This is the true story of Ruby's life as told by herself and in her words. Born Ruby Alleston 27 Dec 1905 at Bures on the Essex/Suffolk Border, she tells of her love and continuous involvement with horses through the hard times of the agricultural depression until the time she left home in 1935 to get married.  It was a time when she said, "if you did not have anything you were lucky because you did not have the worry of it for as sure as god made little green apples you would loose it. It was a time when you could walk on land from Cambridge to Clacton that nobody would take.  A time when it was driving honest to goodness hard working farmers shany and they were being turned out of their homes and committed to the workhouse. We had a dog tied up everywhere.”
 
There were added hardships of loosing horses, poisoned, gored by the bull or at the hands of the 'professional' vet through to successes in the show ring, hunting, point to pointing with Swanee the fast but nappy mare who like Sparks was one of the 2.5 million horses that went to the 1914-18 war and was one of the one in a hundred that came back.  To the joyous outcome of buying a lame foal for a maiden bid at Tattersalls Newmarket auction.  Set against the continuous conflict with her cantankerous father who having been brought up with a silver spoon in his mouth took to his bed leaving Ruby this extraordinary commitment to save the family and homestead.

This is not written in dialect but it is full of Ruby's natural voice and social history in her sayings, jests, riddles, words, metaphors, family recipes, for it is written from an internal view and not from the external academic perception. It includes the words of some 15 traditional songs that she learned in her environment and over 150 photographs of the period mostly taken by herself.

Price £11.95 plus £2.00 p&p from the distributor:

John Nickalls, Oak Farm Bungalow, Suton, Nr Wymondham, Norfolk NR18 9SH
Or the publisher:
Neil Lanham, Helions Bumpstead Gramophone Co.
The Swallows, The Street, Bottesdale, Suffolk, IP22 1BP
Tel: 01379 890568

ISBN 978-0-9555947-0-0