Read Online Straight on Till Morning by Mary S. Lovell - Free Book Online Page B

youngest of whom was Gudrun, who had gone blind at the age of thirteen but this had not prevented her from becoming a famous organist in Denmark. To obtain a farming diploma, Jørgen had worked in a plastics factory to earn the money to pay for the course. His sport was rowing and he had formerly been an inter-Scandinavian competitor. He also loved horses and riding and had owned a beautiful hunter in Denmark.
    He was essentially very easy to get on with, ‘gemütlich’ to a degree (there is no English word for this quality). Always full of laughter, we all loved him. Very shortly after he came to the farm, Charles offered him a full partnership. Jørgen had already saved a little money and this he put into the farm, with the remainder of the risk covered by Charles, and the farm was then registered as Norman and Thrane Ltd. He quickly became devoted to Charles whom he treated as a mixture of father and elder brother. He is intuitive and shrewd rather than clever, but he will work very hard to acquire any knowledge necessary to the success of a new project. To look at he is very tall and slim, very fair and with blue eyes crinkled round the edges. Jørgen and Beryl quickly developed a close relationship. Somehow he managed to provide the strength and support that Beryl always needed, and from the time he arrived at the farm, she was able to pick up the threads of her life and go on.
    The oddest thing about Beryl was that although she could ride any horse, anywhere, fly the Atlantic, and was unafraid during activities such as game-spotting, over mundane things she was indecisive and needed to have her hand held, metaphorically speaking, all the time.
    Doreen Bathurst Norman thought that after Clutterbuck left for Peru in the early 1920s, Ruta had filled this role, followed by Denys Finch Hatton (whom Doreen always regarded as the greatest love in Beryl’s life), possibly because his detachment made him somehow unattainable. When Beryl had a ‘supporter’ – and this person did not have to be a lover, but just someone on whom she could trust and rely, and whom she respected absolutely – then ‘her insecurity took time off’. Jørgen was following in the footsteps of Clutterbuck, Ruta, Finch Hatton, Campbell Black and Schumacher, who were the major figures in Beryl’s life; between them came shorter periods of supportive help from Lord Delamere, and numerous others.
    Although Beryl’s behaviour improved after Jørgen’s arrival at Naro Moru, she was still restive. The secretarial work gave her an interest, but what she really wanted was to get back to horses. During her convalescence a friend gave her a broken-down racehorse to use as a hack. The animal ‘looked like a coat hanger when it arrived. It had been overdosed with worm tablets and quite ruined for racing – or for anything else really.’ It was the best thing that could possibly have happened. Beryl decided to work on the animal and in time it was not only fit but was able to race. ‘It never won, but I think it managed to get itself placed a couple of times,’ Doreen recalled. This episode was a turning point in Beryl’s life and set her on the track of her next great triumph. She decided to start training again and there was some talk of her training for Tom Delamere whose stable was not doing too well at the time. Beryl went to Soysambu to discuss the proposal but it came to nothing and she eventually decided, with Jørgen’s enthusiasm to bolster her resolve, to train publicly.
    The problems were immense. Firstly Beryl had no money to buy horses and nowhere to train from. Secondly she had been out of training for thirty years, and had no current reputation or contacts. She was already approaching her mid fifties, an age when most women would not contemplate taking on a new and stressful career particularly after major surgery. Predictably, none of these difficulties occurred