Hello and welcome to the Brentwood Buzz, a podcast
celebrating all that's good about the people and places in
Brentwood, Essex. I'm K Bellwood Navestock Show
took place in Navestock today with the village hall and
neighboring field packed with produce, crafts, stalls,
fairground rides and entertainment.
The Brentwood buzz has been to meet some of those who took part
today, beginning with Louise and her dog Ozzie, who was wearing a
very special red rosette. He won the Golden Oldies Dog
competition. Brilliant And And what kind of
dog is Ozzie? Is it Tibetan Spaniel mix?
I've never heard of a. I'm not quite sure, because he
was. He was he.
Was a rescue, so we're not quite sure, but Tibetan Spaniel
mainly, And how old is he to be a golden oldie?
He's. 15 Yeah, he's 15, He doesn't look 50 Oh, you sniffing
my shoe And and so is this. Is this the first time he's
entered and won? It's the first time he's entered
the golden oldies. Yeah, probably.
Might be the last as well. Yeah.
It used to have the Waggies towel, but not so much anymore.
He looks very handsome. Well done.
Thank you very much. One of the people here at the
Nave Stock Fair is Louise Barrett, who is from REACH.
Now explain to me what reaches. Okay So Reach is a charity based
in in Brentwood actually between Brentwood and Onga Kelton Hatch
and We are Well. The Reach stands for
rehabilitation, education, assessment and center of
hippotherapy. So primarily we are a center
that offers equine activities to people with physical
impairments, intellectual impairments and mental health
challenges. So we do a variety of activities
that consist of groundwork activities, so the horse human
interaction mainly based on help improving emotional well-being
and we also do ridden activities from teaching sort of lower
level competition children to people who just want to sit on
and walk. So the children who have autism.
And just get the benefit of that regular rhythmic movement of the
horse. One of the other activities that
we do and I kind of the lead for is hippotherapy.
I'm a physiotherapist by a profession and I set the charity
up originally to perform hippotherapy and it's progressed
since then and hippotherapy uses a three-dimensional movement of
the horse in walk. So what we do is we have
children and adults who sit on the horse, on a sheepskin and.
It's the three-dimensional movement that actually
challenges their balance, encourages their core muscles to
work and we can work on different school movements, so
changing direction, stopping, starting, which switches on
muscles and we actually change the position of the smaller
riders. So we might sit them sideways,
we might sit them backwards to engage different muscles in the
body and all this has the effect of improving function.
So for particularly for people with physical impairment such as
cerebral palsy, Down syndrome. By the bifida, lots of genetic
disorders where you have low muscle tone and the children are
very late starters, so they don't walk until they're about
three or four. So they might come to me at sort
of 18 months old and I will lay them on a pony, start working on
their head control their shoulder girdle stability.
And I work often with other physios in the area, private
physios where they might be having rehabilitation.
And we work to achieve certain physical, physical goals,
because most physiotherapists would have like one of those big
bouncy balls and maybe a mat or two.
How did you come to have horses that you could do this with?
Well, absolutely. That's what they do.
They do exactly that in a more fun way so the children don't
realize they're doing the hard work.
I have been passionate about riding all my life.
My father bought me a pony when I was 8 years old and I think
that's where it started. And then obviously, I went to
university and I stopped riding. And later on in life, my
sisterinlaw was my inspiration. She passed away last year.
Sadly, she had cerebral palsy. And when I met my husband, we
used to go to the local riding for disabled Barrow Farm, which
is just local to this region. And I was so inspired by seeing
her and seeing the coaches work there, but I actually got
involved. And that's how you get started
in this business. You become a volunteer.
And we're always looking for volunteers.
And I volunteered there and then they said to me, oh, you should
become a coach. So I was a volunteer coach.
And I got all my qualifications through Barrow Farm.
And then I went on and did my hippotherapy training as a
postgraduate physiotherapist. And there's only one center in
the country that does it at the moment.
And I did that. And then I needed somewhere to
work from. And sadly, all the RDA centers
in the region were too busy with all their own activities.
And I had my own ponies at that point for my my little girls.
I've got three children. And so it was just a natural
thing to progress my little lead rain ponies onto doing a job.
To to work on the lead rain with with my my clients and my
patients. And that's how it all happened.
Really brilliant. Now if anybody wants to find out
a little bit more about it, you've got an open day on the
10th of September. We have, yes.
So we've got an open day, Sunday, the 10th of September.
We'll be showing off a couple of things that we do.
Obviously you'll get a chance to meet the ponies on the yard,
you'll meet our Shetlands. We'll be doing a display.
So this year we were fortunate to take a lot of our riders to
the Riding for Disabled National Championships at Hartbury
College. Where many of them came back
with lots of rosettes and in one particular little pair they did
a musical dressage freestyle costume ride, which involved
props and a musical kind of musical ride basically.
And it was, it was beautiful and we're going to be performing
that again this year. We've got the Metropolitan
Police coming, the Mounted Police to do their little bit,
and that's always fun to see. We had them last year and we've
got a dog show in the afternoon. There's lots going on, we've got
different stalls and things. And it would be just great for
people to come down, see what we do.
If you're interested in volunteering, if you want to
bring your family, or if you're interested in finding out more
about our services for anyone that you may know, do come down
well. One of the people who's been
entertaining the good people of the Nave Stock Fair today is
John Pierce, who has an amazing operatic voice, and it's what
brought you to the Nave Stock Fair today.
