Diana Pullein Thompson home

Jane Badger Books

I Wanted a Pony
Collins 1946, illustrated by Anne Bullen
(PB 1956 as a Collins Junior Fontana)

in 1958 as a hardback

in the Collins Pony Library in 1973,

and in Armada pb 1966, 1970s and 1980)
Character list

This is Diana’s first solo book and is the
story of Augusta, who has no pony. She
goes to stay with her pot-hunting,
insensitive cousins (they really are
deliciously foul) who patronise Augusta and are no help to her pony owning ambitions at all. At last, after a brave act,
Augusta can buy her own pony, and she buys the grey Daybreak at a sale. At first all seems fine, but the moment
she bridles on him, he turns into a compulsive head shaker. Augusta does at last solve the problem and the show
scene at the end where she confounds her cousins’ expectations of her is wonderful.

Diana Pullein-Thompson is one of the Pullein-Thompson sisters: twin to Christine, and younger sister to Josephine. Like her sisters, she is best known for her pony books.

Her first solo pony book was I Wanted a Pony. This story about an awkward but independent girl, Augusta, her dreadful cousins, and her struggle to buy a pony, is a fine depiction of a girl succeeding despite the odds. Although this is a book often mentioned when people talk about their favourite DPT story, it is not one of Diana’s favourites: she regards it as derivative. Her own favourites are Cassidy in Danger and The Hermit’s Horse. Both these are the stories of outsiders: The Hermit’s Horse, in particular, is not the easiest of reads. It was not one of her more popular books, dealing as it did with mental breakdown, but it is, I think, one of her best.

I Wanted a Pony is certainly one of my favourites: I love the horrible cousins, and the way Augusta stands up to their bullying ways. I like her feistiness and independence, and the way she solves the problems which beset her. I do find her vagueness irritating, but this is a tad unfair bearing in mind I often irritate my nearest and dearest by being away with the fairies!

Diana tended not to follow the pony book stereotype (which is perhaps another reason why she dislikes I Wanted a Pony so much: it is the classic girl-gets-pony and then succeeds-at-gymkhana format). In many pony books, to have money is to mark yourself out as someone who will probably be selfish at best, and at worst cruel and uncaring. In Three Ponies and Shannan, it is the wealthy Christina who is the heroine: she realises what advantages she has, and it is Charlie Dewhurst, the poor daughter of the vicar, who is the villain of the piece. She is nasty, spiteful and small minded; torments Christina and does her best to make her life unpleasant. Christina never does overcome Charlie’s dislike of her, but she reaches an understanding with the other members of the Pony Club, and becomes great friends with Augusta of I Wanted a Pony. The series, initially three books, was followed by a fourth, Only a Pony. It reads rather awkwardly with the others, as it was written in the 1980s, and is drastically different in linguistic style, as well as in background details to the other three.

Like her twin, Christine, Diana did change the backgrounds of her characters to reflect changing social times. Her last heroine in The Long Ride Home, comes from a difficult background, and the heroine of Cassidy in Danger comes from a single parent family, and cannot read. Humans are not the only ones to suffer: the grey pony Seaspray dies of tetanus, and Annette’s pony in Riding with the Lyntons is killed by a car. Diana’s attitude is that these things happen, and books should reflect real life. This has not always gone down well with her fans: one who read The Hermit’s Horse wrote to her wondering why she had written a book which had upset the reader so much. There are enough pony books which skim the surface of life and provide comforting puddings of reads: better to have something like Diana’s, I think, with which to leaven what can be a genre which avoids the nastier side of life.

Sources: Diana Pullein-Thompson

Series
Augusta and Christina:
I Wanted a Pony
A Pony to School
Three Ponies and Shannan
Only a Pony

Pony Seekers
The Pony Seekers
A Foal for Candy
A Pony Found

Sandy & Fergie
Ponies in Peril
Ponies in the Valley
Ponies on the Trail

Diana Pullein-Thompson

It Began with Picotee (with J and C Pullein-Thompson)
A & C Black, 1946, illustrated by Rosemary Robertson

Character list

This is the first story the Pullein-Thompsons wrote. Olivia, Bridget and Griselda Douglas own Picotee, and
they are then lent Tony. Then they buy a chestnut foal they call Pengo, and then they agree to school
Colonel Selcombe’s half Shetland, and then they borrow Mrs Baxter’s two ponies.... And they end up with
plenty of ponies.

