K M Peyton: Home

Jane Badger Books

Flambards
Flambards, 1967
The Edge of the Cloud, 1969
Flambards in Summer, 1969
Flambards Divided, 1981

Who Sir? Me Sir?
Who Sir? Me Sir?, 1983
Downhill All the Way, 1988
The Boy Who Wasn’t There, 1992

The Swallow (High Horse) Series
Swallow, 1995
The Swallow Summer, 1996
Swallow the Star, 1997

Maybridge
Fly-by-Night, 1968
The Team, 1975
Pennington’s Seventeenth Summer, 1970
The Beethoven Medal, 1971
Prove Yourself a Hero, 1977
A Midsummer Night’s Death, 1978
The Last Ditch (Free Rein), 1984
Marion’s Angel, 1979

K M Peyton: Series

K M Peyton has written several series, and has other books which have sequels. The Maybridge series is her longest: not all of them are pony books (Ruth, by the time she meets Patrick Pennington, the pianist hero of Pennington’s Seventeenth Summer, has put ponies firmly behind her) but Peter and Jonathan continue their equine careers, more or less willingly.

Flambards became a television series starring Christine McKenna, and is probably K M Peyton’s best known set. It is an historical series, set at before and during the First World War.

The Swallow series concerns another pony mad girl, Rowan. Like Ruth in Fly-by-Night, she loves a pony who is unsuitable, and again like Ruth she has help from a horsy family. Rowan does not have quite the drive of Ruth.

The Who Sir? Me Sir? Series (of which I have only read the first, alas) starts with a well above the average team event story.

Photos:
Thank you to Dawn Harrison, Sue Howes and Susan Bourgeau for all their help with photos and bibliographical information. There are no photographs of covers by Lionel Edwards for copyright reasons.

Pony books are often dismissed as genre fiction, but K M Peyton is proof that writing within a genre doesn’t stop you from being good.

When I re-read her Fly-by-Night and The Team, I constantly have those magical moments when you read something and think “Yes - that is exactly how that is.” K M Peyton knew Antonia Forest, and their brilliance with characterisation is in some ways similar. Her books are consistently good. When I first read Blind Beauty, the dog went unwalked, and children had to forage for themselves.

She has been writing since she was 9, with her first book being published when she was 15 [Sabre, the Horse from the Sea]. Her training though was in painting, at Kingston School of Art and then Manchester Art School, where she met her husband, Mike, an ex prisoner-of-war. They married when she was 21, and as they both loved sailing, that is what her first books as K M Peyton were about. (I, who am anti-boat and dreadfully sea-sick, find them absolutely enthralling.) Their first pony was Cracker, an unbroken New Forest bought for their daughter Hilary. The traumas of breaking Cracker in and being a Pony Club parent found their way into Fly-by-Night and many of the subsequent books.

After the success of Flambards, Kathleen acquired an agent, Michael Motley. “... I didn’t need an agent, but he... asked me out to lunch, not to talk about writing, but about racing. Of course I fell for this, which resulted in my acquiring both an agent and a race-horse.” Wise Words, the race-horse, never won, but from her involvement with racing sprang some of her best books.

She is still writing, and has published a book a year for the last sixty years.

Finding the books
Most of K M Peyton’s books are easy to find, though her books written under her maiden name, Kathleen Herald, are harder, Crab the Roan being very difficult indeed, possibly the hardest. First editions of the Flambards series tend to be pricey (though they have come down in recent years). The Last Ditch (Free Rein) and Marion’s Angels can be tricky, but are not impossible.

Links
K M Peyton has her own website.
Fidra Books are republishing some of K M Peyton’s works. So far they have done Fly-by-Night, and The Team.
The Dictionary of Literary Biography has an entry on K M Peyton

K M Peyton (1929 - )

Bibliography

Sabre, the Horse from the Sea (as Kathleen Herald)

Adam & Charles Black, 1948, illus Lionel Edwards (left)
USA edition: paperback printing

Acorn books (a division of Macmillan)

1963, cover art by Russell Hoban (thanks to Susan Bourgeau for the info and cover shot)

Liza found the big grey stallion Sabre on the beach, and after she falls for him, lies to the police
when they come to take him back. She races the horse, but he is recognised by his owner and
taken back. Liza does still though have the hope of Cinder’s foal, after the mare was put to Sabre.
She dreams of a colt to follow Sabre, but the foal that appears is a filly, Scimitar.