Yeah, so I was doing the summer fate at Mount Netting and yeah,
so I met one of the organizers who organizes this and he asked
me if I was available. So I said, yeah, I'll come along
and yeah, I've got nothing else to do.
So because you're a primary school teacher?
Yes, I'm a peripatetic teacher. Yes.
So you do music with the children?
Yes, I do. Yes.
I do a bit of piano and singing, yes.
And you obviously are a very good singer.
So how did you come to be a singer and and operatic in that
way? My maternal grandmother, who was
she was offered a place at the Guild Hall at the age of 13, but
she never took it up. So when we're sitting around the
piano, what's about 1617? And she asked me to sing a song.
She advised me to go for an advice audition at the Royal
Northern College Music Manchester.
So I did seven years at the Royal Northern College Music
followed by. Two years at the national
studio, 2011. I represented Wales and Cardiff
singer. And then after that I went on to
sing at the Royal Opera House. English National Opera.
Toured all over Europe and the Far East.
And yeah, then over the years and times I've done many
celebrity engagements. Sang for David Beckham.
I also in 2009, I sang for. Prince Charles, he was at the
time, but King Charles now and I sang for the late Queen
Elizabeth. Yeah.
So you're quite a coup to have in a field in Navestock.
No, it's really a pleasure just to come out and share my passion
of music to everyone. So yeah, and what What might you
do next is? Have you got other musical
things on in addition to obviously being a peripatetic
music teacher? I've got a couple of engagements
around Brentwood. I'm singing at Brentwood Golf
Club in October, Also might be doing the Brentwood light switch
on near Christmas. Yeah.
So yeah, I've got a couple of things in the diary between now
and then. Anyway, so yeah, so.
And see what happens. And I got a couple of singles
that will be releasing as well in the near future.
Hang on a minute. No, you can't just end on that.
So a couple of singles. What's being released?
Yeah, so I'm doing a couple of cover songs.
So one is Radiohead Creep and the other is Snow Patrol.
Run. Brilliant.
And when are they likely to come out?
Looking around about October, November time.
Brilliant. We shall keep an ear out for
them. Thanks very much indeed.
Thank you very much. I've come inside now to the
navestock of Village Hall which is laid out with tables and
tables of produce which have all been judged as part of the
Navestock Village Fair. One of the organizers of this
event is Councillor Chrissy Gilderbloom who is a parish
councillor and also the borough councillor for for this area.
But this is all been done with your Parish Council, Hatton.
Hasn't it? And I'm a resident as well, so
obviously I've got a got a huge interest in it.
Yeah, no, it's a really lovely Village show.
And there's lots of different classes, and they're judged by
different judges. Some of them are residents, some
of them are more official than that.
And they come and they judge and they give first, second and
third prizes. And sometimes someone's got the
the highest points. Or the most commended commended
prize. Then they then they get a cup as
well and the cups are named after previous residents of the
parish which it it's brilliant. The amount of organisation that
must have gone into this is must be phenomenal.
It it was. I mean, it's a lot of it is.
Put in place years and years ago, but obviously we're trying
to adapt it to to the new demands that are set upon us.
But it's and it's very nice traditional traditional show.
I think this Knavestock is a is a small village and yet you've
got, as I say, jaws of jam, Jaws of honey.
You've got jaws of flowers, You've got things that have been
knitted, things that have been drawn.
How do you manage to get so many people to take part?
We just keep on. Pushing, reminding people, you
know, generally people remember it from the previous year and
sometimes they actually chase us and say, oh, this is so still
going on, you know, can we have the show schedule?
Each resident gets a program delivered to their door so that
we have a form in so that they can put their entries in.
Yeah, and and the judges, obviously, I I did meet one of
the judges earlier who was very cheery because I think he'd been
doing the different bottles of alcohol that been invented.
Yes, yes, he was quite merry. And funnily enough, he
volunteers for that one every year.
That's really funny. That I said, you sure you don't
want to do the jams? And he went, no, And we, we've
had them. The reverend, a local, local
Vico, serves free parishes. She came and judged.
The art section and then we also had the preschool organizer and
she judges children's sections so so yeah and and one of the
ladies who lives in in the parish, she judged the flowers
and so it's it's a really nice nice community feel when the
other lady she judged the cakes which is very nice.
So we we all had a little bit of a what do you think on this?
It is the archetypal English village fair, isn't it?
It's there's somebody singing on the back of a truck.
There's some children having rides on tractor trailers and
and water pistols. I see they've been armed with as
well. It's great every every year we
do that and and it's it's great fun to see the kids, you know,
they just love a track to what ride.
And I think actually the tractor driver and the assistant enjoyed
just as much as the children do. I didn't notice the tractor
driver was wearing a hat in the shape of a Turkey, which was
interesting. That's right.
He's very fun loving and he makes a time every year to
organize it and and also to bring the bar because we've got
a bar here, he brings that down. So he's he's, he's really
important part of our community, well done it's it's it's superb
and just lovely to see as well now.
Thanks very much. I hope everyone's enjoyed it
just as much as much as we do and we can all have a nice rest
tomorrow. Thank you.
Thanks to all who've taken part and organized Knave Stock Show.
It's been a wonderful day and here's hoping you've managed to
tidy up all those cakes and fruit liqueurs.
The Brentwood Buzz will be back next week.
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