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Post by zoe on Jan 18, 2009 17:25:05 GMT 1
Konstanze do you really think they were jumping that height then? I always presumed the heights were exagerrated for the stories.
Edited to say Thatcher.....Grrrrrrrrr
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Post by zoe on Jan 19, 2009 21:34:06 GMT 1
don't tell me you have a secret affection for Great Britain's worst ever Prime Minister. Oh yes I loved the way she ripped the guts out of this country!! I have to question your "man" theory though, Konstanze. Are you sure "it" was even human?
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Post by Claire on Jan 19, 2009 22:16:24 GMT 1
I think there may be one or two still struggling on as you say konstanze. If anyone has read and hasn't voted yet please could you do so? Feeling smug as managed not to get drawn into political debate
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Post by kunuma on Jan 19, 2009 22:42:21 GMT 1
;D LOL - What's the online version of 'biting your tongue'? 'Biting your mouse' sounds rather cat like!! Must admit I've got quite good at not leaping into print over things that get me riled up - erm - well except if anyone mentions animal wefare issues that is!
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Post by fizz on Jan 20, 2009 18:41:28 GMT 1
Will just have to add a comment about MT. I met her 10 years or so ago at a memorial service for a political (distant) relative. My main observations were that she was either drunk or had some illness that made her appear so and how very small she was. She was smaller than me in high heels, I had flat shoes on and I am about 5ft 2ins. She always seemed enormous on TV, it must have been those padded shoulders!
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Post by Buster on Jan 20, 2009 20:33:24 GMT 1
I have never seen this woman... she sounds quite a character. Oh yes I was just wondering if it would be alright for me to start a thread with all the main charecters from the books with their horses, because im on One Day Event right now and I cant work out if these people are new charecters or if they just have new horses :? For example, where the heck did Victor come from?! And the girls with Comache (?)... I get confused easily hehe x
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Post by Claire on Jan 20, 2009 23:23:26 GMT 1
I have never seen this woman... she sounds quite a character. You had a lucky escape ;D Yes, start another thread by all means but put it in the main pony book section rather than here. Victor is one of the Majors grooms. The girls I assume you mean Marion and Phillippa Hunter with Crusoe? They are new characters. Christopher has taken them under his wing and is trying to help them (without much success) jump Crusoe. The other new character is Gay who is a bit younger than the others. She turns up to help at Folly Court while the Major is in hospital. She isn't in this book much but she is quite a major character in Pony Club Camp and has some great very funny lines. (She's one of my fav characters in it) Hope this puts you up to speed!
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Post by Buster on Jan 24, 2009 20:43:26 GMT 1
That would be good to contact her I agree about the dressage movements. I have been schooling my pony for years but leg yields and turn on the fore/back hand are my limit, and they arnt included in little dressage tests. Isn't Josephine the eldest of the sisters? And the other two are twins, but Christina is dead? Not sure about Diana... strange that Jo outlived Christina... and sad too
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Post by Claire on Jan 24, 2009 20:53:01 GMT 1
Has anyone got a copy of Fair Girls and Grey Horses (the PTs biog) to hand? I am sure I can remember photos of them leaping over huge jumps but havent got my copy to check (just packed it away!) Yes their dressage ability gave me a bit of an inferiority complex. Like you mysteryarab the turn on the forehand was as complicated as I ever got. But then again I was more like the Radcliffes than the major! Re. contacting Josephine. I think Jane Badger may have contact details as didnt she do an interview with her a while back? But the sisters did run a riding school and as the books were based on their experiences with their pupils it is possible they taught them at a fairly high level?
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Post by kunuma on Jan 24, 2009 22:20:24 GMT 1
I wonder if we are looking back with the attitude of grown ups (??) who know if they break something there won't be anyone to run around after them! I jumped my ponies a LOT higher as a kid than I would now! I remember friends holding their own gymkhana a time or two, (tricky, as we all had to ride there - coming from different directions, frequently on borrowed ponies), and can remember having 3' 6" jumps! BTW I saw something called Jumpcross on TV recently - it looked great fun - sort of a cross between cross country and show jumping - anyone know anything about it! Thought of it now because there were a few 'normal' looking ponies and horses doing it.
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Post by kunuma on Jan 24, 2009 22:21:18 GMT 1
;D Forgot why I was replying - I've got FGandGH somewhere!
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Post by Claire on Jan 24, 2009 23:03:03 GMT 1
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Post by kunuma on Jan 25, 2009 0:11:34 GMT 1
Found it and read as much as poss in between having to go out in a tornado again and move horses! There is a lot of description of jumping, and how often they beat adults and won open jumping classes - but i haven't found mention of heights. However if they were competing in adult classes they were jumping high! Re the dressage, they were taught by Henry Wynmalen after all!!
