Haveachat with Les Shipp

by Les Shipp

it was basically just to boost the sales of a sporting paper. Two sporting papers were at war with one another over advertising and this event was going to make or break one of them. The two papers were Le’Auto and Le Velor. Le’Auto being the instigator of the very first Tour de France came up trumps and put their competitor out of business.

  All that was of no concern to me, I just wanted and needed the twenty thousand franks in the first place prize money. Cycling was my life and it was hard to make a living out of it. I had won many lesser events and I had entered into this race as the favourite, hoping not to let myself and my fans down.

  The race was over semi flat country, but each stage was long, four hundred kilometres at least. We were allowed between one and three days’ rest between stages and you needed it as some of the stages lasted for seventeen hours. All the stages except the first one started before dawn, more like the night before. We rode as individuals, not in teams so you were on your own. In other races I had competed in I had been allowed a pacer, a rider who rode with you over sections to help you to keep your pace up if you were on your own, but in this race it was banned. You were allowed to ride in just some of the stages if you wanted to and if you were a front runner at the end of that stage you were paid five franks but you wouldn’t be classified for the final. I, Maurice Garvin, completed all six stages otherwise I wouldn’t be able to claim the twenty thousand franks.

  Sixty riders entered the first stage, twenty-one were sponsored by bicycle manufactures and thirty-nine entered without support, the rest had private backers. The race was a hard slog and you had to be fit to even think of entering, the cold dark nights were the worst and at times riding through the rain added to the misery. If it hadn’t been for the twenty-thousand franks at the end it would have been hard to keep the pace up. I won the race, two hours, fifty-nine minutes and thirty-four seconds ahead of my nearest rival, making it the biggest winning margin in history.

  I went on to win the Tour de France in 1904 but there was a lot of controversy hanging over the entire riders. It was suggested that there might have been some cheating going on, like getting a lift on a train during the night. Who would do such a thing? Not me that’s for sure or perhaps we will think about that one. However the organizers took it seriously and for the Tour de France 1905 several riders were banned including me.

  Pity I wasn’t born a hundred years later, Lance and I would have made a great team.

  THAT WAS NO LADY.

  She was born into a Noble high ranking aristocratic family in Austria. The youngest and only remaining member of her family put her in dire peril when Austria was taken over by the Nazi. The fact that she had Jewish ancestry didn’t help.

  With what she could gather together of her fortune in a hurry she fled the country knowing her name was on the list to be interned. She wasn’t interested as to where her destination was to be, she just wanted to be safe.

  Although she had lived the life of wealth and privilege she had also been protected from the outside world. She ended up arriving in Australia and being clever enough not to announce her wealth in fear of it being taken from her she was sent to a far western property in New South Wales as a lady’s maid.

  She struggled in this position because of her lack of English and not being used to being told what to do. On the property also worked a rabbit trapper who took a fancy to this foreign lady. He was a good looking young man and soon caught her attention. He offered to teach her English and she was thrilled with this and used to sneak down to his quarters in the evening for her lessons.

  She wasn’t to know that the English he was teaching her was only fit for out by the rabbit traps which left her with a vocabulary of foul language which she proudly displayed. When it was discovered where the foul language came from they were promptly dismissed. They went off together and lived in a tent while he pursued his line of work as a rabbit trapper. They did so well out of this they were eventually able to buy a house in town. Here is where a tragedy occurred, while working on the roof of the house he fell and was impaled on a steel fence.

  With the insurance payout she was able to buy a substantial property where she raised cattle and horses. She never married again but she used to take handsome young men on tours of Europe and make gentlemen of them.

  She had a great knowledge of the finer art of horse riding and was much sought after as a teacher during pony camp times. Her knowledge was so great that the knobs had to hold their tongues when the foul language came out of her during a lesson.

  We met up with her during her later life because of our involvement with the horse world and if you could get past the language she was a very interesting person. She had a lonely old age and we befriended her, taking her to the pictures now and then.

  Rich she may have been, a princess she may have been but she was certainly no lady.

  POSSESSION IS NINE TENTHS OF THE LAW.

  We were given a horse that our farrier owned. He said it was ours to keep as he and his wife were not able to handle it and it was no use to them. When it arrived at our home we could see it was indeed a beautiful animal and it was registered with the stock horse society. It was a large powerful chestnut horse with attractive white markings.

  Its beauty was purely visual we found as we took over the handling of the animal. It wasn’t all that easy to get along with. When you touched the horse it would squeal and strike out at you or if you were down the other end it would land you with a swift kick. There was no trouble riding it as it came with a chronic lameness and wasn’t able to be ridden. The farrier said it was only a stone bruise and would soon get better. The lameness lasted for many months and several visits from the vet. With gentle handling over the many months we were able to win the horses trust and he found he didn’t need to be so aggressive with us. We thought perhaps the farrier tried to beat this spirited highly intelligent horse into submission and he fought back.

  While inspecting his lame leg one day I discovered a pussy sore at the top of his hoof. I bathed it in a bucket of antiseptic and found it had a piece of wood in it. The wood must have entered at the bottom of his hoof and worked its way up. It must have been very sore and painful for him but he allowed me to remove the stake resulting in a lame free horse.

  Back in good health, Alice was able to train him in dressage and went on to win many championships and also to compete in cross country events over huge jumps. Our youngest daughter Rebecca also competed on him. He had become a lovely horse to ride and Rebecca was able to ride him bareback with just a halter on. Handy Bill as he was called became part of the family.

  Alice and Rebecca met up with the farrier at a horse sale one day and Rebecca proudly told him how quiet Handy Bill had become. We had a phone call from him soon after saying that seeing that the horse was now so quiet he would like him back so his wife could compete on him. Alice was devastated as she had won the high point score on him for the whole of northern New South Wales with the stock horse society and had many trophies.

  Unfortunately although we had the care and expense of the horse for many years through droughts and vet bills and turning him into a manageable horse he was still registered with the stock horse society in the farrier’s name. Legally he would be ours especially as we had possession of him but we didn’t want to fight about it.

  The day he was to come and pick him up we flew out to England so we had turned him out with the other horses, no doubt he would have had an interesting few hours catching him.

  On our return from England the farrier rang to say his wife had won the events she rode in but since then the horse had returned to his unmanageable self and he would like us to have him back. We didn’t want the trauma the second time so we said no. Handy Bill was never heard of on the show scene again so we hope he was turned out to live a life of peace in a paddock somewhere.

  Possession might be nine tenths of the law but sometimes you have to think about it.

  THE WORLD IS MY OYSTER.

  Ahmed lived in a mo
untain village in northern Afghanistan, an impoverished area with not much future for the inhabitants, especially the young ones. The Taliban had decimated many of the male population and Ahmed being on the verge of manhood feared for his future. He did his best to keep a low profile but he knew sooner or later he would have the option of either fighting with the Taliban or being put to death. He didn’t like either of these options so he decided to leave his village and head up into the mountains and join the freedom fighters.

  Ahmed spent one bitterly cold winter with the freedom fighters and didn’t think he could survive another winter with them. Because he wasn’t from their tribe they treated him badly so he decided to join the band of refugees trying to flee the country. The little band of refugees struggled over the foreboding mountain to freedom but this wasn’t the end of their trail, they were placed in a refugee camp that gave them very little hope for the future so Armed decided to flee the camp and make his way with other escapees to Indonesia. Once there he handed over all his possessions to a sea captain who promised to deliver him to Australia.

  The voyage in the dilapidated old boat was a nightmare with very little food or water. During the journey he often thought to himself this is it I’m not