Prince among Ponies

  Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  Contents

  Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Show Jumping Faults

  Also by Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  Jane Badger Books

  Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

  * * *

  Born in 1924, the eldest of the three Pullein-Thompson sisters (the others being the slightly younger twins, Diana and Christine), Josephine grew up in a somewhat bohemian household in Oxfordshire. With her sisters, she wrote several short stories and ran a riding school before firmly establishing herself as a writer. It Began with Picotee was the sisters’ first novel, published in 1946, and was written jointly by all three although they wrote individually from then on. At first, most notable for being the daughters of Joanna Cannan, a prolific writer whose work included children’s pony books and crime fiction, the sisters soon became well known as writers in their own right.

  * * *

  Josephine went on to write over thirty novels. Most are children’s books in the pony books genre that the sisters dominated in the post-war period, although she also wrote some detective novels and non-fiction. She lived in London and was active in the English Centre of International PEN, the writers' organisation which campaigns for authors’ freedoms under authoritarian or tyrannical regimes. Josephine Pullein-Thompson died in 2014.

  * * *

  Vanessa Robertson

  1

  The worst thing in the world is to have unhorsy parents.

  Patrick, my elder brother, says that this is a sweeping statement, but I think that it is a Great Truth.

  Our parents, though nice and perfectly reasonable in all other ways, were not only unhorsy, but positively anti-horse. In some way that Patrick and I could never fathom, this anti-horse complex was mixed up with our Great Uncle Harry. In our very young days, when Black Beauty was the only horse book which we had read, we came to the conclusion that Uncle Harry had been killed in the hunting field. Patrick was convinced that he had broken his neck while jumping a brook. But as we grew older and learned that people don’t break their necks as often as Black Beauty’s mother thought, we dismissed this idea, but we were no nearer solving the mystery of our parents’ unhorsiness.

  The older we grew, the more horsy we became. We played horses, harnessing each other to my dolls’ pram, and then we each had an imaginary horse which we rode everywhere. Mine was a well-bred, fidgety chestnut mare called Firefly, and Patrick’s Demon was a fiery black stallion with a flowing mane.

  It used to make Mummy rather cross when she observed by our actions that we were riding down Bond Street on our lively steeds. Demon and Firefly always behaved in a dramatic manner; they were very badly schooled and I don’t think they ever walked a step. If they weren’t dancing and prancing they were rearing, bucking or bolting.

  Our parents soon gave up asking us what we would like for our Christmas or birthday presents because we always asked for ponies or riding lessons, but then, one Christmas a year and a half before the beginning of this book, to our amazement and joy we were each given a riding outfit and two dozen lessons.

  “To get this nonsense out of your systems,” Daddy said. And Mummy added, “They won’t be so keen when they’ve fallen off once or twice.”

  Marston Common, where we live, is a suburb just outside London; it is our second misfortune, for Patrick and I would like to live in the country.

  While we live among the pavements and shops, the thousands of squashed-up houses and millions of people, we long for a cottage in the country, miles from anywhere, with stabling for six and several nice big fields.

  However, Marston has two good points: one is the Common and the other the three riding stables. Two of the riding stables are very superior establishments, but the third hires out thin horses to people who can’t ride. Our parents had booked our lessons at Captain Stefinski’s stable, which is the most superior of all.

  “We may as well do the thing properly,” Daddy said, “and I’m told Stefinski’s one of the best instructors in the country so we can’t go wrong there.”

  Patrick and I rode in the covered school on Copper and Silver or hacked across Marston Common and into Sackville Park on Treasure and Jonathan, and each week we became even more keen on riding. Our parents were horrified; especially when Captain Stefinski told them that we were very promising. I don’t think that anyone had ever thought us promising at anything before. We had just started to learn to jump when our two dozen lessons came to an end. We had hoped that when our parents found our horsiness was too deep rooted to wear off they would relent and let us continue our lessons. To our dismay they refused to discuss the matter; they said that we couldn’t do everything and that we were going to have tennis coaching instead. Against our wills we were provided with new and very super racquets, which were the envy of our friends, elegant white outfits and one of the best tennis coaches in London. Patrick did not mind terribly because he likes tennis, but he said it was a waste of money as he would never be good, and that he should think we could have had a riding lesson every week for a year on the money the parents had spent on dressing us as though we were going to play at Wimbledon.

  It was much worse for me. I’m no good at all at games; I hated every minute of my coaching and so did the coach. When I stood on the hard court and tried to develop a non-existent backhand I thought of Captain Stefinski’s covered school and Copper, and when I played on grass courts I thought of the canters we had had across Marston Common; uphill to the lonely pine and alongside the sandbanks. When we were taken to watch the play on the Centre Court at Wimbledon I fidgeted in my smart seat and longed to be sitting on the grass at the humblest horse show in England.