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Post by Claire on Jan 25, 2009 0:19:25 GMT 1
What about the photos? It was pics of them jumping that I can remember. I think they were just on a different level to us mere mortals
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Post by kunuma on Jan 25, 2009 1:20:10 GMT 1
Went back and had a look at the photos - there is one of each of them jumping - but they are older I think, certainly late teens or 20's - hard to tell. Will scan the photos tomorrow if I can find the lead!
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Post by Claire on Jan 25, 2009 13:54:51 GMT 1
Oh well I wouldnt go to the bother of scanning it. I thought it was them jumping their ponies when they were younger. But thanks very much for checking up for me. I wouldnt care I had just packed that book yesterday morning! Always the same as soon as you pack something you want it
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Post by foxglove on Mar 29, 2010 11:40:45 GMT 1
Hello gang,
Glad I can finally talk about this book, which I somehow completely missed during my voracious bookworm childhood. So I read on Saturday it as an adult, with the dubious benefit of an Eng Lit degree.
I really enjoyed it obviously as it is the archetypal pony book, and most of my favourites are indebted to it in some manner. I couldn't help but compare it to the Woodbury Pony Club series, as they were a real favourite of mine. I have to say that Six Ponies does read very much like an author's early work, and that the Woodbury ones develop certain themes with more finesse; I will have to re-read the latter to verify this impression. Some of the prose, especially in the opening chapter struck me as a bit wooden and clunky, but there were lots of light, witty touches too (the Radcliffes naming their bikes just tickled me somehow, she writes about numerous siblings extremely well).
I think the book's main weakness is the cardboard cut-out nature of the villainous June. I couldn't help thinking of Three Ponies And Shannon, another of my favourites, in which the spoilt, rosette-draped rich girl is actually very likeable, just lonely, desperate to be able to join in, and at the mercy of her competitive parents. I remember the bit where her dad proudly shows off her trophies, and she quickly points out they were won by the ponies and not herself. There is none of this depth of character with June; she is just a hateful pot-hunter.
I personally thought John was the most interesting character. I think it is crucial that both he and Noel are only children who are disconnected from their parents (Noel's dad is away for months at a time, and John's cannot relate to him at all). John's boorish, opinionated dad must have been extremely hard to grow up with, although John naturally idolises him as most small boys will. To then have it made publically obvious that these strongly-held views are just plain wrong must be difficult to have to deal with. It is hinted that John has redeeming features when he eventually chooses to stay with the stragglers during the paperchase rather than keep up with the leaders. Being reduced to tears in front of a grown man in acknowledgement of your terrible wrong must be a defining moment in a boy's life, but it's something John cannot share with his own father. He cuts a rather lonely and confused figure, and it's rewarding to see him come good at the end.
Bad parenting seems to be a key theme to J P-T (done comically with Harry's dad, and soberingly with the horrific Mrs Rooke in the Woodbury series), and there is plenty on display in Six Ponies too, the kind of thing you don't perhaps pick up on so much as a child reader. Awful kids will always have at least one awful parent.
I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series, but also want to go back to the Woodburies to compare.
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Post by Claire on Mar 29, 2010 12:59:05 GMT 1
It's interesting to hear comments from someone who has read the book for the first time. It was the unedited version (the Fidra paperback) you read wasn't it foxglove? Unlike most people, on the whole I think I prefer the revised edition which was tighter. I think a lot of extraneous stuff was pruned. On the downside, the bit where Richard gets his come-uppance was missing from the revised edition which was a sad loss, not to mention all the wonderful pics missing too.
Interesting comments about the parents. Yes, there were some ghastly parents in the PT's books. In some ways horsy parents can be worse than ones who stay out of it completely (like mine). Actually June does improve in the later books in the series, and becomes less of a stereotype. She rebels against her awful mother nd becomes quite likeble.
I have to say I completely disagree with you about the Woodbury Pony Club books. I was quite disappointed when I read them. I found them quite dull and didn't think the characters (with the odd exception) were as well-defined as in her earlier books. I kept forgetting who was who all the time and had to keep referring to the 'guide' at the front to remind me! I see her writing in Six Ponies as light and fresh, at the peak of her abilities, where in the Woodbury series, it is to me a bit 'by numbers' (Don't let Haffy hear me say this tho as she will stone me!) We were going to do the Woodbury books for the reading circle after the Noel and Henry series, but after so many JPT books we felt we needed a change. Maybe we'll go back to them soon. I would like to know what others think of them.
