of his horses hooves coming back along the road in the dark."

Later, when competing at local shows, Sheila would ride from Kedges Farm to events at Bosbury, Hanbury, Madresfield, Inkberrow, journeys that would be unthinkable today.

"I think the farthest was Feckenham," she added. "It was an awful long way back from there."

If her father went to Gloucester market buying cattle, he would put them on the train to Worcester and his daughter would meet them at Henwick on her horse and drive them home, all on her own.

"I used to shut all the garden gates I passed on my way in, so the cattle wouldn't get into the gardens on the way back. But of course, sometimes people would open them in the meantime and then you could have a bit of trouble."

On one memorable occasion, a group of beasts Sheila was shepherding took a dive through an open garden gate in Hylton Road, Worcester.

"I managed to get most of them out," she said, "but a couple went straight through the garden, round the back of the house and skidded down the bank of the River Severn.

"There wasn't much I could do, so I got the rest home and had to return for the others later. Fortunately, they were still there when we got back.

"Horses used to travel much greater distances in those days than they do now and it never seemed to do them any harm. It was just the way of life. I'd think nothing of riding into Worcester. Mind you there wasn't the traffic about in the Thirties and Forties.

"You almost knew who had a car. When I rode to school I virtually knew what vehicles I would meet and where, there were so few on the road. I don't think I'd fancy it now."

In 1956, Sheila King married Charles Kimberley Twinberrow and they purchased Doddenham Hall, between Broadwas and Knightwick.

Kim Twinberrow, as he was always known, was a member of another family steeped in horses and hunting lore and a founder member of the Clifton-on-Teme Hunt.

His bride also became the sister-in-law of the redoubtable Lady Waechter, who, from her home The White House at Suckley, ran the North Ledbury Hunt virtually single-handedly.

Over the years, Kim and Sheila Twinberrow did an enormous amount to encourage and support young riders. They hosted their first Pony Club show at Doddenham Hall in 1970 and the venue has been used in one way or another virtually ever since.

Sadly, Mr Twinberrow died in 1981, but his wife carried on the good work and this year the Pony Club awarded her its prestigious Cubitt Award for "outstanding service".

It runs in the family too. Daughter Amanda Smith is district commissioner of the Wyre Forest PC, elder son Simon is an accomplished rider, although in his teenage days he was a motocross star, and younger son James is one of the joint secretaries of the Worcestershire Hunt. There are also nine grandchildren, all of whom ride.

It would be no exaggeration to say that Mrs Twinberrow, a rather private person, was very reluctant for us to write this feature.

"I don't go in for that sort of thing. I am not very interesting," she protested.

But that really is for others to judge and to talk to this utterly fascinating, genteel English country lady is to travel back to a sepia-tinted world that has all but disappeared.