PBOTD: 1st April, C Northcote Parkinson - Ponies Plot

-
C Northcote Parkinson's Ponies Plot is an obvious choice for April Fool's Day, because it is a book in which the ponies tell their own story, but it isn't one of those stories where a pony is subject to humanity's whims until it's rescued. In Ponies Plot, the ponies are very much in charge.

This is what C Northcote Parkinson wrote in the preface to the book:
“In the ordinary run of pony books the story centres on a small girl who dreams of ponies, wants a pony, secures a pony for nothing (saving it from ill-treatment in a gypsy encampment), rides it with growing confidence and ends with First Prize in the Hunter Trials. Among ponies, however, the same story would be told with the pony as hero. Ill-treated and underfed, Blackie dreams about children, wants a child for himself, plans to attract Brenda’s attention, defeats the scheme of a rival pony, saves the girl from drowning, wins over the reluctant parents and finally (guess what?) wins First Prize in the Hunter Trials.”

John Murray, 1965, illus Violet Morgan
In Ponies Plot, the ponies of Daisy Dedleigh-Sirkett's riding school have had enough. I'm sure many of our readers have been to the sort of riding school where you do trail round in deadly circuit after deadly circuit, where the ponies have long since ceased to have any feeling in their sides, and you are about as likely to produce a reaction from them with a gentle squeeze of your calves as the pony is to fly.

Puffin paperback, 1968
The ponies plan to escape through finding suitable parents looking for ponies for their children, but their plans are thrown into disarray when Daisy decides to get married and sell the whole riding school.  The whole thing proceeds in a spirit of manic invention, and ends with a pony going into space. I did say it was manic.

~  0  ~

For more on the author, see his page on my website.

Comments

janebadgerbooks said…
You're right, it was bizarre. I preferred it when they returned to earth!
2 April 2014 at 09:49
MalteseLizzieMcGee said…
I think it's a 'jumping the shark' moments, because the rest of the book feels quite down to earth and plausible, then HORSES IN SPACE happens. I was quite young when I read it, and even then I questioned the logic of it in the story. I think it took away from the more realistic and serious parts of the book
2 April 2014 at 10:00
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