PBOTD 23rd October: Christine Dickenson - The Dark Horse

-
I am slightly handicapped attempting to write about Christine Dickenson's Dark Horse (1973) because firstly the lovely piece I'd semi-written in my head has actually used the plot of a totally different book, and when I went to find my copy of Dark Horse to check the details I found I do not actually have a copy. Ah. 



But should I buy one? I am, although my family might not believe it, trying to cut down on the number of books I buy. When I compare the number coming in with previous years I'm not actually doing too badly, though I have blown the budget somewhat by buying a whole load of PONY and Riding magazines from the early 1960s, and now I come to think of it I do very, very much want to acquire the PONY mags I don't have from the 1940s and 1950s which is in fact all of them. I might just pop over to eBay to see if there's any there. Because you never know. And magazines don't count as books. And they are useful for research, because I'm sure everyone else wants to know of obscure pony books now vanished into obscurity just as much as me.

I will see you later. EBay calls. And it isn't as if I'm going to buy a book.

~  0  ~

More on Christine Dickenson

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