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Discuss horse riding and ownership on our Horse forum.

Jill pony books Ruby Ferguson

196 replies

Blackcats7 · 29/04/2024 14:24

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.

Jill pony books Ruby Ferguson
OP posts:
Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 08/05/2024 14:27

I had such nostalgia for Silver Snaffles that I bought myself another copy! I used to borrow it and borrow it from the library when I was a pony mad child - now I actually own it!

I'm now contemplating buying the set of Jill books that Jane Badger has reissued (I follow her on Facebook and she's selling the entire set at a discount from buying each individually. I just need to find the cash...)

Beowulfa · 09/05/2024 11:31

I got re-into pony books about 15 years ago, with Jane Badger's site being very helpful. It was good to fill in the gaps; like other posters I only had what was in my small school library, and yokel village library. So you never read all the books in a series, or in the right order.

One book I missed out on my youth, which hasn't been mentioned and I highly recommend is Patricia Leitch's Dream Of Fair Horses. It's quite outstanding and unique. I also enjoyed one of KM Peyton's later works, Blind Beauty.

Back to Jill; I remember a scene in Jill's Gymkhana (on a hack, a dobbin gets stuck in a ditch) and one of the characters is described as "given to making pointless remarks". That's stuck with me, as I've met SO MANY of these people over the years.....

I also love the line where Ann states that her "only ambition is to be about 30, and a famous woman MFH, and to order Susan Pyke off the field for unsporting behaviour."

SydneyCarton · 09/05/2024 14:00

I enjoyed the bit where Jill goes to visit Cecilia and is confident she looks "at least fifteen" with a bit of lipstick and differently-combed hair, and her aunt completely ruins it by rushing up and shouting "Darling, were you all right on the train without Mummy??!!" Grin. Also the mad landlady person in Pony Jobs for Jill who ends up dropping Pride and Prejudice into the stew!

Gremlinsateit · 13/05/2024 09:07

NoAIhere · 08/05/2024 10:46

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.

I did enjoy your Jill and the Lost Ponies - much more true to the original books than some other sequels :) I hear you have written a second sequel. Do you plan to make it available in the online store?

Gremlinsateit · 13/05/2024 09:11

MrMrsMoon · 03/05/2024 14:11

I remember that but I think it was in Prince Among Ponies by Josephine Pullein-Thompson

It was I Had Two Ponies :)

Lostinbrum · 13/05/2024 09:42

I loved the Jill books so much as a child. I desperately wanted my own brick stables that I could whitewash! Also great to read this thread and remember the PT books and KM Peyton. Read all the silver Brumby books many times aswell. Happy memories of summer holidays lounging in the garden buried in these books as I didn't have my own pony

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 13/05/2024 12:46

I credit the Jill books with starting me on my writing career. I used to read them and discuss them with a friend and we agreed that they were realistic (as in the characters and behaviours), but it would be even better if they occasionally had to stop rides to go and find a bush to pee behind (as was our reality). So I started trying to write books that had sufficient amounts of realism in (ie how NORMAL people would behave, not perfect book people).

I have a lot to thank those books for.

NoAIhere · 13/05/2024 14:32

Gremlinsateit · 13/05/2024 09:07

I did enjoy your Jill and the Lost Ponies - much more true to the original books than some other sequels :) I hear you have written a second sequel. Do you plan to make it available in the online store?

I have two sequels on the go - a longer version of Jill and the Unexpected Horses, where I'm adding a lot more of April, May and June, and then Jill and the Highlands, when Jill experiences the matchless joy that is Cecilia's wedding. They will both be available, but I need to finish them, get them beta-read, then proofread, so I hope they will be available some time this year. That's the plan, anyway.

And I'm very glad you liked my sequel!

Asiatoyork · 14/05/2024 12:50

Blackcats7 · 29/04/2024 15:00

Caroline Arkill
She wrote a great funny story about showing side saddle too

Oh and her horse was called legend?! Loved these so much. And Jill - my husband got me some off e/bay when I was feeling down

Blackcats7 · 14/05/2024 12:58

Asiatoyork · 14/05/2024 12:50

Oh and her horse was called legend?! Loved these so much. And Jill - my husband got me some off e/bay when I was feeling down

His full name was Another Legend. I loved the bit where the vet told her that he felt obliged to say that during vetting Legend had put in a buck the strength of which almost launched the stable lad riding him into outer space.

OP posts:
Asiatoyork · 14/05/2024 13:09

Clariceamelia · 04/05/2024 08:56

Have you got a link to Jill on FB? :)

I read them all...endlessly early 70's
I remember them well, Jill Crewe, Ann Derry, Diana Bush, Mercy Dulbottle, April, May and June Cholly-Sawcutt, and the captain..and some 'insufferable' girl Celia?? Ceclia" Who won everything. Also Val Heath?

