She was a fine working farm horse, getting on in years but with allthe strength and stamina of an Irish draught horse quite evident in herfore and hind quarters. She was a fine working farm horse, getting on in years but with allĪgain. We were parted that dayin the terrible hubbub of the auction ring and I was never to see heragain. I was not yet six months old, a gangling, leggy colt who had neverbeen further than a few feet from his mother. The terror of itstayed with me all my life. MY EARLIEST MEMORIES are a confusion of hilly fields and dark,damp stables, and rats that scampered along the beams above my head.But I remember well enough the day of the horse sale. His story is written so that neither he northose who knew him, nor the war they lived and died in, will beforgotten. Some in the village, only a very few now and fewer as each year goesby, remember Joey as he was. Joey.Painted by Captain James Nicholls, autumn 1914. But those who look more closely willsee, written in fading black copperplate writing across the bottom of thebronze frame: To them the picture is so familiarthat it commands little attention. To many who glance up at it casually, as they might do when thehall is opened up for Parish meetings, for harvest suppers or eveningsocials, it is merely a tarnished old oil painting of some unknown horseby a competent but anonymous artist. He looks wistfully out of the picture, his earspricked forward, his head turned as if he has just noticed us standingthere. Everybody else thought it was fantastic.White cross emblazoned on his forehead and with four perfectlymatched white socks. The real stars were supposed to be the animal, played by clever puppets, but, in essence, it was like low tech CGI in that all effort seemed to be spent on the puppets, while the script and acting suffered. Only the British Sargent playing the gruff- but- kindly stereotypical sarge with a nice comedic touch rose above tawdry tedium.

The acting was not up to British stage standards, with the mother and the German cavalry officer being particularly wooden. Now, that might have been a more interesting movie. In the songs a ploughboy meets a girl, and John Barleycorn rises from the grave.

There was a British folk singer with a nice voice singing late 60s style Pentangle/ Richard THompson British folkie songs that had nothing to do with the story being presented in the play. The good Germans were just like the salt of- the- earth British, but the bad Germans were frothing and unhinged certified animal haters. The plot development wasn't just uncomplicated. The story is: Boy finds horse Boy loses horse Horse causes world peace Boy finds horse again for a tearful homecoming Within this fairly trite framework could have been an interesting story, but the script replaced drama with melodrama. I went to this with a group of people who thought it was wonderful and delightful, while I found it tedious an not compelling.

The war horse michael morpurgo