Who remembers Maggie?
JENNY THORNHILL
When I first came to work at Plaw Hatch about fourteen years ago Tom Ventham was the farmer. I can’t remember exactly when, but a few years later Tom acquired Maggie the horse. Maggie was a very friendly, sociable horse with a clear idea of what she liked and didn’t like. She loved company so was often in with the dairy cows.
Every day Tom would bring her for a ‘shop visit’. They’d stand half in and half out of the shop doorway, chatting to staff and customers. Customers would have to go in and out of the shop by the other door as Maggie filled the doorway. If you weren’t paying her enough attention, she’d make a grab at a loaf of bread or, her favourite, a bag of flour and shake it everywhere. She was very entertaining; customers loved seeing her there.
The cards we were selling at the time were often of scenes and animals from the farm. Maggie was depicted in a few of these, including one of the rear view of her standing in the doorway.
When Tom and family left the farm for a life in Spain it was Maggie that pulled the little shepherd’s hut that was their home for the journey - they walked the whole way! As Tom and his family had been such a huge part of Plaw Hatch it was as if with each step that Maggie took away from the farm, she left a clod of Plaw Hatch soil behind, which seemed very befitting.
I recently heard from Tom - dear Maggie had passed away. I was very saddened to hear the news and touched that Tom had got in touch to let us know. Maggie gave us such memories; she is still mentioned from time to time by customers. My favourite memory was of being in the shop, behind the counter and looking up to see Maggie in the veg room helping herself to potatoes as if it was the most normal thing in the world, she’d decided to not wait for Tom to bring her up on this occasion and had come alone! When I reminded Tom of this, he recounted a time when Maggie had gone missing and having searched the farm for her with no success, he returned to the farmhouse to find her standing by the dining table looking out of the window onto the car park watching customers.
Tom continues his love of horses in Spain and still has three to look after, but Maggie was the first. He attributes his ability to finally make the move from Plaw Hatch to Spain to her.