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Post by foxglove on Mar 29, 2010 13:27:29 GMT 1
I wonder how I would rate the two series if I had read both at the same age. I do recall there being quite an overload of characters in the Woodburies, with most inevitably ending up as filler to keep the competition plot ticking along; Lesley, Harry and Alice were probably the only ones to be properly developed. I really liked the character of washed-up ex jockey David as mentor; have to say I didn't warm to Major Holbrooke particularly. But I'm getting ahead of myself in comparing the two!
It was the full, Fidra version I have just read. Were there revisions to the second in the series too? I shall buy the 2009 Fidra reprint unless advised otherwise...
I wonder what modern day young readers make of these sort of stories. I can't imagine many 12 year olds are given ponies to break and school, or all have friends with ponies living in fields next to their houses who can all ride to each other. I hope they can read them with the same kind of detached enjoyment that I used to apply to Enid Blyton books with the kids going off on month-long unaccompanied camping/cycling/caravan/sailing holidays on deserted moors and islands. I think it's a given that even at the time of writing, Blyton's books were considered unreal and escapist, whereas I assume many readers of the 40s/50s would have recognised the country lifestyles depicted in the P-T books. The last time I went to a riding school in the UK, the horses were lead out tacked up, you got on from the mounting block (I know it's supposed to be better for their backs, but it means most new riders struggle to mount from the ground, as I saw on my riding holiday last year when one girl always needed a leg up), ride, dismount, and then the horse is lead away again- you don't even run up the leathers or loosen the girth. The independence of the riders in old pony stories must seem wondrous to those who are driven everywhere these days.
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Post by Claire on Mar 29, 2010 21:42:10 GMT 1
Yes, I got a surprise when I went riding last (in Corfu) and was made to use a mounting block, but is seems to be quite common now. Also when I took off the saddle and ran up the stirrups at the end of the ride, the ride leader looked a bit non-plussed! But thats what I taught to do from being a small child.
But back to the books. I don't think there was a lot of difference in the Pony Club Team editions, certainly not to the extent there was in 6 Ponies. Haffy will know as she has the first edition.
I LOVE Major Holbrooke, he is one of my favourite characters from the books and prob my fav all time adult pony book character! THe Woodbury books I read for the first time as an adult, I think I was a little old for them the first time round, so it could be why I didnt take to them so much. But then again I have read lots of pony books for the first time as an adult and loved them. So who knows?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2011 14:34:56 GMT 1
Just found this thread and voted fantastic
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Post by tintin on Feb 28, 2011 14:23:21 GMT 1
Not much I can add here. Though fascinated by the abridgements. I read the Armada editions of this and "Pony Club Team" and the abridgements have probably contributed to my only real criticism which was I found it hard to keep up with all the characters (and as a boy would have failed miserably) if I had more background on them I would have kept up better.
I enjoyed the book very much. I think it is very good for anyone who wants to be an Instructor (of anything). The most memorable scene is where the Major catches the boy beating his pony and his first reaction is the obvious, and understandable, one of giving the lad a monumental beasting. BUT the Major stops to think, checks himself has a smoke break and instead goes for the "man to man chat" angle, which, in this instance is actually the right approach.
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Post by fizz on May 24, 2017 11:32:56 GMT 1
This is rather late to the party, but I recently read the Fidra reprint and I was startled by the section missed out of the abridged Armada copies, where Major Holbrooke is in Switzerland. Like the part at the end about Richard it is very strong stuff for a children's pony book. Holbrooke staying in a hotel in the Alps whilst his son recovers receives a letter from Dr Radcliffe about the accident with Rocket. There is a description of his thoughts looking out from the window:
"The forest, usually dark and menacing, had a tame, christmas-cake-like appearance, decided Major Holbrooke as he stood in his dressing-gown at his hotel bedroom window admiring the view. But probably, he thought, it wouldn't seem tame if one was nearer. He imagined the animals ans birds struggling for survival, and the trees groaning under their heavy burdens of snow"
What a wonderfully evocative piece of writing. I always thought that Major Holbrooke a veteran of World War 2, but given the dates of the first book we must assume he had served in the trenches of the Great War.
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Post by ginslinger on May 27, 2017 9:10:54 GMT 1
I think I read that although the book was started in the war she gave it a peacetime setting so although the later books fix them as late forties early fifties Six Ponies is JPT's own inter war childhood transposed. It is possible that Holbrooke served in both wars though it would suprise me if he had and not progressed further than Major. Especially since Brigadier Hemlock Jones says he had a good war in One Day Event. Close run thing age wise - he could have served at the end of WW1 and be not quite fifty at the supposed start of the series. Even if he did miss it he would have grown up with the prospect of it and seen friends and family go and not come back.
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