Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2011 | Page 96

EQUESTRIAN

Sue Payne: from
ballet shoes to
riding boots
By Peter White
As a young girl Sue Payne had
aspirations of becoming a professional
ballet dancer. She even performed in
front of a former Prime Minister.
But by the age of 12 Sue was already
aware that she had grown too tall to
realise her dancing dreams. But she
had no long-term regrets because it at
least allowed her to pursue the other
big passion in her life – horse riding.
Her love of riding has continued
throughout her life, and since moving
to the Island with husband Ken and
their four children more than 30 years
ago she has reached heights she admits
she could never have envisaged, thanks
to her involvement with the Isle of
Wight Hunt.
After being invited to become joint
Master of the Hunt, a position she
held for five years, Sue subsequently
became a Life Member, and this year
is the Association’s new President, an
appointment of which she is rightly
proud.
But inevitably it has not been the
easiest of rides for Sue and her fellow
Hunt members, with anti-hunt
campaigners constantly trying to cause
mayhem, followed by the ban on fox
hunting some eight years ago.
Sue was born in Leytonstone, and
her grandfather owned a foundry in
Stratford, East London, an area which
has now been transformed to form
part of the site for next summer’s
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Olympic Games. By coincidence she
will be returning close to those roots
courtesy of securing a coveted ticket
for the Olympic three-day eventing, to
be held at nearby Greenwich.
Sue went to school at Buckhurst
Hill, Essex, and as a seven-year-old
displayed her ballet skills in front of
none other than former PM, Winston
Churchill. She smiled: “I know it
happened, and I sort of remember it –
but not too many details.
“I won a scholarship for the
Royal Ballet at White Lodge, but
unfortunately grew too tall. In the
1950s if you reached a certain height
by a certain age, then you were
deemed to be too tall, unless you were
absolutely exceptional – which clearly
I wasn’t. So I took up riding instead.
It upset my mother a bit, but I was
pleased, and so was my father.”
Sue attended the Van Der Gout
School of Riding on the mainland, and
although she did not know it at the
time, the riding style she adopted was
quickly spotted when she arrived on
the Island. She recalled: “In the early
1970s David Biles got me involved
with the Riding for the Disabled,
which was run by Alec Trumble from
Luccombe Riding School, but held at
Lake Farm.
“Only the second time I went there
I was asked to get on a pony and
show some of the things he wanted to
teach. As I was going round he started
tearing me to bits, and when I got off

he told me exactly who had taught
me – Gerry Van Der Gout. Gerry and
Alec had both been taught by the same
Army instructor, and apparently all
three of us had picked up all the same
riding faults.”
Sue met husband-to-be Ken in
Hertfordshire when she was 15 and
he was 17. Ken was involved in the
family business, growing cucumbers
in Essex, while Sue decided to cut
short her education. She worked as a
groom in stables at Hatfield Heath,
often hacking to a local hunt on one
of three hunters at her disposal. “That
was when my love of hunting really
began,” she said. “I worked six days
a week, but if we went hunting on
a Saturday I would also work on a
Sunday morning.”
Sue later worked in a London
hairdressing salon and at a fashion
house in Hove. She lived with her
grandmother, and has never forgotten
the advice she gave her - never look
back and think ‘if only’.
She married Ken and after their four
children – Mark, Katherine, Sally and
Nicholas - were born, they arrived on
the Island in 1969, living in Ryde for
three years, before buying the house at
Ashey where they still live.
By coincidence the home is only a
short distance from the railway line,
which they once travelled down on
a trip to the Island many years ago,
feeling at the time they didn’t really
like the location, and actually settling