Horsey stuff too. Taz on wedding & funeral duty

[Manky Monkey]

Beautifully done. It all looked fantastic -you'd never know how much work had gone in behind the scenes to make this happen. All in a day's work for Taz.
Oh, & once they'd got the carriage safely back to the yard & stowed in the barn & the ponies given a well deserved night in the stables, Taz & Katie were back, swapping riding boots & gloves for waitresses' black n whites to help out with the evening catering for this lot. Taz finally got home at 1.o.clock in the morning. Then had to be up again at 6 to start mucking out the stables.

[Manky Monkey]

.

[Manky Monkey]

The family had gone for an orange theme for the wedding, with orange flowers & feathers in the top hats. All very stylish.

[Manky Monkey]

Taz needed an orange shirt for the day so she borrowed one of mine. Good job she didn't have to take her jacket off  -it had Pennsylvania Pyscho Ward printed across the back  yeah, 'course I'm proud of her. 

[Tony oily bike]

There's doing things in style, and there's doing things in style......

Wow and cool.

Nice one. 

[BikerGran]

Love the style, and love the fact that the Lord looks like he's having a great time!

Hats off to Tanya for making it happen!

[Manky Monkey]

Because I don't actually work on the estate, I just live there, I only see Lord Onslow once in a while if I'm calling in at the stables to see Taz. He has no reason to remember me, but always knows my name & takes the time to ask about my job, our various vehicles etc. A genuinely nice chap & a proper, old school eccentric British Lord -just as you want him to be.
Taz spent an entire day on the phone last week, talking to everyone in the carriage driving community, tracking down a horse carriage that could take a wheelchair & even drove down to Lord March's Goodwood estate in Sussex to check one out. Then he announced he wanted to use his own carriage & his own horses -I'm not an invalid, I'm just unwell. Good on him I say. I'd like to think he's determined to cause everyone as much hassle as possible while he still can too! 

[spanners]

and i say good for him ,,,








my dad worked/caused mayhem up untill  4 or 4 days before he passed on..

and the old bugger is still watchin from above ,,

[tazet]

I'm poooooooped  The whole day was fantastic. Who said you can't plan a wedding in a week. Will need weeks of intensive chiro though as back and right shoulder now buggered but worth it to make the day happen. 

[bitzman5]

Well done taz made several people very happy

[spanners]

well taz good on you  xxxxxxx for doing it all and seeing it through  i  understand how you feel right now (f,,,,d) oo,ps sorry   , shattered

missed you at basingstoke so i,ve got to come back next year   

[morrag]

Just picked up this item Mr. M, and you are fully justified in your sense of pride with Taz. In this peculiar, changing world, this seems to impart a sense of continuity! and that's not meaning to seem pretentious! nice one y'all, and that's from an old radical!!....Morrag

[Manky Monkey]

I'm not big on privelege & wealth. I agree the Royal family get far more respect than they're worth, especially in light of revelations of their various private lives & that probably goes for most of the aristocracy. But I think traditions are important & sometimes things just need to be done the right way.
As I said, his Lordship isn't long for this World & I'm glad we managed to do our bit to make it a special day for him & his family.

[Manky Monkey]

Well, it's been a very sad day here on the Clandon Park estate.
Lord Onslow passed away this morning. Affectionately known to his staff as Lordy, he was 73 & had been battling prostrate & bone cancer. In just a few months he'd been reduced from a strapping, hale & hearty 6 foot plus, to a frail old man in a wheelchair. Heart breaking to see, but he kept his sense of humour to the end.
It's exactly a week since the wedding. He never stopped grinning all that day, but we knew how much of an effort it'd been for him & it soon became clear he'd held on for his family's sake. Once he'd seen his daughter safely married & with assurances that the estate is in good hands for the future, he simply let go. Tanya was one of the very last to talk with him.
Taz has grown very close to him over the past 12 or 13 years that she's worked on the estate. I think he secretly enjoyed her nagging him for being constantly forgetful -he called her his Wife Number Two. They competed in carriage driving events around the country, him at the reins & her bellowing directions to him as they charged around obstacles & through woods & streams with a team of 4 Palomino ponies. Tanya was always frustrated that they didn't do better in competition, but he just loved taking part. Horses were his passion & we're so glad he was able to take one last carriage ride with his beloved ponies last week.
I don't work for the Onslows, I just live with Tanya in the cottage that goes with her job, so I'd bump into Lordy maybe once a month or so around the estate. I went to watch them compete once, marched with him in the annual village Remembrance Day parade & stood beside him as he belted out hymms at the accompanying church service. Tanya & I attended 3 or 4 of the staff Christmas drinks dos he & his wife hosted in their home. He was charming, generous, had a lively sense of humour, was a welcoming host & a great teller of stories. He was educated at Eton & studied at the Sorbonne. He had a wealth of knowledge of British history & took his duties in the House of Lords as a Conservative peer very seriously. In fact he was the very last hereditary peer left there. He may have been the 7th earl of Onslow, who's family once owned literally half of Surrey -"You were born in Old Woking Andy? We used to own that. Sold it for 5 pounds an acre", yet you could meet him in the local British Legion bar & he'd buy you a drink & chat to you all evening. He was an old school gentleman. A lovable eccentric. Above all, he was a thoroughly nice chap. They just don't make 'em like that any more.
One more generation gone. All that knowledge lost forever. A little bit more of the Great British spirit has slipped away. It was a pleasure to know you Sir.
Farewell Lordy.

Lord Michael Copplestone Dillon Onslow, 7th Earl of Onslow. 1938 - 2011.

[Manky Monkey]

.