Horse and Cart

In days of your everything was delivered by young men on bikes or pushing handcarts, or older men leading a horse or two pulling a cart.  These could carry an enormous and varied amount of goods usually around the town.  Some would plod slowly for many miles from the country towns into the cities, a long days walk there and a long days walk back.

The cities themselves were full of horse and carts, many working for commercial businesses dealing with business requirements, others spent their time delivering to household needs, and the horse and cart delivering milk was one of the most common.  My father did this before and after the war there being no other work available.  That is his horse delivering from a small dairy in Slateford around Edinburgh somewhere.  The horse knew all the women who fed him apples and such like and waited for his sweet each day.  On one occasion the horse did not wait for the woman to come out of the door and was half way up the path, cart and all, before dad got him back out.   

Edinburgh had many milk deliveries this way, St Cuthbert's Dairy continued to use horses into the 70s. With Usher Vaux Brewery, now long gone like all other Edinburgh Breweries, had two large Dray horses into the 70s, possibly for longer.  We saw similar in Dunfermline when we went there, the local Co-op using horses until the 60s. 

This came to mind when reading of small towns in France once again making use of horses to deliver items, clean streets, school transport and Christmas rides, most often done by vans.   The horses are more ecological, and bring out happiness with the public apparently.  They claim to treat them well, taking care re the weather, wither too hot or too cold, lots of grass to run about in and good shelter at home.  

Yet, some grumble.   

In Brittany there are those who claim such work is like 'slavery' for the horses.  The roads are dangerous, conditions poor, and horses are not slaves.  25,000 people, mostly I bet who do not live there, have signed a petition against the town of Questembert attempting to stop the use of two 8-year-old mares from working this way.  Some 18,000 have signed a similar petition demanding the mares remain, I bet they do live there.   

The Maire will not be beaten by such grumbles, the horses do the work happily and bring pleasure to the public.  Whether they are cheaper is a question but if it is possible in quieter areas to bring back horses doing these jobs I think it well worth while.  Everyone will appreciate seeing them, they do appear to enjoy it and it is better than being bored at home.