The best dressed child rider

-
I always thought when Ann won the Best Dressed Child Rider in Ruby Ferguson's A Stable for Jill that there had been another competitor there with flowing ringlets. Alas, there was not. Flowing green velvet with ostrich feathers yes; Susan Pyke in black and silver hanging on her horse's neck yes, but ringlets no.

Never mind.

Here's some flowing ringlets:


This child was a regular fixture in the advertisements in Riding. Here she is in 1942, and she was still going in 1952. Those ringlets are so very much the antithesis of all that good sense and sensible dressing one was recommended in pony books. I wonder if the child rode, and if she did, how long those ringlets stayed in.

I was so delighted by this photograph I had high hopes for the White oeuvre as it developed over the decades, but alas, these more restrained examples are typical of its later output.



Comments

Anonymous said…
Gosh, she looks like the child Theda Bara.
27 September 2010 at 13:46
Christina Wilsdon said…
Those are some of the sausagey-est sausage curls I've ever seen. Do you have the Beverly Cleary "Ramona" books in the UK? Ramona always got in trouble for tugging the "boing-boing curls" of a goody-two-shoes girl named Susan (it's always a Susan who's a troublemaker...hmm!).
27 September 2010 at 16:04
Goldielover said…
I thought it was Susan Pyke's mother in Jill's Gymkhana who was talking about flowing ringlets when reminiscing about being put up on her pony by the hunt Master when she was a small child.
27 September 2010 at 16:12
Christina Wilsdon said…
It was definitely somebody's mother! That rings a bell. Was it maybe the mom who brought two small bratty children to learn to ride when Jill was running a riding school? I vageuly remember her being struck dumb at "this appalling vision" or some such.
27 September 2010 at 16:35
Jane Badger said…
Susanna - doesn't she? It looks like one of those Lenare society portraits, but of a child who had Issues.

Yes, we do have the Ramona books, and Goldie Susan Pyke's (ooh, wrote Susan Puke there before re-typing) mother does sound right for the flowing ringlets. I'm sure there are flowing ringlets somewhere in Jill.
27 September 2010 at 17:12
Goldielover said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
27 September 2010 at 17:28
Goldielover said…
Dragged out my early Armada edition of Jill's Gymkhana, and Susan Pyke's mother definitely comments on having long flowing curls down to her waist worn with her little habit, and being put onto her pony by the MFH in the chapter entitled Lablonde.
27 September 2010 at 17:31
Christina Wilsdon said…
I am glad you cleared that up so that I do not have to dig out my books in this messy office :) That was always one of my favorite bits, what with Jill commenting about how unprofessional it was to have those flowing ringlets all over the place while on horseback.
27 September 2010 at 17:43
Jane Badger said…
There we have it. Mrs White's model is Susan Pyke's mother. Thanks Goldielover!
27 September 2010 at 18:04
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rollkur and the blue tongue

-
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou
Read more

Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes

-
Image
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes
Read more

Dick Sparrow - 40 Horse Hitch, and Neil Dimmock's 46 Percherons

-
Image
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
Read more