ALAN WHALLEY'S WORLD

THERE was a special bond between Peggy, the faithful Shire horse, and office worker Rosemary Wotherspoon.

Each day, Rosemary would pop down from her town-centre office desk to provide a fresh-carrot treat for the magnificent railway horse.

Peggy, a gentle beast, with distinctive white blaze down her face and four white 'socks', was the last to haul a railway delivery van around the main St Helens shopping zone as the age of horse-drawn transport was petering out.

And Peggy's life was ultimately spared because of that friendship. For on hearing that Peggy was to be put down to make way for a delivery lorry, Rosemary set about to win her a reprieve.

"Everyone who knew that lovely horse was horrified by the news," says Rosemary, now retired and living in Freckleton Road, Toll Bar, "so I put a Blue Cross collection tin in Marfords, where I then worked."

An emotional notice, carefully phrased to capture the sympathy of animal lovers, helped do the trick and the target of £80 (a considerable sum 43 years ago) was attained.

The Blue Cross organisation, representing old and retired horses, was thus able to place Peggy on a friendly farm in Rutland. There she spent her final days in comfort, eventually dying at the age of 25.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.