The changing face of Jill

I actually had no idea when I started reading the Jill books that a. Black Boy was actually supposed to be black, and b. Jill was not born in the 1960s. This does show just what an impact illustrators make on us. To many, many people, Black Boy will always be a piebald, and that is all down to Bonar Dunlop. He illustrated the first Knight Jill paperbacks in the 1960s, and provided internal illustrations for three titles. When these books were published, Black Boy became a piebald in the text as well. He remained piebald in every edition after that, and so 40 years' worth or so of Jill readers have a Black Boy who is piebald.



By the time I’d actually bought all the books and finished the Jill series, I had realised that there were other ways of looking at Jill, as the versions I found included some of the old Armada paperbacks, illustrated by Caney. Caney’s Jill was quite a different creature to Bonar Dunlop’s - much less sophisticated but with a charm all her own (and Armada did add to Jill’s sophistication in their publication of Rosettes for Jill by removing her plaits from the illustration to give her a smarter, shorter, hairstyle).








Jill is much sassier in Caney’s illustrations than in the Bonar Dunlops. There’s a lot of character there, which there perhaps isn’t in Bonar Dunop’s Jill, who is rather more of an indentikit 1960s girl having a holiday adventure. I still like the Bonar Dunlop illustrations, though. They have a lot of dash.




Elisabeth Grant, the only other illustrator who provided internal illustrations, produced a Jill who is more of a traditional girl - though very few people will have seen those illustrations as they only graced one edition (the laminated hardbacks of the 1970s), with a frontispiece and no other internal illustrations.




Many more artists did covers. Caney of course did the originals, a little altered in the Hampton Super Library edition, and sometimes with re-coloured backgrounds in the Armada printings. Bonar Dunlop did five covers; Mary Gernat two, and there was this very odd effort by Wilding, produced for Foyle's Children's Book Club:



Oh dear. What my grandmother would have called a gawd-help-us. There were more to come. Armada used Caney illustrations for most of their paperbacks, but not all. Mary Gernat was an illustrator used very widely by Armada and Dragon Books in the 1960s. Her sketch style suited books in which there was a lot of action. Her two Jill covers are perhaps not a 100% success: Jill on A Stable for Jill looks short and awkward, and Rapide and Black Boy look more like horses than ponies on Jill Has Two Ponies.

Peter Archer was another illustrator widely used by Armada, and he did one Jill cover. I think this his Pony Jobs for Jill has to rank amongst the worst Jill covers. It's awkward and Jill looks as if she's made of wood.

Armada also used an uncredited artist - far superior to the ones above, in my opinion - on some of their later 1960s printings. I have no idea who illustrated these four covers, though I have at times thought it might be Constance Marshall or Elisabeth Grant. I really don't know, but if anyone does, or has any other theories, I would love to hear them.

The only other artist apart from Caney who did a full run of Jill covers was W D Underwood, who did the 1970s Knight Jill edition. I admit I have a sneaking childhood fondness for this one:

but there is nothing at all washing round in my sentimental soul to save this one: cutesome, anatomically suspect, and oh, the eyes of the pony bottom left. My daughter would sell her soul for eyelashes like those. The poor thing looks like an early try out for My Little Pony.

Photographic covers at least avoided artistic licence and peculiar anatomy: in theory at least, a photograph should show horses and people as they are. Jill in the 1980s and onwards switched with fashion and had photographic covers. Only one set (the Rosette covers) were credited, to David Cox Studios. Some photographs are more successful than others, several of them bearing the dead, over-posed hand of the photo story. Here is A Stable for Jill, a particularly sterile example. Just keep holding those brushes above the straw, girls

At least this had a connection with what went on in the book. Bearing in mind Black Boy is supposed to be good enough to win showing contests, I am a bit puzzled by the piebald on this compilation, who is a bit of a porker.

In the 1990s, Jill covers returned to a pictorial cover style. These are by Adrian Lascom. I found details for an artist called Adrian Lascom, but his current oeuvre is very, very different to those Jill covers - it “acts as a catalyst for existential contemplation.” It does state in his biography that he has illustrated children’s books, but although I’ve emailed to ask if he did the Jill covers, I’ve had no reply, so I’ll assume there is a completely different Adrian Lascom who did those Jills. Whoever did them - yes, well...

I'm sure the new Fidra editions will do better: although the books will have photographic covers again, everything inside will be just as it was in the first edition, and that includes the Caney illustrations. So, this will be the first ever paperback run to include all the Caney illustrations in every edition.