The Mandrake, A Pony (as Kathleen Herald)

Adam & Charles Black, 1949, illus Lionel Edwards

Lesley has bought The Mandrake. He is a beautiful pony: bay with a clever head and wide aristocratic
nostrils. Lesley thinks he will be the most wonderful pony in the South, but she was wrong. Mr Congress
said “The Mandrake’s got a brain like a bird. He’s mad.” Lesley though says The Mandrake was born
to be clever, and in the end, she’s proved right, and Lesley learns it doesn’t matter what other people
think about your pony, and that success is not the most important thing.

Crab the Roan (as Kathleen Herald)

Adam & Charles Black, 1953, illus Peter Biegel

Thanks to Amanda Dolby for the picture

Anna lives on “The Duke’s” estate with her father, the estate manager. China is the Duke’s driving pony, and
Anna loves him and is devastated when he is sold, to be replaced by the ugly roan, Crab. Crab, however,
turns out to be a horse in a million.

Flambards

Oxford University Press, 1968,

illus Victor Ambrus
Puffin pb, 1976, 1978, 1995
Oxford University Press,

1981, 1987, 2004, 2007

Bottom left:
US printing (not first edn, which has
Ambrus cover art)
Philomel, 1982, cover Derek James

The 12 year old Christina, an
orphan, is sent off to Flambards.
There live her uncle, and her two cousins, Mark and Will. Mark is deeply
unsympathetic, but Christina does make friends with Will, and also discovers a
passion for horses. Then Christina is stunned by Mark’s proposal, but her feelings
for Will win out, despite a dramatic last minute chase by Mark on his grey Woodpigeon.

The Edge of the Cloud

Oxford University Press, 1969, illus Victor Ambrus, right
Puffin pb, 1977, 1978, far right

OUP, 1987, 1998

Christina knows that Will loves her, but that he has a passion for flying and aeroplanes.
In the end, they marry, but the First World War is just about to start.

Fly-by-Night

Oxford University Press, 1968, illus by the author (right)

OUP, 1971,

OUP, pb, 1979

Sparrow, pb, 1981 (middle right)

In Thrre in one Pony stories, 1999, Red Fox
Fidra Books, pb, 2007 (far right)

USA: World Publishing 1969 (middle).

Thanks to Susan Bourgeau for the photo

Ruth is desperate to have a pony. She manages to buy the unbroken New Forest, Fly-by-Night, but has a huge struggle to keep him on her
very limited income, and if possible even more of a struggle to learn to ride him.

K M Peyton: Bibliography 1

Pennington’s Seventeenth Summer

Oxford University Press, 1970, illus by the author (Many thanks to Mokey for the picture.)
OUP 1973, New Oxford Library, 1979

Magnet, pb, 1982

Scholastic, pb, 1994
US: Pennington’s Last Term

Patrick Pennington is one of the bad boys at school, though he is redeemed by his extraordinary ability at the piano.
He is entered in a local music competition, but the chances of him competing in it are slim, after his brushes with the
police, local vandals and the staff who war with him at school.

Pennington’s Heir
Oxford University Press, 1973 (Many thanks to Mokey for the picture.)

OUP, 1975, pb

Patrick comes out of prison, and has a reunion with Ruth, but Ruth gets pregnant. Patrick leaves his
teacher, and he and Ruth try and survive on their own, battling with their hand to mouth existence, and
the machinations of Clarissa, Patrick’s former girlfriend.

The Beethoven Medal : 1971

Oxford University Press, 1971

OUP, 1974, 1979

Magnet pb, 1982
US: If Ever I Marry

Ruth, heroine of Fly, is besotted by the baker’s boy - Patrick Pennington, working during the holidays from his music
course. Her mother violently disapproves, but Ruth carries on seeing Patrick. He has yet more brushes with the police,
and after he hits a policeman, it is certain that he will go to prison, ruining his chances to play with a major orchestra.