  Patrick remained optimistic; he said that when autumn came and our parents’ craze for tennis wore off we would be allowed to ride again. But he was wrong. Autumn brought squash lessons for him and dancing lessons for me. In the Christmas holidays we learned to skate on the big indoor ice-rink at Sanford. It was fun, but not as exciting as jumping. Patrick, at last becoming as frantic as I was, announced that he was going to spend the money he had been given, as Christmas presents, on riding lessons. This was not at all well received; in fact he was forbidden to do so, and we were both lectured on the evils of one track minds and horse bores and on the virtues of being good “all rounders.” As Patrick said to me afterwards we were rapidly becoming bad “all rounders”.

  To cure our one track minds we were taken to nearly every Museum in London, and they all made my legs ache. When we weren’t at museums we were at pantomimes, which we used to like when we were little, but which increasing old age made us hate.

  Spring came, but we didn’t dare mention riding. Patrick was provided with a cricket coach and I was made to take up eurhythmics, which were ghastly and a hundred times worse than dancing. It wasn’t until the summer term that a gleam of hope appeared on the horizon.

  It was Robina Stedland, a girl in my form at school, who caused the gleam. Her parents bought her a pony; a grey gelding called Seagull. As I am the only really horsy character in our form it was me she asked to tea to meet Seagull; he was stabled with Captain Stefinski’s rival, Major Hunter-Horn. If only this wasn’t Marston, I thought, standing in Seagull’s loosebox after a very excellent tea, and looking longingly at his broad back. If only Robina could keep him in a paddock beside her house as country children keep their ponies, I could ride him; wearing a school dress wouldn’t matter. But Marston is the sort of place where riding without a hat or gloves is frowned upon, and even if I had dared to horrify the residents I could not have faced the stern eye of Major Hunter-Horn, who is always impeccably dressed in breeches, boots, a well-cut coat, a bowler and, of course, gloves.

  But, if I couldn’t ride, I could see and smell horses again.

  We visited each horse in turn and Robina told me what she knew of their histories. We explored the forage and tack rooms and we didn’t leave until the grooms began to lock up.

  Before we parted I asked Robina if I could bring Patrick to meet Seagull on Saturday. Being a good-natured character, she said, “Of course, come early, at two o’clock, and in riding clothes. Then we can spend the afternoon on the Common and we’ll take it in turns to ride.”

  I felt very cheerful at the thought of riding again and, having thanked Robina, I hurried home whistling to myself and thinking how pleased Patrick would be when I told him the good news. Patrick was pleased, but Mummy wasn’t.

  “It’s all right for you to go, just this once,” she said, “as it’s a social occasion, but you’re not to make a habit of it. Daddy and I could very well afford for you to have riding lessons if we wanted you to ride, and then we should make certain that you learned properly from a good instructor and didn’t just play about with friends.”

  Our hopes faded at these words and then revived a little as we remembered we were to have one afternoon’s riding.

  Saturday took a long time to come. School seemed more boring than ever, but the weather was hot and I tried to drown my sorrows in swimming, which I like much better than games.

  I don’t have to go to school on Saturday mo
rnings, but Patrick does. So I have an extra three and a half hours of liberty every second of which, I feel, should be crammed with unclouded enjoyment. But of course it never is like that: I only get a sort of negative pleasure out of the fact that I am not at school and I hang about wishing that I had a pony and planning how I would groom him, clean his tack and muck out his stable so that he would be quite ready to ride when Patrick came home.

  The Willows, that is our house, is rather a dull place to be in by oneself in spite of having quite a big garden. In front of the house, which is modern, a lawn slopes down to the road, and on it two willow trees weep and the clock golf is laid out. Behind the house there is a rose garden, a rockery and a round paved place where one is supposed to have tea; beyond that grow the vegetables and the fruit trees and then, by the back gate, is the garage, the toolshed and our swing.

  You can tell from my description what a hopeless garden it is for amusing oneself in unless you like clock golf—which I don’t.

  On this particular morning when I had seen Patrick off to school, I walked up the garden and swung on the swing for a bit. I thought of Patrick’s plan for turning the rockery and the paved part of the garden into a paddock and building a loosebox between the garage and the toolshed. When I had planned every detail and even imagined the lean well-bred head looking out of the loosebox, I began to visualise Daddy’s plan for turning the same part of the garden into a hard tennis court and it looked terrible. Then I swung a bit more and wondered what Seagull would be like to ride and whether I had forgotten everything which Captain Stefinski had taught me. Soon I began to feel unbearably excited, so I left the swing to visit Mrs. Mathews, who cooks for us and is very pro our riding. She gave me six lumps of sugar and four carrots for Seagull, and some raisins for myself.

  I thanked her and then wandered upstairs to my room. Daddy always calls my room the chocolate box, because he says it is pink and frilly like a pre-war box of chocolates. Needless to say it wasn’t my idea to have it like that. Mummy loves it and says that it is “sweet”. I liked it when I was nine, but now I would prefer something more dashing. Since I have arranged my china horse collection among the pink rabbits on the chimney-piece and hung the sporting prints which Patrick gave me for Christmas on the walls, it looks a bit odd and not nearly so like a chocolate box. I looked round my room for a bit, gazing with disfavour on the pink and frilly parts and with pleasure on my pictures and horses, and then I fetched my riding clothes from the wardrobe and laid them on my bed. The sight of them was too much for me and I grabbed a book at random from my bookshelf and ran back to the garden, longing for the afternoon to come.