Jill hasn't always been well served by her illustrators. Childhood fondness can only excuse so much: we'll probably never know if Bonar Dunlop was a prime example of an illustrator not reading the book, or whether some bod at Knight had a precious piebald as a child and decided to make him live on in a newly piebald Black Boy, but I like looking at how Jill's changed over the years. May she continue to do so.

If you'd like to find out more about Jill's many illustrators, I have a section on my website devoted just to them.

Ponies of Britain Magazine

I recently bought volume 8 of the Ponies of Britain magazine, for Autumn 1970, as part of my continuing researches into pony book authors and illustrators.

Here it is, with a rather charming cover picture by Joan Wanklyn. It's amazing how much more people like Joan Wanklyn and Carol Vaughan did for the equestrian world than you would think if you simply went by their bibliographies. There are very few Pony Club or Pony Magazine Annuals without a story by Carol Vaughan. Joan Wanklyn was a regular judge of the annual Harry Hall Drawing Competition in Pony. Not only did she judge, she also produced a two page spread for the magazine commenting on the prize winners. And here she is, illustrating the POB Magazine.

The POB Magazine, is, of course, crammed with pictures of delectable show ponies. I used to have a game I played, which I'd quite forgotten until I saw this magazine. I would go through magazines studying all the photographs, pretend I'd been put up against a wall and told I HAD to have one (what a dreadful fate), and choose a pony. Here's my choice, though he was run a very close race by the Dales mare Robertland Lady Scattercash, and the Highland stallion Turin Hill Angus Iain:

Now I think about it, there's a bit of a difference between my choice now and the delicately legged show pony I would have chosen when young. Now I seem to have gravitated without a second thought to those natives that can carry weight...

I did enjoy the photograph below. To the left is the Chairman, the formidable Mrs Glenda Spooner. In what is a staggering example of ignoring the obvious, the caption says "The Chairman looks on...." Well, yes, but certainly not at Firby Fleur de Lys and her connections. Maybe Mrs Spooner had spotted a distant Caroline Akrill (which pony author she banned from Ponies of Britain) skulking in the distance.

I don't know if big shows still go in for Fancy Dress, not having been to one for a while, but it certainly was quite a thing in the late sixties. I loved Prince, disguised as a saddleback pig. It looks as if he has trousers on - what a noble pony. I can't help but wonder what happened if the pony needed to have a pee - were there spaces in the right places?

There was a Group class, and this is the Meade family with their Owl and the Pussycat. I love this, though I would not have been happy at being the child who had to be the turkey.

Best of all was Welsh Cob Ceulan Mandarin, all his finer points completely covered by his mammoth costume. He was also accompanied by an Ancient Briton, baby, and a little deer (a dog?), and his owner, Mrs Thrower, who directed operations on his back underneath the mammoth skin! When the trophies were presented she emerged from beneath to receive the honours. That must have worried any ponies still standing: Ceulan Mandarin was completely unconcerned by his odd appearance, but it had already "caused considerable alarm amongst the other competing ponies!" The mind can only boggle.

One advert also brought back a memory. I am of the age where rugs came in fairly limited forms. For outside, the New Zealand. For night, the jute rug; for day the wool day rug or Newmarket, and for summer the summer sheet or anti sweat rug. That was it. Now, the average horse is probably better clothed than his rider, and sale adverts talk of the lucky horse coming with his "wardrobe" of rugs. As far as I can remember, the harbinger of all this; the sign of things to come, was the Lavenham rug. This unattractive beast was made of nylon, ripped in about 10 seconds, and looked appallingly sordid after the horse had spent a night in it. Jute somehow never seemed quite as vile when covered in horse muck as the Lavenham did.

You'll note from the ad it mentions nothing about being rip-stop. Ha. Anyway, that was it: the first in the barrage of new rugs which now come in different deniers, with optional neck cover, and in a positive galaxy of different prints and colours. I can't help but hanker after the days when a horse's rugs weren't fashion statements. Mind you, scrubbing a jute rug was never fun, so something that can go in a machine has to be good. In passing, I wonder if anyone still makes jute rugs?

Some things, however, do not change. Elwyn Hartley Edwards, in his article The Lost Potential, says:

"Top of to-day's "in" words to be used when advertising a horse or pony for sale must surely be the word "potential". If it isn't then it runs "bombproof" a prettty close second. Every other young pony in the "For Sale" columns is ... a "potential winner...."

