Pamela Macgregor Morris

Jane Badger Books

High Honours
Witherby, London, 1948, illus Lionel Edwards 154 pp.

This is the story of an international show jumper, Bottom Draw. Told from her point of view, it tells her story from her
birth in Ireland. She is bought by the British Army, and eventually ends up in Weedon, where she catches the eye
of a Major Davidson. He realises the horse has the potential to succeed as a show jumper, and a show jumper is
what she becomes, and part of the British Team. With the outbreak of war, Major Davidson goes off to war, and Bottom
Draw is sold. Initially she is a happy hacker, but then the family start to jump her. She is reunited with Major Davidson,
whose wife rides the mare to glory again.

Pamela Macgregor-Morris was born in London in 1925. When she was 5, her family bought a weekend house near Goodwood. Pamela acquired a pony and was ‘hooked on the horse’ for life. In 1946, the family moved to Dartmoor, where Not Such a Bad Summer is set. There Pamela wrote her first books, as well as starting to write for Horse and Hound. She carried on her journalistic career by becoming assistant to The Times’ equestrian and polo correspondent John Board, whom she succeeded in 1956. She bred hunters before running a stud of riding ponies with her husband. Pamela Macgregor-Morris had wide-ranging interests: her books include titles on circuses, the Hunters’ Improvement Society and many general equine titles, as well as her pony books.

Pamela Macgregor-Morris wrote 8 pony books. Lionel Edwards illustrated most of them: Sheila Rose did Not Such a Bad Summer, and Clear Round is not illustrated. Her pony book career spanned 20 years, and covered most of the genre: the horse telling the tale of its life; earning a living through horses and the classic holiday story.

Pamela Macgregor-Morris wrote extensively on many equine subjects, but this section will look only at her pony books.

Finding the books: all her books, apart from Clear Round, which was reprinted as a Collins Pony Library edition, have become difficult to find.

Links and sources:
Biographical information in History of the Hunters’ Improvement Society

Pictures: for copyright reasons, I can’t put the illustrations by Lionel Edwards up on this site.

Bibliography - pony books only

Lucky Purchase
Gryphon, 1949, illus Lionel Edwards
This snippet is taken from the opening of Lucky Purchase: “...if only she needn’t ever see another pony again, much less have to ride one. The trouble with Jane was that, ever since she could walk, she had had horses rammed down her throat until she was heartily sick and tired of them. Her father was honorary secretary of the West Sussex, her mother was known throughout the county as a bold and straight rider to hounds, and life was just one round of horses – hunting in the winter, showing in the summer, with point-to-point racing and breeding thrown in for good measure. How she hated it all!”

Lucky Purchase is that very rare thing: a pony book about a girl who does not like horses at all. Pamela Macgregor-Morris must have seen many of these poor children, dragged along in the wake of family enthusiasm, without any attention paid to what they actually wanted at all. In the end, Jane does develop a love for horses, but she does it absolutely on her own terms.

Topper

Noel Carrington 1947, illus Lionel Edwards

- the first edition states it was published in 1927, but this is a mistake as PMM was only 2 at the time! The true publication date is 1947. Thanks to Caro Newland for pointing me in the right direction here.

Topper is the life story of a Welsh pony, from his promising beginnings through the usual descent and back to caring and comfort.

Exmoor Ben
Gryphon 1950, London, illus Lionel Edwards, 144 pp.

Alas I haven’t managed to read this one. The following snippet is taken from the beginning of Exmoor Ben, and gives you an idea of what it is about. “This is the story of Benjamin, Ben for short – an Exmoor pony, bay, standing 13.2 hands high, and old enough to have been at the Manor longer than anyone else except Wood Bee, Colonel Kennedy’s old hunter, who is awfully old, even older than I...”

Blue Rosette
Witherby, 1950, illustrated by Michael Lyne
Many thanks to Hannah for the information on this book. The blurb says: “This novel presents the story of Terence Malone, a young man with a love of horses in his blood. At Dublin horse show he is offered a job as a nagsman and he goes off to England and becomes involved in the exciting business of dealing in and showing hunters.

It is the story of a man starting at the bottom rung in his profession, who is determined by any means to make a success of his life; a man who is loved by many women, accepts the love of only one yet finds his loyalties divided.” - which does suggest this book is aimed at an older readership than her other books!

Not Such a Bad Summer
Latimer House, 1950. Sheila Rose cover
The pony element is pretty minimal in this book: it’s more of a holiday adventure, in which a villain (who repents, perhaps not totally convincingly) escapes from Dartmoor and has to be rescued from worse criminals. The book is set on Dartmoor, where Roger, Helen and Tom are holidaying with their nervous aunt, for whom I do feel a sneaking sympathy. The children fear nothing and hurl themselves about Dartmoor looking for the escaped prisoner (with some feeling for the nervous aunt, or at least for not getting caught: much of the action takes place at night).

The Amateur Horsedealers
1951, Gryphon Books, illus Lionel Edwards
I do like this book. The family in question hit slightly hard times (though in the best traditions of penniless families in books of this period, they still manage to maintain a large house with staff, and a few horses). But I digress. In order to keep things going as they are, their father, whose regiment is downsizing, decides to go into horsedealing. The children are delighted, but their grandmother appalled, at least until the parents go horsehunting, when her true colours are revealed and she goes with the children to an auction to make sure they do not buy a dud. The grandmother is a wonderful creation.

Clear Round
Collins, London, 1962, and 1963,
Reprinted in Collins Pony Library, 1973, no 2, 192 pp.
This was always my favourite of my Collins Pony Library titles. Fiona is a horse-mad London girl from a resolutely un-horsey family, sent to do her BHSI at the sort of finishing school purpose-designed for parents to approve of. French, flowers and cookery are also taught. Here she meets Gavin, son of the owners, and more importantly, their difficult youngster, Lucifer. Relationships blossom with both horse and man, and all ends in a thoroughly satisfying manner.

Short Stories

Midnight Adventure, Pony Club Annual no 3, 1952, illus Harold Beards
Donald is going to Cornwall to spend the school holidays with his uncle - he learns
to ride, and rescues hounds.

Harkaway's New Home, Pony Club Annual no 6, 1955, illus Harold Beards
Simon has trouble settling his pony into his new home.