Eleanor Helme 1

Eleanor Helme wrote vividly about the many things which interested her. She started her writing career as a golfing correspondent in 1910 for the Yorkshire Post: she was an excellent golfer herself and played for England in 1911, 1912, 1913 and 1920. Reporting on golf gave her time to indulge her other interests. She said:

“...I enlivened a dull day’s reporting by watching, and describing, a butcher bird in a thorn bush. He was much more engaging than watching the golf. One of the weaker counties was holding a meeting; nobody could hit the ball more than 160 yards; if there was a bunker they made straight for it, when they arrived at the hole they carefully avoided it. The course was of the depressing kind which goes up and down (generally up) a field which, not so very long ago, was undoubtedly being plodded over by patient plough-horses. For a time I plodded with equal patience Then I caught sight of my feather ed friend. The lure was too strong.”

Eleanor Helme wrote 4 books on golf (all of them hard to find), and 7 children’s books (one was a compilation) on wildlife. If you can find them, these are beautifully illustrated and very attractive books, published by the Religious Tract Society, who also published her titles on Jesus. Again, these are rare. Much easier to find are her pony and farming stories. The majority of these are based on Exmoor, which she loved, and where she often holidayed. She and her sister, Vera, moved to Luccombe, on Exmoor, permanently after the Second World War, and here she built a house: “Three Gates”

Her books have a very vivid sense of place. White Winter is a wonderful evocation of the sheer hard slog of living through the long and vicious winter of 1947 on Exmoor, and should be more widely read. It is part of the only series she wrote, about an Exmoor pony called Adam, all of which are well worth finding. She wrote a pair of books about an Exmoor pony, Jerry, which have considerable charm. One of my own favourites is Furlong Farm: the pony element is minimal, but it is a wonderful story of farming life.

Eleanor Helme was blessed with her illustrators: Lionel Edwards illustrated the Adam series, and Cecil Aldin Jerry. Her books are very attractive in their own right, and if you like the Country Life style of pony book, you will like these.

Sources:
Eric Rowlands: Eleanor Helme: Columnist, Golfer, Author, Reporter, Naturalist and Lover of Exmoor (Horner Mill Services, 2002)

Thank you to Dawn Harrison for the photo of The Joker and Jerry.