The letter of the week in Horse and Hound a couple of weeks ago made exactly the same point. Every animal in its For Sale columns, she said, seemed to be a talented beast sure to go to the top. Where, she asked, were the ordinary horses and ponies?

And another current hot potato in the showing world really isn't that new either. Fat not fit seems to be the fashion now, but in 1970, EHE said:

"How many of the ponies seen in show rings today carry a roll of fat like a bolster across their shoulders!"

To say nothing of being worked in side-reins....

Quite.

Another trot down Memory Lane

Every time I read the old Pony Magazines I've acquired from the 1960s and 1980s (rather worryingly, I did get some from the 1970s but seem to have lost these somewhere in the chaos that is my office) I find more things I want to write about, but this is one I've had brimming in my head for ages.

For many pony mad girls, if you didn't have a pony, you had a model pony. Preferably lots. I was definitely in the lots camp, having a fine collection of Britains model horses, riders and stables. The big advantage to Britains was that they were cheap: my 5/- (25p) pocket money would buy one in the early 70s and leave me some money over for sweets. Here is the Britains showjumping set. I did actually have this, but I am utterly ashamed to admit that I lost nearly all of it over the years.

The 35/- price (£3.25) was quite spectacularly reasonable when compared with the game Jump Jockey, which was produced by Minimodels-Triang Ltd, who also made Scalextric. This, as mentioned in the December 1969 edition Pony, was a steeplechasing game, which you could order with any number of jumps up to 5 - which doesn't seem a huge amount to me, bearing in mind the length of the average steeplechase course - and you had control over whether the horse refused, shied or landed safely. It cost a massive 7 guineas (£7.70); quite steep when you consider this would jolly nearly get you a pair of made-to-measure jodhs from a Bond Street tailor.

At the cheaper end of the market were Dream Ponies. I'm not quite sure when these appeared (they are still about, but under the name of Magpie Models) but they were larger than Britains, came with a whole load of accessories, but in rather strange colours. My Arab was covered in a dark brown sort of fuzzy felt material, and had a rather alarming cream mane and tail of incredible, and completely unbelievable length. You were supposed to trim this yourself. I do wonder now I am older and cynical if this was a money saver for the workshop in not having to do the trimming. Their ads were always very small, and lurked at the back of Pony. Here is one from the 1980s:

There was of course plenty for the richer child, or the child with richer relations. Most of these I simply salivated over. I never even managed a copy of the Beswick catalogue, as you had to pay for it, and my mother figured that there was little point spending money on a booklet advertising something I had no hope of getting, which was fair enough, I suppose. Beswick made china horses and ponies, which now fetch astronomic sums on Ebay. All sorts of ponies and horses were made, and I particularly drooled over the native ponies, as in the 1960s ad below.

The attraction has never dimmed: my present for passing my O' levels was a Beswick bay mare. I still have her, though numerous house moves have taken it out of the poor thing a bit.

Also pricey were the Thelwell models. These were sold in a shop called Wells, in Kettering, which ironically is now the Cancer Research shop in which I volunteer. Alas there is absolutely no sign whatsover of a lurking model not cleared out when the shop closed. This is what they looked like:

at 52'6 including p&p these were expensive: £2.62 1/2. I never, ever had one, and again, they're another thing that is still way out of my reach on ebay.

Probably the most sought after model horses (apart from things like the Rydal Arabians and Isis models, which I can't find any mention of yet in Pony) were Julip.

The strapline of looking and feeling like a real horse was slightly odd, as unless your horse feels like rubber, it certainly feels nothing like a Julip. Love Julip though I do, they really don't look that much like real horses either. The Rydal ones certainly do, but Julip really don't (and if you want to spend your money, try bidding for a Rydal on ebay. The last one went for over £700.)

As an interesting historical aside, Julip was also advertised for sale in that same magazine. Here's the ad:

As ever with my childhood, I longed for one of these. I finally got one when I foreswore all other birthday presents, and had an Arab mare. I have her still, though she's alas now gone completely hard and has to be kept in a dark drawer to prevent her deteriorating any further.

The ad didn't change much over the years: this one is from 1969, but it was definitely still going in the 1970s:

and this one is from the 1980s, introducing the dressage horse. I do like the dressage rider.

Another thing I found in the 1980s magazines were model stables from Country Style models.

