Kate on her horse Kismet in Lesotho 1974
I am feeling so sad over the death of Natasha Richardson as her early demise makes me stop and think how every day of our lives needs to be lived to the full. It also brings me face to face with my own mortality, and how fortunate I am to be able to do so much.
Many many years ago, I was galloping my stallion at full tilt while practising tent pegging on the gravel airstrip in Mohales Hoek in southern Lesotho. The next thing I knew, the security bar had unclipped and my stirrup leather shot out and I came crashing down like a fireman coming down a greased pole. My head snapped round, I bounced off my shoulder and landed up spread-eagled with all of my dignity gone. My horse, to give him his due, came to an immediate standstill and nuzzled me gently as if to reprimand me for my sudden disembarkation.
Willing hands flung down their assorted golf clubs (our little nine hole course ran around the perimeter of the airstrip which was also the cricket ground, the race course and the public grazing area) and I was taken home and laid tenderly on my bed. Apart from the appearance of a little Korean doctor who issued me with an envelope full of valium with instructions to take one whenever I felt like it, I was pretty much left to my own devices. A month later I was back in the saddle and thought that was the end of it.
However, to date I have undergone two laminectomies, one anterior fusion involving a chip from the end of my hip bone being put through the front of my neck to fuse the spine, two shoulder operations and endless dental work from shards of broken jaw pushing out perfectly good teeth.
But I am still digging water gardens, loading wheelbarrows, hauling rocks and seeding the lawn and I am able to swim, cycle, walk and dance. For this I am eternally grateful to the wonderful Professor Repko who was the finest neurosurgeon in South Africa, and to the fact that it clearly wasn't my time to die. It is for this reason that I am so moved by the death of Natasha. 45 years old and so much going for her, and her life has been snuffed out by such an innocuous accident. It makes me even more determined to make the most of every day that I have been given.
