Jill pony books Ruby Ferguson

[Blackcats7]

I loved these books as a child and escaped my not very nice reality into Jill’s world long before I ever started working at a stables in exchange for lessons.
I have just seen that the rights have been bought by Jane Badger who sells vintage pony books and she has republished the entire set so I’ve treated myself, sad old woman that I am.

"I never swung a bucket after Jill broke her wrist doing it."
Ha, me neither!

Did anyone read The Stables at Hampton, about a girl who goes to work at a dressage stable? The characters on that were good.

I think the Jinny books were well written too with lots of strong female characters between Jinny, Nell, the redoubtable Miss Tuke, Keziah, Marlene in The Summer Riders and even the hard faced Brenda in The Magic Pony who gives Jinny a dose of reality and is written with some sympathy and understanding by the author; Kat and her awkward relationship with her mother and stepfather, and even Clare bloody Burnley in Running Wild where she is worried for her horse.

In most books and practically every film when I was growing up, the boy or man is the hero and any female characters were largely just some stuck-on damsel love interest, so pony books were the exception...they definitely pass the Bechdel test!

Jill didn't break her wrist swinging the hen feed bucket she just sprained it...

sad 59 year old here who remembers way too much about Jill

Isn't that the sign of a good book though? That you remember it well?

I loved the horse from black lock!!

I think it was Susan who won everything.

BlueShadow was the name of the pony bought for two girls (who lilked dogs really) who came to stay. She was seemingly perfect and far too good for them and in the end said that Jill should show her - turns out she was sold because she was ring shy. Also the book where only one of the sisters could go hunting (they tossed for it I think) and the one who remained decided to help by painting the stable. Bright blue. It got on one of Jill's ponies and she was understandably unimpressed.

National Velvet is a brilliant novel.

(There was a sort-of sequel, International Velvet, by Bryan Forbes, but it’s a very different affair, focused on eventing in the Olympics, and Velvet is only a minor character, who takes in an orphaned niece who rides. The only scene I remember in any detail is a horrifying one where a horse being transported to the Olympics by air panics, can’t be quieted, and has to be euthanised mid-flight. It’s at least 40 years since I read it, and it’s stayed with me…)

Then again, the only bit I remember from Monica Dickens’ Follyfoot books is the bit where Cobbler’s Dream is forced over a high, barbed-wire covered wall and is horrifically injured and Callie is given a dead horse’s hoof by school bullies. I’m still traumatised.

There was one episode ( possibly after Jill got the hump at her mothers Beastly Hens ) where she staggered into the kitchen and drank a whole bowl of fruit cup .
Then told her Mother it was "delicious" and must;ve taken ages to cut up .

Her Mother gets her back by making her sit there for hours cutting up a fresh batch for her Bridge Meeting .
And maybe Jill got a mahoosive dose of the runs from all the fruit ?

It's come to me !!

Melly and Lindo .... owned Blue Shadow and definitely preferred Dogs.. must stop reading this thread. I'm getting nostalgic

I found Monica Edwards' The Midnight Horse on archive.org. But it's an American edition. We have braids, suspenders and gasolene. And worst of all, 'Cornish meat pies'.

@Clariceamelia I'm another one who remembers them. Wasn't Cecilia Jill's awful cousin? And was massively pally with Clarissa Dandleby who Jill loathed?

I remember in Jill's Riding Club them turning up for the gymkhana all dolled up in lipstick looking about 21 and dressed for the Horse of the Year show, and Jill and John Watson (who I had a bit of a crush on) sending them to stand at the gate to look sophisticated and draw people in!

Girls Gone By publishers have the rights to the Monica Edwards booke. Good source for books is Gil Biliski books. There is also a pony book by and sell site on fb.

I think the book was Rosettes for Jill.

I loved that film! I think it’s on YouTube.

I love International Velvet and always cry at various points 😳

@SlightlyAshamed3 me too , Nannette Newman and Bryan Forbes and Tatum ONeal , I remember going to see it when it was released at the cinema.

Jane Badger has posted the first chapter of Jill and the lost ponies her follow on book on her face book page this morning so free for anyone who has facebook.

Hello - Jane Badger here (long time Mumsnet lurker). Thanks everyone who likes what I do - always a relief to read! I'm always keen to know what other books people would like, so do please let me know.

Someone mentioned upthread that they thought I used AI to write Jill and the Lost Ponies. Absolutely not. It was written in 2013, when AI wasn't a thing, and I don't use AI for anything. Not posts, not graphics, covers, blurbs, anything. What you get is pure unadulterated me.

As for getting the language right, I think that might be because I am also a choral singer, and so I'm used to listening to what people do and adapting my sound to match. I think I have an ear for the way people speak and write.

Drove my English teacher mad with the Down with Skool (Willans and Searle) pieces I wrote for the school magazine. You're better than this, she would say. It would appear not.

Hello! How lovely to 'meet' you! 💐 🦄

Ed to say I've found your blog! And also I see Caroline Akrill is still going strong 😊

Ps where did @Blackcats7 go? Lovely thread and trip down memory lane for me. Thank you for starting it!

@MrMrsMoon I’m here!
I recognise all the books mentioned on the thread, I was pony mad and an avid reader so I collected any books I could afford (25p for a paperback when I was a child) and got others from the library.
I think I learned a lot of my personal values as well as (sometimes outdated) horsewomanship from Jill and all the others. There was a lot about honour and fair play.
I found Caroline Akrill’s eventing and showing series very enjoyable and often really funny.
A couple that made me sad and I never re read were Fly- by Night series when she sells him in the next book and he ends up in a bad home. Also Silver Snaffles where the riding school ponies could talk and if I am remembering the correct book the one of the ponies Prune gets sold to a bad home. Might be mixing up two books though?
I still to this day cannot watch or read anything with any hint of sadness about animals. I was taken to see The Incredible Journey as a child and never got over the anxiety about these pets being lost.
Black Beauty was a horror story for me.

I read and reread Jill's Riding Club endlessly as a child. Loved it, very witty in places as well.

Wasn’t the illustrator Anne Bullen? Such lovely work. Happy memories. Wasn’t there some ruffian child who rode her pony without a noseband? The pony was called Jingle I think

Didn’t you see the film International Velvet? Follows on years later.
Sorry, just seen somebody else already mentioned this.

International Velvet is the greatest film ever made and I won't hear anyone try to convince me otherwise.

I do have a copy on DVD but once we changed TVs, we no longer have a port to add the HDMI lead to it.

I've been desperately trying to find a copy on a streamer somewhere.

Is it on YouTube? I'll have to have a look. I know it off by heart.

The ruffian who rode Jingle I think is Charlie Dewhurst in Three Ponies and Shannan. Always loved that book, and yes the original is illustrated by Anne Bullen.

Anne Bullen didn't illustrate the original Jill books, but the copyright for the Caney illustrations is in the realms of the hideously complicated and so I went for the Anne Bullen covers instead for my editions.

To whoever suggested to look on YouTube for International Velvet - you GENIUS!!!