Jills Ponies, Black Boy and Rapide and a horse called Blue Shadow rings a bell too! Mrs Darcy who owned the riding school. The Chatton Show.

Fave was Jills Pony Trek where they end up being marooned in a deserted farmhouse where they found lots of hot cocoa to drink and stone hot water bottles....

Oh and Mrs Crosby, the daily-'no relation to Bing'

Poor Mummy, and her hens and hours of sitting typing away at her book about perfect children...and then it all ends with Jill leaving school and training to be a typist....

Its a bit spooky that I can remember it so well, and it was a huge influence on me at 10 years old when my real life was a thousand miles removed from anything even close to Jill's perfect life.

Blue shadow was the pony that Melly and Lindo got bought for them. Sisters who stayed with them for the summer…maybe daughters of Jill’s mum’s friend.

Asiatoyork · 14/05/2024 13:16

Blackcats7 · 14/05/2024 12:58

His full name was Another Legend. I loved the bit where the vet told her that he felt obliged to say that during vetting Legend had put in a buck the strength of which almost launched the stable lad riding him into outer space.

And he broke the leg of the owner of the pickle empire who she asked to buy him for her? Yes! I always wanted to see how beautiful the ‘mare who sometimes slips a stifle’ really was 😂

Asiatoyork · 14/05/2024 13:17

So many happy memories. Am also going. To rewatch international velvet.

Foes anyone remember ‘there’s no mistaking corker’ and also ‘Rennie goes riding?’

itsnotabouthepasta · 14/05/2024 13:43

I used to utterly love the saddle club as well.

My dog used to be a lhasa apso called Dolly. It was only years later, when randomly googling the saddle club that I realised Lisa also had a lhasa apso called Dolly! haha

Fernticket · 14/05/2024 16:28

Asiatoyork · 14/05/2024 13:17

So many happy memories. Am also going. To rewatch international velvet.

Foes anyone remember ‘there’s no mistaking corker’ and also ‘Rennie goes riding?’

I still have my copy of No Mistaking Corker. One of my favourite books.

SydneyCarton · 14/05/2024 16:38

I am absolutely here for Cecilia's wedding, and have my fingers crossed that Auntie Primrose and Mummy strongarm Jill into being the world's most unwilling bridesmaid Grin Bonus points for Susan Pyke spotting her in full pink frilly glory!

repeatplease · 18/05/2024 11:07

Reading this brought back lots of happy memories - but I also loved the send up of pony books by C Northcote Parkinson - Ponies Plot - when the ponies in a riding stable (owned by Daisy Dedleigh-Sirkett) hear they are going to be sold and plot their own happy endings.

Blackcats7 · 18/05/2024 11:28

repeatplease · 18/05/2024 11:07

Reading this brought back lots of happy memories - but I also loved the send up of pony books by C Northcote Parkinson - Ponies Plot - when the ponies in a riding stable (owned by Daisy Dedleigh-Sirkett) hear they are going to be sold and plot their own happy endings.

Thank you!!! I have been trying to remember the name of this book. I felt sorry for Prune.

OP posts:
harveythehorse · 18/05/2024 13:46

I loved these books so much, my mother actually hid them as I would read them on loop instead of picking up what she considered 'worthwhile' books.

I introduced them to DD a few years ago and was a little shocked (but unsurprised) at how badly they've aged . . . Jill isn't terribly kind to a lot of people (does anyone remember the 'Fats'???) But they will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Binglebong · 18/05/2024 13:58

Blackcats7 · 18/05/2024 11:28

Thank you!!! I have been trying to remember the name of this book. I felt sorry for Prune.

Didn't one of them end up going to space?

Blackcats7 · 18/05/2024 14:02

Binglebong · 18/05/2024 13:58

Didn't one of them end up going to space?

Oh don’t put that image into my head! One of my most hated things is animals sent into space.
Actually it is good that you warned me, I hadn’t remembered that and was just about to buy a copy.
Will stick to Jill instead.

OP posts:
CharismaticMegafauna · 23/05/2024 09:58

I read most of the Jill books to my daughter a couple of years ago, thinking that I'd quite like to live in Jill-land. Ponies in your own orchard, riding all morning, hardly any traffic on the roads, and then huge teas with crumpets late afternoon.

There's one book when someone comments that Jill "has been working like a black" Shock - I presume that's been changed in any new issues.

dragonscannotswim · 23/05/2024 10:01

That's not sad!! I loved those books too.

repeatplease · 23/05/2024 15:14

But Prune never gets into space - he deliberately crashes the capsule and becomes a circus clown re enacting the crash! I think the replacement gets to Pegasus and becomes a flying horse? Must go and find my copy!

Abra1t · 23/05/2024 15:16

I have just put my Jill books (and many other pony books, mainly Pullein-Thompsons') into storage under a bed. They were out on a bookshelf we are replacing and we won't have as much shelf space now. I toyed with passing them on, but couldn't do it.

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