Diana Pullein-Thompson: Bibliography 1

Three Ponies and Shannan
Collins 1947, illustrated by Anne Bullen
(Reprinted in hb 1956,

Collins Pony Library 1974,

White Lion 1977,

Armada pb 1968 and 1970s)
Character list

Christina has moved to the country
with her parents, her three ponies, and
numerous staff. The house they have
moved to was Charlie’s house, and she and her friends are determined to loathe Christina. As Christina doesn’t know much about looking after her ponies, and her newly acquired wolfhound isn’t well trained, she has an uphill battle before she can start to make friends.

The Pennyfields
Collins 1949
(Reprinted by Armada pb 1964, cover Peter Archer - two cover variants)
Character list

More a family than a pony story: the Pennyfields are poor, and want a pony,
a canoe and a shotgun. They can’t afford any of them, so they set to work,
doing all sorts of things so that they can afford their heart’s desires.

A Pony to School
(Collins 1950,

Armada pb 1963, early 1970s, 1978)
Character list

Augusta and Christina are asked to take on Clown and
re-school him, but they very soon find out Clown has a bad
habit. He rears. They are determined to break him of the
habit and turn him round.

The Boy and the Donkey
Collins 1958, illustrated by Shirley Hughes

USA edition - middle picture, Criterion, 1958

(Reprinted as The Donkey Race, Armada pb 1970)
Character list

When Old Jock, the rag and bone man, becomes ill, Duggie finds himself
looking after Old Jock’s donkey, Tammy, and taking over his round. When he

hears about a Donkey Derby, he is determined to enter with Tammy and win.

Janet Must Ride
Collins 1953, illustrated Mary Gernat
Reprinted as a pb Transworld 1958

another reprint 1957, Armada pb 1960s and 1974)

Character list

Janet is working as a girl groom, but she longs to be more
than just someone who works with the horses. At last,
when she meets the mare Corrymeela, she gets her
chance.

A Pony for Sale
Collins 1951, illustrated Sheila Rose
(Reprinted hb 1962 Collins, Collins Pony

Library 1973, in pb various times by Armada)

Character list

This is a story told in succession by all the people who
own Martini, from the boy who broke and schooled her
to her final owner.

Horses at Home & Friends Must Part
Collins 1954, illustrated Sheila Rose
(Reprinted Collins hb 1957, Armada pb 1969)
Character list
This is actually two long short stories. Horses at Home
is about Nicholas and Clare, who look after their aunt’s
showjumper. Friends Must Part is a about two friends
whose ponies are great friends, but the girls fight and
fall out.

Riding with the Lyntons
Collins 1956, illustrated by Sheila Rose
Reprinted Armada pb 1963 and 1982
Character list
Lesley moves to the country with her parents, and is
friendless until she meets the Lynton family. They get
on well until there is a terrible disaster with one of the
Lynton’s ponies. They blame Lesley, and for a while
everything looks very bleak indeed.

The Hermit’s Horse
Armada 1974 pb
(Reprinted hb Severn House 1985)
Character list

Matthew and his sister Sophie are not supposed to go near the hermit’s house, but after a large bay
horse arrives, they do. They find he is not what they thought, and slowly he and the hermit seem
as if they are mending, but this is not a book with an easy ending.

Black Princess
Brockhampton pb 1975

Reprinted in pb 1978, 1981, and as part of collection Black Beauty’s Clan, 1975

Character list

Princess is a direct descendant of Black Beauty. Princess is owned by Lady Angela, but when World War I
errupts, she leaves to nurse the wounded at the Front, and Princess is sold. She then goes to the Front herself
with her new master.

Ponies in the Valley
Armada 1976 pb
(Severn House hb 1979, Armada pb 1980)

Character list

Sandy and Fergus move to the country with their parents, and Sandy hopes that she can
at last realise her dream and have a pony. However, Mimosa, the mare she buys at the
sales, proves not to be a dream horse: but she’s certainly unexpected!

Black Romany
As far as I know, this wasn’t published separately, but appeared in:
Black Beauty’s Family, Hodder & Stoughton, 1978 and in
Black Beauty’s Family, Chancellor 1996
Reprinted in More From Black Beauty’s Family, Red Fox 2001

Character list

Black Romany is an ancestor of Black Beauty: an early Victorian horse. Romany has an
epic journey across country, and experiences a visit from Prince Albert and Queen Victoria
before settling down as a much loved hunter.

Ponies on the Trail
Armada 1979
(Severn House hb 1980)
(Left - pb, right, hb)

Character list

Sandy and Fergus have been asked to help with a week long pony trek. When the
trekkers arrive, however, they turn out to be a very mixed bunch indeed.