These do look very splendid, and I would have loved the stable yard, though by the time these came out (1984) I was married. Still set on acquiring Beswicks though, and my then husband, knowing how I lusted after them, bought me one, saying "Just go and change it if you don't like it." Well, there are a few Beswicks I don't like, and this was a Black Beauty one, and I didn't like it, so, taking my husband at his word, off I trotted and changed it (for a labrador, in case you're wondering). He was furious. I think that must have been one of those times when male and female stereotypes get reversed: I just assumed he'd meant what he said, and he'd assumed I would understand when he said just go and change it he didn't actually mean it...

Still got the labrador though. And the Julips, and most of the Britains. They've lasted a lot longer than that marriage did.

The new Jill books

The first three Jill books are being published in August, and you might like to take a look here for something about the new covers...

Marcia Lane Foster

Some of my favourite pony book dustjackets are by an illustrator who did very few pony books in her prolific career. This I think is a shame. Marcia Lane Foster illustrated many children's books, working on Pamela Brown’s later works, and Viola Bayley’s lengthy Adventure series, but her work in the pony book genre was unfortunately small: she seemed to be an illustrator who could turn her hand to most subjects, so presumably was much in demand.


I think she had a real gift for design: I love the way she includes the spine of the book in her jacket designs, particularly for Christine Pullein-Thompson’s We Hunted Hounds, where the hounds are seen galloping along the spine, with the rest of the field on the front.





I love the way the ponies are streaming down the spine of the dustjacket in this next example, and then when you turn to the front you get a continuation. Lovely. I also like her Exmoors, which really look like the breed they're supposed to be, rather than a scaled down Thoroughbred (Moorland Mousie anyone?). Here they are, on Mary de la Mahotiére’s Round-up On Exmoor.


She wrote a few books: early readers for Humphrey Milord and the Oxford University Press, all published in the 1920s. Her Let’s Do It ((1938) is a collection of her sketches, and includes a section on the Pony Club. I haven't yet got hold of a copy, but hope to manage it soon.


In the meantime, here's a link to my site for a couple more photos, and as full a bibliography of everything she illustrated as I've been able to find.

Now your house can smell like mine

You too can have the smell of books.....

I'm very sad that they don't have Horse Scents, as of course the true horse lover wants their scent straight, not undercut with violets and pot pourri, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time, as long as they can solve the production problems that seem to have mysteriously arisen.....

Winning a Pony

Thanks to Susannah Forrest too for telling me about the plethora of Win a Pony competitions there have been. Newspapers did it: the Evening Standard, The Reveille, and the Sunday Express, besides Horse and Pony and Pony. I've found a mention of The Sun running one.

Retail companies did it too. I would love to have seen the Milky Bar Shetland, and the Heinz Beans skewbald, the Kerry Gold Butter palomino, and the Sugar Puffs pony.

Susannah also reminded me about the TV ad which W H Smith ran to publicise their competition in the 1970s. It showed a girl posting her form, only for a neigh to sound from the post box after she'd turned away. This does ring a bell, despite the fact that my sister and I were not supposed to watch ITV, which was the only source of TV ads in the 1970s. We used to watch it illicitly, one of us close to the telly just in case, ready to switch to virtuous BBC1, and the other with an ear cocked in case we heard Mama coming down the hall.

Pony Magazine got very cross in the 1960s with all the ponies given away as prizes: both in well publicised national competitions, and as raffle prizes (Kathleen Mackenzie's Prize Pony is about just such a competition.)

Lieut-Col C E G Hope, who edited Pony Magazine from 1949-1972, published this broadside from Glenda Spooner and Lt-Col R C Kidd.

Did this make any difference, I wonder? The 1984 competition made it quite clear that the pony wouldn't be handed out to just anybody:

"The pony will be awarded on the condition of the winner being, in the opinion of the judges, a suitable pereson with adequate facilities to care correctly and humanely for the pony and upon the consentof the winner's parents or guardians. Should the winer fail for any reason to conform wilth the above conditions, £700 in premium bonds will be awarded in lieu."

which made it pretty plain that you were not going to be able to sneak this one past your parents, or keep the pony in your garden shed.

I did find this very bizarre effort from 2007: a Barbie competition to win a pony for a year - a year? I investigated further, and it turns out you won lessons on the same pony for a year, and transport and riding kit. Not quite the same thing. The promoter said it was about "empowering girls" - it sounds rather as if this just taught them that things aren't necessarily what they seem, and what on earth happened after the year was up and the girl had fallen in love with the pony and then that was that? Goodness.

Presumably the winner of the 1984 Pony Magazine Win a Pony Competition met all the conditions: here is Fiona Dixon, lucky girl:

Unfortunately I don't have any Pony Magazines after this issue, so I don't know what pony she chose or how they got on.