  It was a horsy book I had grabbed. Patrick and I have quite a collection; we had always enjoyed reading stories about lucky characters who have ponies of their own and since we had had riding lessons we had begun to collect instructive books as well. Actually, I usually found that instructive books made me feel thwarted and frustrated; it’s maddening to learn the aids for different movements and then have no pony on which to try them out, but that day I resolved that I would try to ride a half pass on Seagull and so I read the chapter on two track movements with great attention and learned the aids by heart. Then I began the next chapter and at once a feeling of frustration came upon me. What was the use, I asked myself, of learning how to change legs? I was only riding for a third of the afternoon and anyway it was Robina’s pony and she would probably want to teach him herself.

  Fortunately Mummy broke into my frustrated thoughts; she called to me from the front door. She had some shopping to do in the village and she wondered if I would like to go. I accepted at once for Captain Stefinski’s stable was on the way.

  The village at Marston is the real Marston which was there before London spread out and engulfed it. There is a green surrounded by little white cottages and several old-fashioned shops, which Mummy prefers to the ones in Marston High Street. I called Macgregor, our Scottie, put on his tartan collar and lead and told Mummy that I was ready, but she said that I was to wash my face, change into some tidier shoes and put on my summer hat. That is the worst of London, one spends half one’s life tidying oneself up. When I was tidy and Mummy had collected her shopping basket we set forth up Manthill Road, which is very dull as all the gardens are full of tennis courts and clock golf courses but not one of the residents keeps a horse. Then we cut across the corner of the Common, where I let Macgregor off his lead, and entered the road where Captain Stefinski’s stables are. It was just after eleven and, as we passed, the second ride came out. Treasure was there, ridden by a girl who wore her hair in plaits, and Patrick’s favourite, Jonathan, who carried a very fat woman.

  How I envied the riders. I tripped over Macgregor’s lead and nearly fell, gazing back at them as they rode off across the Common.

  “What are you doing?” asked Mummy. “Really, I don’t think those eurhythmics are making you graceful at all; they seem to me very over-rated.”

  “I quite agree,” I said, seizing the opportunity quickly. “I think they’re a waste of money.”

  We relapsed into silence and throughout the rest of the shopping expedition Mummy found me a very tiresome companion. She complained that she had to say everything twice before I heard her, but you, of course, will realise that I was thinking about the riders, wondering which way they were going, whether they were cantering and if the girl on Treasure liked his long smooth stride.

  When we reached home Patrick was back from school and had already changed into his riding clothes. He had grown since he had last ridden and the sleeves of his coat and the legs of his jodhpurs looked rather odd.

  “What a sight,” said Mummy, gazing at him in disfavour. “But still, I suppose they’ll do for this afternoon, since you’re only playing about.”

  I ate my lunch as quickly as possible and flew upstairs to change. My riding clothes were also rather tight, but I hadn’t grown as much as Patrick.

  We felt rather disloyal as we entered Major Hunter-Horn’s yard dressed to ride, and we hoped that no one from Captain Stefinski’s would see us and think that we had gone over to the enemy. Seagull was waiting, saddled and bridled, but there was no sign of Robina. Patrick looked at his watch and said that we were early so we talked to Seagull for a bit, and then we looked at the other horses, agreeing in muttered undertones that they were not as good as Captain Stefinski’s horses, until Robina arrived. She seemed pleased to see us.

  “Hallo, this is super,” she said. “Am I late? I hope you haven’t been waiting for ages.”

  We assured her that we hadn’t been waiting at all long and explained that we had had a lovely time looking at all the horses and then I introduced Patrick.

  Robina insisted that I should have first ride. I argued for ages but it was no use so I mounted Seagull and rode him out of the smart yard and up the road towards the Common. He felt lovely. His stride wasn’t as long as Treasure’s and his head carriage wasn’t as good as Copper’s, but he felt wonderful, and I was so pleased to be riding again. I rode him to the Common and then I said that it was someone else’s turn. Robina said, “No, you must have a canter first, Sara. Go on, you canter to the lonely pine and back and then it can be Patrick’s turn.”

  We spent a marvellous afternoon. Seagull was most obliging and Robina said that of course I could try to make him half pass. He didn’t do it very well, but he moved sideways. Robina was very interested because Major Hunter­Horn doesn’t make his pupils ride in the school half as much as Captain Stefinski does and she had never heard of shoulder-in or turns on the forehand or anything like that.

  Patrick rode Seagull back to the stables because Robina said that she would be able to ride for as long as she liked next day and that walking would make her thinner; she was afraid of becoming too heavy for Seagull. We had enormous appetites after our riding, which was fortunate because Mrs. Stedland always prepares huge teas for Robina’s friends and is quite hurt if they don’t eat some of everything. It was no hardship for Patrick and me to devour the plates of sandwiches and iced cakes and we even managed two helpings of jelly and ice-cream each. Mrs. Stedland was delighted with us: she smiled more and more and asked if we would go again on the following Saturday. “Robina doesn’t care for riding alone all the time,” she told us.