Riding Days in Hook’s Hollow

Country Life, 1944, illus Stanley Lloyd

Westminster Press, 1948 (left)

Catherine Blakeney has come to stay with her grandmother in Cheshire.  She is shy, terrified
of ponies, and completely overwhelmed by the lively duo Wake and Torfreda Conway. Under
their influence, she thaws out, and proves herself a very good rider.  There’s a little adult
romance in this story too.

Ponies and Caravans

Country Life, 1941 (with Eva Ducat)

Bob and Phyllis Russell go to stay with their uncle, a vet who lives near Bunts. They sleep in a caravan
a grateful patient left in their uncle’s garden.  At nearby Bunts, Miss Fairfax and her sister Miss Margaret
learn that all of Sir Thomas Whishaw’s stud of Dartmoor ponies is to be sold - the best Dartmoors in
England, and what they’ve wanted all their lives.  Neither can leave their farms, so Jenefer and Diana
and John take a caravan, and the Russells and their caravan, and go to the sale.

Sea Ponies - The Story of a Children’s Riding Holiday

Country Life, London, 1935 (with Eva Ducat), 135pp.

Many thanks to Henry Sotheran Ltd for the picture.

Aunt Matilda and Roger are staying at Lindon-on-Sea for a month for his health.  Aunt Matilda is a grade A
fusspot, and Roger’s life is constricted and dull in the extreme.  Then Roger meets a group of children and
their ponies, Miss Rhoda Belton and Wilderney Bay. “Fancy turning a perfectly good boy into a Ghastly
Suburban Figure.  Something ought to be done about it,” says Miss Rhoda.  So they do something about it,
and also about the threat by Miss Rhoda’s landlord to throw her out,

The Ponies of Bunts

Country Life, 1933 (with Eva Ducat)

Miss Fairfax already has five children staying at her house Bunts, but she’s invited two more after hearing that
they had to stay in London over the holidays. John and Diana are delighted with Bunts, and are allowed to
stay there through term and into the summer holidays. Then the ponies go missing, but the children still
manage to compete at the Red Sands Gymkhana, and of course it all turns out well in the end.

Marjorie Mary Oliver wrote some of the earliest pony books:  books which focused on children and their adventures rather than telling the story from the pony’s point of view.  The books also broke new ground by being illustrated with photographs.  These have a huge period charm today, showing as they do a world where it was perfectly acceptable to ride in your swimming suit with no hat.

The books themselves are charming.  I am particularly fond of Sea Ponies, which is perhaps the most intense evocation of a lost world.  The Hook Hollow  series have wonderful Stanley Lloyd illustrations, and some exotically named children who have straightforward holiday adventures.  These really are wonderful escapist reading; reflecting a world which possibly never really existed, though we all probably wish it had.

Finding the books:  Sea Ponies is the hardest of the books to find, and is almost impossible to find with its dustjacket.  The other titles are all reasonably easy to find as long as you don’t mind copies without dustjackets:  The Ponies of Bunts and Ponies and Caravans are hardest to find with dustjackets, but not horribly expensive when they do turn up.

Horseman’s Island
Country Life, 1950, illus Stanley Lloyd

Catherine and the Conways are spending their holidays in Ireland, at the Conway’s home, Sheen Hall, from
which they can see Horseman’s Island.  A long ago Blakeney, Sir Francis, once raced his enemy Sir Dennis
McNare in a race across the causeway to the island to decide who owned it, and Catherine finds she has to
ride a similar race against a McNare, as well as solve the mystery of the red-headed boy, and a series of
mysterious thefts.

Land of Ponies

Country Life, 1951, illus Charlotte Hough

Catherine Blakeney and the Conways are in quarantine at the end of the holidays, and so are sent to
Dartmoor.  They buy a Dartmoor pony, befriend the injured Jan, and find a secret passage from a mine
to Telsworthy Manor.

A’Riding We Will Go
Lutterworth, 1951, illus Stanley Lloyd

This is an instructional bookabout two girls, Mary and Dorothy, and their riding lessons.  Mary is the
daughter of horsy parents who expect her to do well and criticise her if she doesn’t.  Dorothy’s parents
make sure she has riding lessons, and this is the story of how the two children got to know each other
and the author, and of the gymkhanas and events they got up to.

Menace on the Moor
Nelson, 1960, illus Drake Brookshaw

Set on Dartmoor, the adventures of Alex and Philip.  This is the blurb:
“Dartmoor is one of the loneliest and wildest parts of Britain. There is at all times a rather sinister, menacing
atmosphere about it, though those who know it well love it almost passionately. Marjorie Mary Oliver is one of those
who know it and love it and she gets the very feeling of the moor into this extraordinarily exciting story.  For it was more than just a feeling of menace that came to Alex and Philip. There was some all too real adventure.”

 

Mystery at Merridown Mill
Nelson, 1962, illus Robert Hodgson

The blurb:
“This is a story with multiple interest, sailing, ponies and smuggling. It is about Alex and Beryl, the heroines of
Menace on the Moor, now staying in Cornwall with their ex-governess, Miss Allen. They meet Keith Fennel who tells
them about the smugglers and from then on the story moves fast until almost in a twinkling we come to the
denouement. Marjorie Mary Oliver has given us an adventure story full of lively and convincing characters.”
 

The Riddle of the Tired Pony

Nelson, 1964, illus Drake Brookshaw

Right

Many thanks to Amanda Dolby for the picture.

Set in Cornwall, Alex and Beryl of Menace on the Moor are on holiday again, where they meet ponies,
sailing and smuggling.

Bibliography - pony books only