Happy days with gentle giants at Bradford Industrial Museum

I was a volunteer because there was no funding for a paid job.

Nobody had done a training course in Heavy Horse Management so the manager Peter Killick, head horse-keeper Mike Kaye and Bradford Council staff set about finding funding for this.

Keighley Training Group became funders, with Mike Bingham, of the Shire Horse Society, the examiner.

Liz with Samson and Ben

I started the first NVQ Level 2 Heavy Horse Management and Driving course at Keighley College in May 1992 - the news featured in the T&A under the headline ‘Liz trots off to college’.

No-one else did the course with me - being the first one I think they wanted to see how it went - but I know others followed, starting at level 1. As I had already passed British Horse Society exams, I started at Level 2.

Back at Bradford Industrial Museum I worked with horses Samson and then Norman.

Samson, who was 18.2 hands high (6ft 2ins), pulled the canal barge and also the bowser which was used to water the hanging baskets in Bradford city centre.

One of the heavy horses who worked at the museum

Norman was 19.2 hands high (6ft 6ins at his withers), too big to go under the bridges along the canal so he worked on watering the hanging baskets and on parades. He was the cheekiest boy. When I went to on Norman’s collar he would always nuzzle and breathe down my neck, which made me squirm and usually, fall over onto my bottom.

Norman would look at me as if to say: “What are you doing down there?”

Norman pulling the museum's tram

Liz with 'cheeky boy' Norman

He would put his head against my tummy and I would put my arms around his head, behind his ears and we’d have a cuddle. Then he’d bring his head up and flick his nose out, while I let go and was flung backwards into the air. We loved it - I always landed on my feet. Norman really was the most adorable boy. He once drank some very strong, very sweet coffee after slurping it out of someone’s cup. He would demand breakfast in bed by not getting up straight away when we went in to feed him on a morning.

Liz with Norman and Colin, left

My memories of that time are so precious to me as it really was the most wonderful time. I am so proud to have worked with the heavy horses - my heart still swells at the thought.

Hauling barges and timber, watering hanging baskets, parades, bus and tram rides, filming for a TV programme, collecting rubbish with Bradmet, visiting schools, fetes and galas, taking Santa around at Christmas, Victorian Christmas days with the Jersey wagon lit with lamps…and the female staff looking down at heel in the genuine Victorian dresses they wore.

Liz in recent times, with a pony

Oh yes, and I was once reported by a member of the public for truanting school. He said: “There’s a right little lass working wi’ them big horses and she should be at school."

My colleagues had to hold each other up from laughing. I tried to explain that I was 21, had left school in 1988 and wasn’t bunking off school. He didn’t believe me and I had to get the head of personnel to come down and talk to him.

I have continued to work with horses, though recently more in an advisory capacity due to chronic illness. I do, however, manage to occasionally spend time with them.

It was a shame Horses At Work had to go. They didn’t cost that much in the scheme of things and they did bring in an income, but in a time when libraries and nurseries were closing, it would have been hard to justify keeping them. It was such a pity they went.

I am immensely proud of my time working with the shires. I miss them still. Thomas, Ben (never Benji), Samson, then Norman and Willy (never William to me) and I can never forget Max, our cob, who everyone kept asking if he was the baby..

Working with them really was the best time of my life.

Horses at Work was a popular attraction

*Horses have worked at Moorside Mills for more than 130 years, writes Helen Mead.

In the 19th century a 40-strong team of working horses transported goods at the worsted spinning mill, built in 1875.

In more recent times, under the banner Horses at Work, a number of heavy horses - shires and Clydesdales - were stabled at Bradford Industrial Museum.

A popular attraction with adults and children, they pulled a tram taking visitors around the museum.

The horses also carried out a range of community activities around the district, appearing at fetes, galas and parades and pulling carriages at weddings and funerals.

The gentle giants made an annual appearance at the Great Yorkshire Show in Harrogate and were occasionally called upon to feature in films and TV dramas being made in Yorkshire, including Brideshead Revisited.

For three days a week from June to September, the horses could be seen in pairs walking around the centres of Bradford and Keighley, pulling a dray containing a large water bowser. Using the bowser, their handlers watered hundreds of hanging flower baskets and planters.

Sadly, Horses at Work came to an end in 2011 when the horses and their handers fell victim to cost cutting by Bradford Council. The last two horses, Clydesdales Murdoch Murdoch - who was named through a Telegraph & Argus competition in 2005 - and Darcy, retired to live out their lives elsewhere.

They are a much-missed sight.