I FOUND myself with an interesting dilemma the other day whilst pursuing my new career as a part-time equine effluent disposal engineer.

I was in a stall with three mettlesome ponies and a lovely 20-something lady, who is six months pregnant, when we discovered we were locked in. The stable door was secured by a low-level latch which neither of us could reach.

I had managed to extricate myself from a similar dilemma earlier in the week by poking the latch with my sweeping brush, but this time there were no long- handled implements to hand, and nor was there anything to stand on for extra height.

There was no-one within hailing distance, so it became clear that one of us would have to climb the wall. My instinctive chivalry dictated that it should be me, but then I remembered that modern lasses don’t like to be molly-coddled.

I have been snarled at for opening doors for women, and giving up my seat on public transport, but I don’t think there was a section in the book of etiquette for wall scaling for mothers to be.

I did try to climb the wall, but could find no purchase for my scrabbling, wellied feet on the smooth blockwork, and my puny office arms were way too weedy to pull myself over the top,

My companion suggested I should jump on the back of one of the ponies and use it as a launching pad to get over, but one glance at their rolling eyes and swishing tails persuaded me this was perhaps not a good idea.

I already had a black bruise on my arm after being nipped by one horse entirely without provocation, so using one as a stepping stone would surely have brought even more drastic retribution.

My fellow prisoner, who is 40 years younger than me, weighs around half as much, and is as fit as a lop, then brushed aside my protests and tried to get over herself, but was mortified that her increased girth – still considerably less substantial than mine – meant she could not pull herself over either.

So there we were, a fat and unfit OAP and an infanticipating female, held in giggling durance vile until she finally persuaded me to form a bridge with my hands to boost her over and allow us both to escape, although she could hardly complete the climb amidst the ensuing gales of laughter.

I felt wretchedly ungallant, but I suppose it was the right thing to do in the circumstances. If I had somehow managed to climb over, I suspect I would have fallen off the top of the wall and broken something –probably the concrete floor.

This was not the first time I have had problems helping ladies over walls, and the outcome of the last incident was rather less successful.

An elderly lady appeared at the door of Hextol Towers some years ago inquiring how to get to a neighbouring bungalow, without taking a detour of several hundred yards.

Without thinking, I pointed out there was a gap between the wall and the hedge which was commonly used by visitors to the bungalow, involving a quick squeeze and careful use of a keggly stepping stone and suggested she go that way.

While it was a convenient shortcut for those still sound in wind and limb, it was a different proposition for an octogenarian in full Sunday best.

She was a substantial lady, and it was soon apparent that this quart was never going into that pint pot. Despite my efforts to shoulder her through, she was soon thoroughly wedged between hedge and wall, displaying an unseemly amount of surgical stocking and capacious bloomers, while wailing piteously: “Ooh Mr Hextol, what a pickle you’ve put me in…”

I tried pulling her back the way she had come, but she was so tightly corseted I could not get a grip, and nor could any of the neighbours who had come out to lend a hand or simply to gawp.

I seem to recall that darkness was falling by the time someone produced a bush saw and lopped a few branches off part of the hedge, and she could finally be extricated.

For some reason, she did not complete her visit to the bungalow, and was not all that grateful to me for helping to rescue her, giving me a Medusa stare which she turned on me every time I saw her for the rest of her days.