Pony Club Trek (Woodbury Pony Club Book 3) Read online

  Pony Club Trek

  Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  Contents

  Josephine Pullein-Thompson (1923–2014)

  The Woodbury Pony Club series

  Map of the Woodbury District and trek route

  Members and Officials of the Woodbury Branch of the Pony Club

  1. “We’re the Duds.”

  2. Getting Ready

  3. Day 1: The Downs

  4. Day 2: The Forest

  5. Day 3: “She Wouldn’t Listen”

  6. Lost in the Night

  7. No Rosettes

  Patricia Leitch

  Caroline Akrill

  Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  Jane Badger Books

  Published by Jane Badger Books 2020

  First published by Armada (Fontana Paperbacks), London, 1985

  © The estate of Josephine Pullein-Thompson

  The moral right of Josephine Pullein-Thompson to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by her estate in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover © Canva

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the above copyright owners and the above publisher of this book.

  Neither the author nor contributor has any responsibility for the continuing accuracy of URLs for external or third-party websites referred to in this book, nor do they guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

  ISBN 978-1-9162730-5-4

  Josephine Pullein-Thompson (1923–2014)

  Josephine Pullein-Thompson was born in 1923 into a bohemian family, with a mother and siblings who all wrote. When they were teenagers, she and her sisters, twins Christine and Diana Pullein-Thompson, started a successful riding school.

  Josephine was connected with the Pony Club all her life, and was the district commissioner for the Woodland Pony Club in Oxfordshire. She wrote over 30 books, and it’s perhaps no coincidence that her two most popular series feature pony clubs: the West Barsetshire, who feature in the Noel and Henry series, and the Woodbury Pony Club. The pony club, with its wide variety of characters, gave her plenty of scope for the sort of character-driven story she most enjoyed, allied to solid and effective instruction on how to ride well.

  There is a good 40 years between the series. Six Ponies, the first Noel and Henry book, was written during World War II and portrays an arcadia that Josephine herself said had never really existed.

  The Woodbury series reflects the very different world of the 1980s in which it was written. There are children with difficult family backgrounds, and there is Hanif, who is of Pakistani heritage. And there are parents who are very much more involved with the Pony Club, and the ponies, than the more hands-off variety of the earlier series.

  With the Woodbury series, Josephine Pullein-Thompson displayed what is arguably some of her finest writing, and I am delighted to be able to bring the series back into print.

  Jane Badger, 2020

  The Woodbury Pony Club series

  Pony Club Cup

  Pony Club Challenge

  Pony Club Trek

  All available from Jane Badger Books

  Map of the Woodbury District and trek route

  Members and Officials of the Woodbury Branch of the Pony Club

  DAVID LUMLEY, ex steeplechase jockey. Lives at Garland Farm.

  MRS ROOKE, Hon. Secretary. Lives at 20, The Heights Woodbury.

  LESLEY ROOKE, her elder daughter. Owns Stardust, 14-hands chestnut mare.

  SARAH ROOKE owns Chess, 13-hands piebald gelding, and Sparkler, grey gelding, 14-hands.

  MR AND MRS ROBERTS run Garland Farm for David Lumley. They live at Garland Farm cottage.

  LYNNE ROBERTS owns Berry, 13.1 red roan mare.

  PAUL ROBERTS owns Banjo, 12.2 black gelding.

  ALICE DRUMMOND owns Saffron, 14.1 dun gelding. Lives with her uncle and aunt at Shawbury, Darkwood Lane.

  MARGARET AND PETER HUTCHINSON, Alice’s aunt and uncle.

  HANIF (HARRY) FRANKLIN owns Jupiter, 14.2 liver chestnut gelding. Lives at Barn Cottage, Great Coxwell.

  JAMES MORGAN shares Ferdinand, 15.1 dark brown gelding, with his mother. Lives at Four Cross Fruit Farm.

  RUPERT WHEELER, the eldest of the family, owns Rosie, 14.1 light bay mare. Lives at The Old Rectory, Kidlake

  ELIZABETH WHEELER owns Rajah, 14.1 ½ chestnut gelding.

  ANNETTE WHEELER owns Tristram, 13.2 grey Welsh gelding.

  OLIVER WHEELER owns Hobbit, 12.2 dark brown Dartmoor gelding.

  TINA SPENCER owns Bowie, 13.3 bay gelding. Lives in a cottage on the Downs.

  SEBASTIAN FULLER, Tina’s stepbrother, owns Jigsaw, 14.2 skewbald gelding.

  JULIA CARTWRIGHT and JANET GREEN. Pony Club instructors.

  1

  “We’re the Duds.”

  “Do come, Harry. I know we won’t be chosen for the mounted games team, but it’ll be fun and we’ll see everyone,” pleaded Alice Drummond, dismounting from her dun pony, Saffron, and leaning over the loosebox door. “The holidays are nearly over and I can’t bear to waste a single moment of what’s left.”

  Hanif Franklin dropped his body brush and curry comb into his grooming kit box and rumpled his curly blue-black hair. His brown face wore an obstinate look and his black eyes communicated nothing. Silent eyes, thought Alice.

  “You’re so sociable and the rest of the pony club is so competitive,” he complained. “We spent the whole holidays training for the tetrathlon, and now it’s over I want to relax. Why can’t we go for a peaceful hack through the woods?”

