My first pony was actually a donkey! His name was William and nobody told him he wasn’t a pony. We grew up together and went to gymkhanas where he ate the apples in the apple bobbing race and stood on the sack in the sack race, just like any other first pony.

During a life as long as his ears, William, being of a cheeky nature, got into many scrapes. As well as successive ponies and then horses, he had another donkey friend called Cicero. Together, they plotted many an escape, either up the village to the Manor House’s verdant lawns, or down the hill to court a rather cute Jenny donkey. The latter route took the little runaways through the village square where, if they were lucky, they would meet the bus. William was a junky and car (or bus) exhausts were his drug of choice. From my bedroom window, I’d see him rolling in the middle of the square in front of the now delayed bus, and would have to race out with a headcollar and then do the walk of shame back to the paddock!

One of the naughty duo’s most notorious adventures, however, was not of their making. It was a summer in the early 1970s, and the Oxford University Dons were holding their annual fete. They called upon William and Cicero to provide donkey rides and said they would provide transport… which they did – a decommissioned ambulance! Amazingly, all went well and the donkeys arrived safely in Oxford and enjoyed an afternoon’s picnicking in the college garden, while my parents and other guests enjoyed the fruit punch – a drink that had rather more alcohol in it than they suspected.

The donkeys were somewhat reluctant to leave the party when the time came, and much hilarity ensued as a team of drunken academics tried to coax two canny (and sober) donkeys back up the steps into the ambulance. With much heaving and sweat, the two long-eared passengers were finally loaded and the journey home ensued.

On they trundled through the city until stopped by one of the many traffic lights where, as luck would have it, a police car pulled alongside. The human passengers (some of whom were pretty inebriated) tried hard not to look down at the pair of coppers below, stifling giggles and trying to keep quiet. And then the inevitable happened, one of the boys in blue looked up – straight into the large brown eyes of a donkey! A donkey who appeared to be driving an ambulance with his passenger, another smaller donkey, sitting serenely on one of the seats in the back. In pure cartoon style, the policeman slowly removed his hat and scratched his head, just as the lights changed, and the little ambulance with its odd assortment of passengers sailed off down the Botley Road in a somewhat alcoholic haze! I’d love to know how the conversation back at the station went that evening!

Judge Ian Stark said: The winner for me is the Donkeys and Drunken Dons.

It brought back some childhood memories of Paddy the donkey where I started riding as a 10 yr old. He was a perfect ride for the small children but he used to escape out of his paddock by crawling under the fence on his stomach and disappeared down to the town square and was always found eating the beautiful flowers !!! Our local police always saw the funny side of it!!