A Pattern of Roses

Oxford University Press, 1972

OUP, 1975

Sparrow pb, 1982

Oxford, 1984, OUP, 2000

Pb Scholastic USA: as So Once Was I

Translated into Welsh (Patrwm Rhosod): right

Many thanks to Jacquie Thomas,
Catherine Lloydall, Julie Main & Dawn Harrison
for pictures.

A very atmospheric story with minimal pony content. Tim has moved to the country with his parents, but is ill and unhappy. Then a workman finds a tin containing drawings in Tim’s room, and Tim and the vicar’s daughter, Rebecca, set out to find out why the artist who did the drawings, and who has the same initials as Tim, died so young decades ago.

Flambards in Summer

Oxford University Press, 1969, illus Victor Ambrus

Puffin pb, 1977, 1978,

Heinemann, New Windmill,1982 (left)

OUP 1985, 1999

Many thanks to Mokey for the picture of the 1st edn.

Christina, now a widow, returns to Flambards, and sets about
trying to restore the battered estate and make it pay as a farm.

Dick, once a groom at Flambards, returns, and that is nearly enough to make Christina happy again.

The Team

Oxford University Press, 1975, illus K M Peyton

Sparrow pb, 1982

Red Fox, pb, 1990

Fidra Books, pb, 2008

US: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976

Ruth has outgrown Fly, and at a local auction she buys Peter’s outgrown and utterly beloved Toad.
Peter wants him back, but Ruth decides to keep him and a wedge is driven between them. Ruth has
a huge struggle to learn to ride Toad, and then finds Fly, whom she sold, is not being kept well.

The Right-Hand Man

Oxford University Press, 1977, illus Victor Ambrus

Magnet pb, 1983

Ned Rowlands is the fastest stagecoach driver on the Harwich Road. Lord Ironminster is determined to win a
wager aginst his cousins, and recruits Ned to help. Lord Ironminster is a sick man, and has to marry and
produce an heir to avoid his estate passing to his cousins. Ned finds defeating the cousins in their desire
to get the estate is even more of a struggle than driving the four-in-hand.

A Midsummer Night’s Death

Oxford University Press, 1978

Puffin pb, 1981

OUP, 1983, 1999

Jonathan doesn’t like the English master at his school, but he can’t believe that
Robin drowned himself. Soon Jonathan begins to have suspicions that Robin did
not kill himself, and that someone for whom he has huge respect was responsible.

Marion’s Angels

Oxford University Press, 1979, illus Robert Mickelwright

Methuen as Falling Angels, 1983

Many thanks to Catherine Lloydall for the picture.

The church Marion loves is famous, and decorated with six pairs of beautifully carved angels. The church is
threatened with demolition, but this threat brings to the village two visitors who understand her feelings for the
church.

Flambards Divided

Oxford University Press, 1981, right
Puffin pb, 1982, middle
OUP pb, 1999, far right

Last in the Flambards series, this was written specially for a film. Christina finds herself
divided between two men: Dick, whom she has married, but whom the village disapproves
of, and Mark, badly injured in the war, and furiously resentful of Dick.

Dear Fred

Bodley Head, 1981

Pavanne, 1982

This is based on the tragic true story of the famous jockey, Fred Archer and is overlain with the
story of Laura, who idolises Fred, and has a complete crush on him, to the embarrassment of
her parents. The only people who seem to understand Laura’s feelings are her Uncle Harry, and
his protege Tiger, a boy with a fiery nature who kisses Laura in secret behind the stable door.

Prove Yourself a Hero

Oxford University Press, 1977 (right)

Penguin, pb, 1979, 1982 (1979: middle and far right)

OUP, 1999

Jonathan Meredith is kidnapped, and really it’s very difficult to give a summary of this
book without revealing the whole plot, but it’s an excellent look at how a devastating
event affects families, and in particular how it affects the victim.