PBOTD: 20th March, Christine Pullein-Thompson - The Horse Sale

-
Here's another of my favourite books - I had the Armada with the pictorial cover that's pictured below. The Horse Sale (1960) takes the same format as the earlier A Day to Go Hunting (1956), in that it tells the story of a single event from the point of view of several different characters. The Welford Horse Sale is being revived, and it has different effects on the Pony Club members. Olga does not own her horse Crusoe. He was leant to her by a dealer to school. She's done very well with him, but not made any efforts to buy him for herself, and the dealer now wants to sell him at the sale. Edwin Christie lives at Dolphin Manor; has outgrown his pony, and now wants a horse. Maurice is seven. He and his sisters have a pony, Titbits, that none of them ever ride, and so Maurice's father has arranged to send Titbits to the sale. Julia is too heavy for her piebald pony Whisky, who is continually going lame. The local riding school has just bought a new young horse, Jupiter, in the hope that he will be something for their more experienced or adult clients. The book winds its way through all these characters' involvement with the sale, until the sale happens, and all the characters find some sort of resolution.

Collins first edition, 1960, illus Sheila Rose
When I was younger I drank these books in uncritically, but a more measured read a few decades later had me being intensely irritated by Edwin: a classic Christine Pullein-Thompson character, who zooms from delight to despair. Olga is much the same way inclined, though is rather better at picking herself up afterwards.

Armada paperback, 1970s
Olga is a genius at prevarication: she's worked very hard on her loan horse, but she's kept putting off the awful moment of doing something concrete about buying him until her hand is forced when Crusoe's sent to the sale. Having spent quite literally years prevaricating about finishing my book, I admit I feel considerable sympathy with Olga.

Armada paperback, 1979
I must admit much of the charm of this book for me is in the illustrations, which I think show Sheila Rose at her best. The scan below isn't brilliant, but I think it's a great example of her work in this book. It shows Olga attempting to raise money to buy her loan horse Crusoe, by selling her books.

The Horse Sale - internal illustration
The Horse Sale was first published in 1960 with illustrations by Collins. In next appeared in an Armada paperback edition in the 1970s, with one of those intriguing uncredited covers - possibly by the same hand as Six Ponies, which was an earlier PBOTD this week. The latest, and last, edition, had a photographic cover.

For much more on Christine Pullein-Thompson, including pictures of all her books, see her page on my website.



Comments

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