Our Lives So Far (Part One)

Hello!

My name is Lisa Wilde, and this is my daughter Eleanor.

We are here today to introduce you to Regency and tell you a bit about how I ended up being the Company Director of two businesses within the Funeral Industry whilst being a mother of 3 and negotiating many trials and tribulations!

Since the age of 3 years old, I have been horse-mad! Our family holiday always had to include a pony ride for my sister and I, which then turned into weekly riding lessons at the local riding school. My earliest memories have always included horses. Starting with my Barbie horses, which I cherished, along with the dream that I would someday have my own horse.

My parents, although both hard-working people, could not afford the luxury of a pony, so, every year on our family holiday, they would always make sure the obsession was fed. One year in Devon, it rained from start to finish, and to my disappointment, I didn’t get my pony ride. Dad promised that when we got home, he would take me to a local riding school for a ride, and much to his dismay, that was the beginning of what turned out to be a regular thing for many years!

At 15, my dream came true with my first horse, and then it all began...!

Growing up in the Countryside and having a horse-mad mother, Eleanor has always been immersed in everything rural – at the ripe old age of 1 day old, she experienced her first horse on the way home from the hospital. We decided to make a quick pit stop to check on the horses, and we took the opportunity to plonk Ellie on her first pony! From that moment on, her fate was sealed. Horses would always play a large part in her life.

Time, and a lot of hard work later, we were lucky enough to own a small holding, and over the years, Eleanor and her now two brothers have seen a large array of animals come to stay with us. I couldn’t turn away anything needing help, so we became a sanctuary for anything that needed us. This sometimes even included people. Our home became a safe space for whoever needed us.

My children thrived, and the empathy they showed with the responsibility they learnt, has, and still does, make me incredibly proud of them daily. Our true love was and still is horses. Eleanor was around 10 years old by this time, and that first pony I had plonked her on at 1 day old was now becoming a little outgrown.

So, in our ultimate wisdom, we decided to teach him to pull a carriage. He took to his new task like a duck to water, and as a family, we had found an amazing new passion, one which everyone could enjoy, young and old. Our weekends now consisted of packing us all up and travelling around the countryside with like-minded friends, each taking it in turn to host our weekend drives.



We always included one, if not more, pub stops along the way. Each week, we found new byways to explore and new adventures to have. Some of our fondest memories are of those early days when the children were little.

We have had our famous five-minute moments along the way, too.

As I recall, one such occasion was a frosty cold winter afternoon. Benjamin and Oliver were very small, and none of the children were at school, so that could have been the Christmas holidays. I needed to exercise one of our now many driving ponies. But couldn’t leave the children on their own.

So, three children wrapped up like little Eskimos accompanied me on the carriage with blankets and hot water bottles. I only planned to take a little stroll around the block, which was about 15 minutes down quiet single-track country lanes. 

As we strolled back towards our little farm, we saw a man with a huge, lensed film camera in the distance. He was videoing the frosted fields and the slow sunset. It was a beautiful sight, and there was a silence hanging over us, with just the quiet, muted hooves of our little pony on the track breaking the silence. We passed, and silently acknowledged each other. I drove our little merry band onward towards home, where a warm, open fire awaited us.



Later that evening, I watched Anglian News as the opening credits and theme music started. There we were on the TV. Walking along a silent frosted country lane with the sun going down behind us. The children are all wrapped up on the back with only their little faces showing under a mountain of blankets. 

We had somehow ended up on the countryside views that they use to introduce the programme. The phone didn’t stop ringing for days after that. Everyone had seen us and our endearing little gang.

Another such moment was during the fuel crisis when people couldn’t get fuel, and all the tankers were not making it to fuel stations. I forget the reason. But this was not a problem for us as we used our horses to get the children to school. 

Much to Ellie's dismay, she was now nearing secondary school and found all this highly embarrassing. Someone from the news must have found out about our little trips to school and contacted me asking if they could come and ask a few questions. 

Well, yes, I suppose so I said. I was unsure why they would be interested in us, but the next thing I knew, a TV crew descended on us. Two enormous vans with aerials and satellite dishes sticking out the top. We did a whole piece of the news about how we are beating the fuel crisis by using our horses for school and shopping trips. 

This was true, but it was more than a little tongue-in-cheek. Poor Eleanor was so mortified she refused to be filmed, so we had to pull in two of my friend's children as stand-ins.



Sorry, Ellie.

Thanks for reading. Join us next week for Part Two of Our Lives So Far