By STEVE GRAY
Last week’s item on the Cunningham Rangers equestrian show brought memories flooding back for a pair of sprightly veterans …
THEY may be in their eighties, but they keep the spirit of the Cunningham Rangers alive and well.
Sisters Eve-Ann Springate and Norma Wenham have vivid memories of their time in the troupe of performing horsemen and women.
They have kept a large collection of photographs of their times performing at the Brisbane Exhibition or travelling by train to country shows from Maitland to Cairns.
The pair joined the Cunningham Rangers shortly after the war. It was a great adventure for a pair of farm girls. While management fed the horses and paid for travel, the performers paid their own way.
“Dave Hutton instigated it, he was man who really got it going, whose idea it was,” Eve-Ann said. “He lived at Bellgarth, Cunningham where we used to go for our practices.”
“We didn’t do much practice!” chimed in Norma, at 81 the younger of the pair.
“We’d led a very sheltered life when Mr Hutton came down and asked our father, and Norma and I were wanting to go because we didn’t get out to things like nowadays,” Eve-Ann said.
Norma was just 16 years old when she joined the Cunningham Rangers and they were chaperoned everywhere..
“They kept us very well,” she said.
“Not that they knew everything that went on,” laughed Eve-Ann.
The Rangers wore jodhpurs, shirts, ties and sombreros, with colourful vests made out of show ribbons.
“We danced the quadrilles and the maypole, but we did it at full gallop, everything was done at a pace,” Norma said.
Performances included choreographed manoeuvres with musical accompaniment, trick riding and clown acts.
Rangers members also competed in equestrian and other show events but were eventually banned after other competitors complained about their professionalism.
Norma eventually married another member of the troupe, Neville Wenham, and they left the Cunningham Rangers in the mid-1950s when they began their own families.
“It was wonderful for us to have that experience,” she said.
