Welsh Cossack

A few people have posted childhood photos of themselves and since I've been confined to barracks all day it seemed a good idea.

It's the 50s and I'm six, got up as a Cossack for the fancy dress parade in the local gymkhana. I won first prize, as I did again the following year, dressed as a Welsh woman going to market with panniers of produce hanging from the saddle.

The horse was not mine, maybe one of the ponies we borrowed in exchange for grazing. We had recently moved from the remote cottage where I was born to a rented house owned by the local toffs. I was a shy child and my mother was desperate to socialize me. I was enrolled in activities laid on for middle-class children: country dancing (I hated it), singing (I ran off the stage), and of course the Pony Club, absolutely de rigueur for little girls. But I wasn't really interested in riding unlike the others who were all besotted with ponies. I had no desire to learn about fetlocks and withers and I didn't have any equestrian skills to speak of. I was taken to a hunt meet and the (borrowed) pony started rearing. I took part in a procession of riders around a showground and my (borrowed) hat blew off. But nobody could touch me for fancy dress. Nothing to do with me of course but my parents saw it as a chance to impress the competition and did their damndest to make sure I won. My mother had sewed the high-collared Cossack shirt to my (Russian) father's specifications, they concocted the fur hat from an old stole and he made the leather whip that I'm holding in my left hand. The ivory-handled dagger in my belt was my favourite item.