Judith M Berrisford

Jane Badger Books

Judith M Berrisford

Series

Jackie
Jackie Won a Pony, 1958
Ten Ponies and Jackie, 1959
Jackie’s Pony Patrol, 1961
Jackie and the Pony Trekkers, 1963
Jackie’s Pony Camp Summer, 1968
Jackie and the Pony Boys, 1970
Jackie’s Show Jumping Surprise, 1973
Jackie and the Misfit Pony, 1976
Jackie on Pony Island, 1977
Jackie and the Pony Thieves, 1978
Jackie and the Phantom Ponies, 1979
Jackie and the Moonlight Pony, 1980
Jackie and the Pony Rivals, 1981
Jackie and the Missing Showjumper, 1982
Change Ponies, Jackie! 1983
Jackie’s Steeplechase Adventure, 1984

Family
A Pony in the Family, 1962
A Colt in the Family, 1963
A Showjumper in the Family, 1964

Pippa
Pony Trekkers Go Home, 1982
Sabotage at Stableways, 1982
Pippa’s Mystery Horse, 1983
Too Many Ponies for Pippa, 1984
Pippa and the Midnight Ponies, 1985

Sue and Ballita
Sue’s Circus Horse, 1951
Ponies All Summer, 1956
Sue’s TV Pony, 1964

Judith M Berrisford also wrote many books about dogs and cats, as well as gardening. The picture is of one of her stories about a Sheltie, which I’ve included as it is such a charming cover. Many thanks to Birte for sending it.

Judith M Berrisford didn’t write as many books as say Christine Pullein-Thompson, but as far as I know she wrote the longest British pony series. The American Black Stallion series, and of course the endless Saddle Club, outrank it, but Jackie lasted for 16 titles, comfortably beating both Jill (9) and Georgia (10).

Jackie managed to fulfil many girls’ dreams by actually winning her pony. Many years ago Pony magazine used to run a Win a Pony competition. As you had to get your parents’ permission to enter the competition, I never managed to get an entry in, despite what I thought were some pretty good ideas for the tie breaker caption competition, but Jackie’s parents were more accommodating: she entered a magazine’s competition and won a pony. Although she is taken to a dealer’s yard and shown some wonderful ponies, she meets Misty outside the stables pulling a cart. Misty, contrary to the usual lot of ponies pulling carts in pony books, is not downtrodden. Jackie falls in love with her and Misty is hers.

Jackie and Misty, together with Jackie’s cousin Babs, go on to have a whole series of adventures, though many of them seem biased towards trekking. Jackie and Babs are great rushers in, and seem to have a fatal ability to irritate the adults with whom they come into contact - and, I admit, me. Even as a child I wanted to bellow “THINK!” at them, but the girls despite their ability to be tooth-grindingly infuriating, both have essentially kind and generous natures, and it is this I think which gives the books their charm.

The Jackie books are not overtly didactic: schooling your pony and improving yourself generally are not things the girls go in for. Judith Berrisford did make one excursion into the didactic with her Family series: marketed by Hodder at the time as educational it certainly is, but one sad side-effect of the need to educate is to make the character of the elder sister, Jane, almost unbearable. She seems to patronise her hapless younger sister Penny at every turn. In real life I have a strong suspicion Penny would not have borne it and upended the tack cleaning bucket on her sister’s head. “That would be makeshift,” Jane says, “We must remember to do this before and after every ride... We must be sure to clean our tack after every ride...” And of course they must. She’s quite right; but it’s the way in which it’s announced from on high.

Jane isn’t alone in this: every character who has something to impart does it in the same way. A better writer would have handled it with a lighter touch; Ruby Ferguson in Jill’s Gymkhana puts over basic pony care through Jill’s general hopelessness and self-deprecation, and the knowledge slips effortlessly in.

As a writer, Judith M Berrisford has some irritating stylistic quirks: the word “pony” is used as an adjective with abandon. Her characters do things that now make me goggle, though they passed me by at the time. In The Ponies Next Door, new ponies are bought and go out on rides almost instantly, without any settling in. The most staggering example in this book (of which I am actually fond: it has a lot of charm) happens when the stables are persuaded to stable a baby elephant, and it only seems to occur to the owners and their child helpers after the event that putting the elephant in the same hallway (the overflow of ponies are stabled in the house) as the ponies is not a good idea.

Most of Judith Berrisford’s characters are enthusiastic and uncomplicated. They’re not given to introspection, but have uncomplicated adventures in which everything always works out. As comfort reading they succeed admirably, which is probably why the author had such a long career, with some of the Jackie books being reprinted even in the 1990s, when the classic pony book was generally on the way out.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to Susan Bourgeau, Dawn Harrison, Hannah Fleetwood, Konstanze Allsopp, Jacquie Aucott and Roger Thomas, who between them supplied most of the photographs for this section.

The Ponies Next Door

University of London Press, London, 1954, illus Geoffrey Whittam, 191 pp.

Dodd, Mead & Co, New York, 1954, illus Geoffrey Whittam, centre

Hampton Library, 1965 hb, right

White Lion, hb, 1975

The Grey children are thrilled when the Grange Riding Stables opens
next door to their house. There are plenty of adventures, including a
sea rescue and an Elizabethan pageant. And an elephant stabled in
the hall.

