A year of rereading 8: The Jill books by Ruby Ferguson

Mon, 27 Jun 2022 12:30:46 GMT

Ist edition in a photocopied dw.

I often say that everything I know about horses, I learned from reading Jill’s Gymkhana as a child and it’s true. Jill Crewe lives with her mother in a cottage near a small town called Chatton, surrounded by lovely countryside just perfect for riding ponies. In this first book, Jill is eleven, mad about ponies but too poor to buy one or even have lessons. This seems a familiar pony book trope: girl wants a pony, girl gets a pony but the books are lifted by the first person narration. Jill is quite funny and very honest about herself. Her widowed mother keeps them by writing rather whimsical stories which Jill thinks are awful but are very successful with other children. Her mother is often distracted by a book she’s working on but, although she allows Jill a lot of freedom, she’s very strict about behaving well. Her quiet words about being nicer to someone Jill doesn’t like often make Jill feel ‘rather wormlike’.

When Jill starts her new school, she meets her future best friend, Ann Derry, who has her own pony, a younger sister and a very fussy mother, quite different from Mrs Crewe. Also there is one of Jill’s great dislikes, Susan Pyke, a girl whose father buys her expensive ponies and perfect riding clothes. Jill has seen a lovely (but ‘ordinary’) pony called Black Boy. When her mother sells the rights to one of her books in America, she can afford to buy Black Boy for Jill. The problem is that Jill hasn’t a clue about riding properly until she’s rescued and given lessons by Martin, who used to be an excellent rider but is now in a wheelchair, due to an RAF accident (it’s 1949, remember). I’d forgotten just how very instructional the books are. If you haven’t mastered the ideas of ‘feet down, hands down, knees in, elbows in, back straight, look between your pony’s ears’ by the end of the book, there’s no hope for you. Good horsemanship is emphasised but even more important is putting your pony first. When you get home muddy from a ride, you must make your pony comfortable before dashing indoors for tea and you must be up early to muck out and groom your pony before school.

Although Jill and Ann despise ‘pot-hunters’, they and other young local riders are mad about gymkhanas, especially the annual Chatton Show. The books really are very horsy and, reading them one after another, I began to find Jill rather a bore because she thinks of *nothing* but ponies. In this she’s very different from my childhood heroine, Tamzin in Monica Edwards’ Romney Marsh series. In Wish for a Pony, guess what? Tamzin longs for a pony and eventually gets Cascade. She and her best friend Rissa love horses but they have a lot of other interests; Tamzin actually says that she doesn’t want to grow up to be a ‘long-faced horsy woman’. These are the kind of books I prefer, where the characters ride a lot but riding is just part of their lives and adventures.

Books
Jill’s Gymkhana, 1949
A Stable for Jill, 1951
Jill has Two Ponies, 1952
Jill Enjoys her Ponies, 1954
Jill’s Riding Club, 1956
Rosettes for Jill, 1957
Jill and the Perfect Pony, 1959
Pony Jobs for Jill, 1960
Jill’s Pony Trek, 1962 (retrospective)

For more covers, see Live Journal here.
For more about pony books, see my review of Heroines on Horseback by Jane Badger.

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Apricot Sky, Ruby Ferguson

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 06:01:44 GMT

Ruby Ferguson is best known for her children’s books about Jill and her ponies but she also wrote adult novels, both romances and thrillers. Until now, Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary has probably been the best known. I have an old H&S paperback copy and it’s been reprinted by Persephone. Wonderful Dean Street Press are now reprinting Apricot Sky as part of their Furrowed Middlebrow series. I didn’t want to finish this. It must be the archetypal middlebrow ‘nice book’ which people allegedly used to demand in libraries. It describes a summer in the Highlands and has all the ingredients for comfort reading: beautiful scenery, old houses and their furnishings, gardens, lots of food, romance and humour.

Mr & Mrs MacAlvey live at Kilchro House, which must be pretty big. Besides themselves there’s daughter Raine, elder daughter Cleo, just back from three years in America, three orphaned grandchildren, two house guests and two visiting cousins from England. Also, Vannah Paige, a sort of factotum-cum-housekeeper who is treated as a friend of the family, a cook and at least one maid. The war is not long over and rationing and coupons get several mentions but no one starves here. Two sons never came back from the war but no one goes on about it. The third son lives nearby with a wife no one can stand and two sad, repressed children. ‘It was understood in the village that none of the MacAlveys were quite all there…’ They are, of course, a delightful family.

Raine is engaged to Ian Garvine, who farms locally at Larrich with his elder brother Neil, known as ‘The Larrich’ because he’s the local laird. Poor Cleo is in love with handsome Neil and spends most of the book feeling that every time they meet, she makes a fool of herself. The four of them have a good time deciding how the ancestral home, sadly neglected, is to be made fit for a bride. Weddings are taken very seriously. The grandchildren are just like all the Highland children I’ve ever read about: thin, brown and spending all their time outdoors, preferably sailing. They dread the arrival of the English cousins, who are always clean and tidy, good at everything and great snobs. Needless to say, in the Highlands, the grander you are, the shabbier you look.

Apart from the romances, the book is almost plotless, just a lovely description of a way of life. If it upsets you that just after the war people can still have plenty to eat, keep servants and send their children to boarding school, this book is not for you. It will be out on June 21st. I’d suggest not reading the introduction until you’ve finished the book. Not to avoid spoilers but because the use of words like ‘liminal’ may put you off what is a very light, amusing book. I loved it so much that although Dean Street sent me an e-book, I may splash out on a hard copy.

You can see the full list of the upcoming Furrowed Middlebrow issues here.

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Life must be filled up

A year of rereading 8: The Jill books by Ruby Ferguson

Apricot Sky, Ruby Ferguson