Suffolk breeder

Heavy horse ambassador Nigel Oakley on safeguarding the Suffolk, the joys of ploughing with a horse and a very special 19.2hh

- Eleanor Jones

My father farmed in east Suffolk. He had used horses but not by the time I was old enough to take one on. We had one horse at home when I was a kid; my father had an old bagging combine harvester, with a horse to cart the sacks away. I thought, “When I get old enough, I’m going to get one of those.”

I went to agricultural school in Oxfordshire. I have older sisters; they got the land and I went to Imperial College London to do soil mechanics. I worked overseas for a big civil engineering company, then started my own company in 1971.

In about 1983, I bought two Suffolk mares. I couldn’t afford them; I had three children all costing me money, but then the business reached the stage where I could afford it, and had time. I bred from both of them.

Then as the business improved, and we only had seven acres, in 1987 Rede Hall came on the market. I bought it and ended up with 72 acres, purely to mess about with my horses. I had 16; I think I needed psychiatric help! But it was a childhood ambition, and the more I had to do with the horses, the more I loved them.