Horses saved my soul

She lost her career, her famous husband and almost her life. But one thing helps 告訴する Douglas put her life in 視野

By 告訴する Douglas
Updated: 08:20 BST, 5 January 2012

There is an image on my 動きやすい phone that will stay with me for ever. の中で the pictures of my children on holiday and sunsets on the beach is a strange and rather beautiful picture of a sunlit valley with its patchwork of fields, 支持を得ようと努めるd and villages stretching out below.

The oddness is in the でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れるing of the scene, as the picture is taken (by me) between two large, 黒人／ボイコット, furry ears.

The ears belong to a horse I am on, and the picture is my 錨，総合司会者 on reality, for it’s the world between two ears that guides me.

Mane attraction: 告訴する Douglas believes in horse 力／強力にする

It’s a world with a different 視野 from the one I live in and it 代表するs a philosophy and a way of 対処するing with my troublesome 存在.

I 港／避難所’t always been able to wax so lyrical about horses. When I was little and growing up in South London, I wasn’t smitten with them or remotely any good at riding. The first time I fell off some grumpy, obstinate fat pony, I packed up my hat and riding boots and got on with school work, other sports and, later, boys.

But in my 20s, 招待するd to a wedding in the U.S. where the guests were to ride along endless Floridian beaches, I had a second chance. A friend and I decided to take the challenge 本気で and went to painful and humiliating lessons so that we could gallop along that beach, our hair flowing, waves gleaming.

I won’t forget feeling a 完全にする prat in my 十分な riding gear a nd boots, rising to the trot while the other guests ― in 明らかにする feet and swimwear, hair 飛行機で行くing behind them ― raced along the sand, laughing at our 連隊d 成果／努力s.

‘There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man,’ said Winston Churchill. He understood this, and I do, too, since my charmed 存在, 継続している more than 20 years, started to 割れ目 about ten years ago.

告訴する Douglas and one of her horses at her home in Oxfordshire

The beginnings of things not always going to 計画（する） occasionally flickered into 見解（をとる）. I thought my marriage was wonderful, but my husband [historian and TV presenter Niall Ferguson] and I argued all the time.

I had mixed feelings about my 職業 at a glamorous magazine publishing company. It was all heady stuff, but I 行方不明になるd newspapers terribly (I’d been editor of the Sunday 表明する, 副 at The Sunday Times and number three at The Mail on Sunday).

When, ten years ago, I watched those テロリスト 計画（する）s 飛行機で行く into the Twin Towers on my office TV, my ambitions floundered わずかに. My husband phoned me from New York, and said, somewhat 残酷に: ‘How does it feel to work for a frilly frock company?

What was my lif e? I had three young children I seldom saw, in a perfect home I spent little time in. But what then? I’d worked on a 伝説の anti-人種隔離政策（アパルトヘイト） newspaper in South Africa and been one of the few women in Britain to edit a 国家の paper. Had been.

I had a clever, young husband who was beginning to really 後継する, and I 信用d him to go alone to the U.S. to make his 指名する. And now something was 盗聴 me. Something was wrong.

So I 棒. And I watched the world 広げる in 前線 of me. I 棒 and knew that if I carried my 疑問s with me, I’d probably 結局最後にはーなる on the ground (I often did and was on first-指名する 条件 with the hospital’s A&E staff).

I 棒 more and more to try to get my bearings on things I knew were unravelling in my personal, and professional, life. Things that I couldn’t understand or 支配（する）／統制する. At least if I 棒 井戸／弁護士席 and ignored my brewing problems, I was in 支配（する）／統制する. 井戸／弁護士席, sort of. I 追跡（する）d with the Vale of Aylesbury and the Bicester 追跡（する）s.

I went to a few shows. I galloped around at point-to-point 会合s, but was never 勇敢に立ち向かう enough to race. 支店ing out, I took up dressage, eventing, even showjumping. At one time I had 13 horses. All the while, my sense of something 存在 wrong 構内／化合物d and my only 一時的休止，執行延期 was to find a new 視野, to challenge myself to 支配（する）／統制する my horse by understanding.

I was far too light and thin to use 軍隊. I had to think. I had many horses during that time and often went for spirited thoroughbreds that were more beautiful than reliable. But it was working for me.

And then, it happened. I had a really bad riding 事故. It took place on a beach, while I was out riding alone with my dogs by the sea. Suddenly, my silky pair of ears 後部d, went 権利 over backwards and rolled on my 長，率いる, 原因（となる）ing a small 中央の-brain haemorrhage.

告訴する Douglas's husband, historian Niall Ferguson, left her after the riding 事故

And that might have been that.

I woke up in hospital and only remember events two months later. I lost my 職業, my husband told me he was having an 事件／事情／状勢 and 手配中の，お尋ね者 to leave me.

He left, then （機の）カム 支援する and then left again. My father died. Suddenly, I had no money at all.

The children were shaken and two of my three ended up away from me in 搭乗 school as an 理解できる way of 対処するing with the 津波 of change at home.

And I 棒. Slowly at first. 内密に. I was 脅すd, but I also 手配中の，お尋ね者 to show my children ― and myself ― that I’d be able to 征服する／打ち勝つ all my demons if I got 支援する on.

The 事故 was three years ago and I’m 選ぶing up the pieces of my life again and beginning to like it. I often say, teasingly, that a horse is better than a 縮む. You can talk to it and tell it all your problems. It never says anything 支援する.

But it behaves 異なって when you sit 支援する and 受託する, when you relax and can move with its movements instead of 存在 a lump on 最高の，を越す of another lump.

You see the living world around you in a way that’s impossible in an office; you notice things. Galloping 十分な pelt through long grass on a summer evening, it takes balls to dare to let go and 信用 in another.

When I fell off again for the first time after my 事故, after the first 拒絶 by my ex, after my terrifying 財政上の Armageddon, I remember looking up at the sky and thinking: ‘I’m not dead ― yet.’ And I got up, 小衝突d off the mud and trudged across the field to a panting grey gelding, looking at me suspiciously.

There’s a 広大な／多数の／重要な Mexican 説: ‘It is not enough for a man to know how to ride; he must know how to 落ちる.’ I’ve fallen many times, but daring to get 支援する on is, to me, what life is all about. My life is いっそう少なく 騒然とした now, but I will always ride for a 落ちる, because without that 危険 we aren’t alive.

This piece first appeared in Pyschologies Magazine.