Life must be filled up

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.

Josephine Pullein-Thompson, one of the three Pullein-Thompson sisters, has died aged ninety. She was a redoubtable woman. There’s an obituary here.

Pictured, first edition of I Had Two Ponies, 1947, illustrated by Anne Bullen. The sisters wrote so many pony books; Josephine’s are my favourites, although I haven't kept many.

Could there be a more enticing book cover than one showing shelves full of books? (I’d lose those Puffin picture books floating around at the top.) Studying the picture closely, as I have done, I’ve been surprised to find just how many of these books I’ve read and even owned at some time. For an un-horsy person I’ve certainly read a lot of pony books, so I’ve been keenly anticipating this book’s publication. I wasn’t disappointed.

Jane Badger is a pony book expert and dealer. Her website (see link on left) is a wonderful resource, with information on just about all the pony books ever written. She hasn’t set out to write academically on the subject; nevertheless the book is rigorously organised, based on wide knowledge and research, and includes some trenchant criticism. First she gives an overview of the history of the pony book, from the early, pony biography (e.g. Black Beauty), to instructional works, through the adventure stories of the pony book heyday from the thirties to the sixties, to modern series like The Saddle Club and the regrettable ‘pink and sparkly’ image given to the pony books of today.

A few authors get chapters to themselves, for example the Pullein-Thompson sisters, Ruby Ferguson and Monica Edwards. Much as I love Monica Edwards, I do think it’s cheating a little to include every book she wrote. If Edwards, why not Stephen Mogridge (a lesser writer, admittedly), whose New Forest series’ characters have many of their adventures while riding? K M Peyton is praised to the skies. I’m prepared to accept the opinion of almost everyone else that her books are wonderful but, sadly, she’s one of my blind spots; I just don’t like her books. The publishers, Girls Gone By, have been lavish with reproductions of book covers and text illustrations and there’s a chapter on the artists. I was pleased to see my own favourite, Anne Bullen, so esteemed. Her pictures of Tamzin and Cascade are so familiar to me they leap off the page. Pony magazines and annuals are also discussed; I can’t think of a topic Jane hasn’t covered. Heroines on Horseback, subtitled The Pony Book in Children’s Fiction, is as enjoyable to read as a good pony story and would appeal to anyone interested in children’s books. I heartily recommend it.
( my pony books )

I see that Charlotte Fyfe, daughter of Christine Pullein-Thompson, is the latest person to take advantage of the Telegraph’s wonderful Advertise your house for free by letting us write an article about it scheme. Previous beneficiaries include Princess Michael of Kent.

The house looks wonderful and possibly a bargain. I have to say that of all the Pullein-Thompson sisters’ books I like Christine’s the least, finding them rather miserable. I like Josephine’s a lot (Plenty of Ponies, the Pony Club series etc.) but I think their mother, Joanna Cannan, was a better writer than her daughters.