Red Rocket, Mystery Horse,

University of London Press, 1952, illus Leslie Atkinson, 152 pp.

A half tamed red stallion appears with the moorland ponies on Exmoor.
Dick and Heather and their friends the Manners children discover the
paw-marks of a monkey. They set out to track Red Rocket, as they have
named him. Eventually they find Red Rocket's elusive owner.

Sue’s Circus Horse

University of London Press, 1951,

illus Leslie Atkinson

Hodder & Stoughton, 1961
White Lion, 1975 (pale blue one)

Dragon pb

Sue buys the cream Arabian
mare Ballita from a circus.

Left
Sue’s Circus Horse
1st US edition 1952
Publisher Dodd, Mead and Co.
illustrated by Leslie Atkinson

Timber, the Story of a Horse

University of London Press, 1950, illus Caney

White Lion, hb, 1974

John Lambert was given the chestnut colt he called Timber, though he couldn’t be said
to be a rider. John, by “patience, trail and error” improved his riding, and that, together
with Timber’s jumping ability, proved successful, in spite of Anthony Montagu and his
thoroughbred, Centaur.

Ponies All Summer

University of London Press, 1956, illus Geoffrey Whittam

Dragon pb. 1980s?

To raise money to keep their three ponies while their parents are economising, the Trent
children decide to run a Pet Service.

Bibliography - pony books only 1

Pony Forest Adventure

University of London, 1957, illus Geoffrey Whittam

Dragon pb, prob 1970s

Rustlers are robbing the forest of its ponies, and Pat, Vicky, David, Sally and her brother Nigel
help to rescue them.

Jackie Won A Pony

Hodder & Stoughton, 1958, illus Geoffrey Whittam

Hodder (laminated boards), 1972, illus Whittam

Armada, pb, 1970s

Knight, 1992 pb

Character list
Jackie wins a pony after she wins a competition in
Horseshoes magazine. She chooses Misty, a pony
she sees pulling a cart, and then after she finds
she has nowhere to keep her, she rides to her Aunt Di’s
in the pony forest, only to find herself joined by Babs
and a horse she has rescued and hopes Aunt Di will
take on.

Ten Ponies and Jackie

Brockhampton Press, 1959, illus Geoffrey Rose

Armada, pb, 1972, later Armada printing

Jackie and Babs help Terry, who has taken over a riding stable with nine
ponies. The girls in their enthusiasm just about manage to wreck Terry’s
plans.

Character list

A Pony in the Family,

Brockhampton, 1959, illus Anne Gordon

Reprint 1961
Knight pb

Two girls, Jane and her younger sister Penny, get a pony
and learn to look after her and ride. This book was written
to teach those with no knowledge, and the way in which this
is done will either infuriate or charm.

Trouble at Ponyways

University of London Press, 1960, illus Elisabeth Grant

White Lion, hb, 1974

Dragon pb

Mike Dashmore, show jumper, owns Ponyways. Mike though has just
married, and although his wife is also a famous show jumper, she
manages to antagonise just about all of the guests there.

Jackie’s Pony Patrol

Brockhampton, 1961, illus Geoffrey Whittam

Armada pb, prob 1970s
Armada pb, prob 1980s

Jackie and Babs form a pony patrol to look for Lenny, whom they
want to reform after he has been caught stealing. Lenny’s father is
furious at their interference and turns their ponies loose in the forest.

Character list

Nobody’s Pony

University of London Press, 1962, illus John Ward RA, pb

Character list

A Colt in the Family

Brockhampton, 1962, illus Anne Gordon
White Lion HB, 1975
Knight, pb,1975 (cover David Cox Studios), 1977

Penny now owns Rusty, but at first breaking him in proves
beyond her and even her sister Jane.

Five Foals and Philippa

Burke, 1963, illus Barbara Crocker

Character list

Philippa and Joy are staying with their Aunt Pat at Old Farm, but they soon have to help cousin Mike run thee
Pony Farm alone. There is competition for the Farm in the shape of Zena Gregson who has turned her riding
school into a Welsh Pony Stud, and Philippa and friends are determined Old Farm will not close down. The
first foal of the five born is called Golden Boy, a name JMB re-used in one of the Jackie series.

Jackie and the Pony Trekkers

Hodder & Stoughton, 1963,

illus Geoffrey Whittam

Reprinted 1973

Armada, pb, 1971, 1974,

1978, 1992
Character list
Jackie and Babs are thrilled by the
prospect of helping at a pony
trekking centre in the Welsh
mountains. Misty is denounced
as a kicker, and Jackie and Babs take the blame for the many things that go wrong. In the end, they manage to redeem themselves.

Finding the books: as there are so many, I’ve categorised them! Titles mentioned are hardbacks: all the paperback titles are pretty easy to find.

Very difficult: Five Foals and Philippa, Jackie’s Steeplechase Adventure, Red Rocket - Mystery Horse

Difficult: Timber, Change Ponies Jackie (HB), Sue’s TV Pony,

Average: Sue’s Circus Horse (hb), The Ponies Next Door, Ponies All Summer, Pony Forest Adventure, Trouble at Ponyways, most of the Jackie hardbacks, the Family series, Nobody’s Pony

Very common: all the paperbacks