  “You’ll be able to go for peaceful hacks every weekend when I’m back at school,” Alice argued. “It’s a lovely ride to Garland Farm. You can relax while you watch everyone else tearing up and down, trying to get into the Prince Philip team.”

  “Relax? With Jupe trampling on my toes, the Rookes quarrelling and people complaining that it’s not fair and they ought to have been picked? Some hope,” observed Hanif. He liked the Woodbury pony club members, but sometimes they all seemed terribly English while Alice with her tanned complexion, rich golden hair and dark blue eyes, could be Scandinavian. He liked her straight nose, wide mouth and determinedness, and the fact that she’d lived abroad and travelled a lot was another bond between them. And she had no parents at all which was much worse than having to put up with a difficult stepfather.

  Alice could feel him weakening. “You know you really love all the pony club scandals and dramas. Come on, tack up. We don’t want to miss any of the excitement.”

  When Hanif had saddled and bridled the impatient Jupiter, a sturdy liver chestnut of fourteen-two, and collected his crash cap, they rode along Darkwood Lane and past Shawbury, the red-brick, gabled house among the trees, where, since the death of her parents in a plane crash, Alice spent the holidays with her uncle and aunt and a shifting population of grown-up cousins.

  They took the path through the woods and forded the river Vole, low in its banks and flowing placidly after the long, sunny summer. The ponies jogged happily along the track which passed through the Waterford Farm meadows, where Saffron was turned out during the term. Then they crossed the main road and took the bridlepath, which led through stubble fields towards Garland Farm, the home of David Lumley, who had been a well-known steeplechase jockey until a crashing fall had left him disabl
ed, and was now District Commissioner and chief instructor of the Woodbury pony club. Soon they could see the farm on the rising ground. It was sheltered by a half-circle of hills and, beyond the hills, in the distance, the smooth green humps of the Downs met the faded blue of the late summer sky.

  The four Wheelers lived at the Old Rectory, Kidlake, a village just down the road from the lane which led to Garland Farm. Their house was old and large and rather tumbledown. Both their parents worked and no one ever had the time or energy to cut back the ivy, which was gradually obscuring the upper windows, or to fix the dangling trellises, which were supposed to support the climbing roses on either side of the front door. Weeds had taken over the cobblestones of the stable yard and the sagging stable doors, clumsily re-painted bright blue by Rupert, were already peeling.

  The Wheelers, who all had straw-coloured hair, blue eyes and pink and white complexions, were hard at work. Rupert, the eldest, was cursing as he pumped up the front tyre of an elderly and unloved-looking bicycle. His pink and white face was long and his blue eyes dreamy. Lizzie and Oliver were grooming chestnut Rajah and little brown Hobbit, while Netti had her grey, Tristram, tied up outside and was washing his tail.

  “Why don’t you hack over on Rosie?” Lizzie, the second oldest, who wore her straw-coloured hair in a single plait, called to Rupert. “You could tie her up in David’s yard while you watch.”

  “Because I know what would happen,” Rupert answered “The old Rooke would soon bully me into joining in. She’d have me in some useless team, consisting of Harry on lunatic Jupiter and some horrid little children from the D Ride, just to be slaughtered by Sarah Rooke and Netti and the other mounted games specialists.”

  “Don’t talk to him, he’s stopped pumping,” Netti, whose straw hair was cut short and whose blue eyes were bright and challenging, told her sister. “And we’re not going to slaughter anyone. We haven’t a hope of making up a decent team. Except for Sarah, none of the good people have the right sort of ponies. Twelve-two is the best size, so even Tristram’s too big and the fourteen-twos are useless.”

  “Hobbit’s perfect then, and I’m bound to be picked,” announced Oliver boastfully. He saw the Woodbury team winning at Wembley, cheering crowds and enormous rosettes.

  “You are not.” Netti looked at Oliver’s round cheerful face, cheeky blue eyes and curly straw hair and decided that he needed crushing. “You’re hopeless at vaulting on and you’re too lazy to practise.”

  “Do tack up, everyone, we’re going to be late,” called Lizzie, interrupting Oliver’s reply. “And Ollie, you can’t go with your bit like that,” she added in tones of horror. “It’s green.”

  “Who cares. Boring old Janet Green only gives me a mingy three for inspection however hard I try. I can’t think why David’s made her the team trainer.”

  “Oh, come on, Lizzie, stop fussing,” said Rupert as his sister ran to the tackroom for a wet rag. “I’ve got to start before this tyre goes down again, and surely everyone in the pony club must be used to Ollie’s tack cleaning by now.”

  James Morgan, large, solid and serious for his age, which was fourteen and a half, turned out of the gate of Four Cross Fruit Farm and bicycled slowly along the road in the direction of Garland Farm. Now that the tetrathlon was over the fun had gone out of the holidays, he thought gloomily. There wasn’t much point in going to Garland Farm to watch other people practising mounted games, but he supposed that some of the older members might turn up, and, anyway, nothing could be more boring than staying at home. He hoped Sebastian Fuller, his best friend, would be there. He’d meant to ring up and find out, but Seb’s father had just married the mother of another Woodbury member, which made it all a bit awkward. What if the new Mrs Fuller had answered the phone? James wouldn’t have known what on earth to say to her.

  Then James heard the sound of hoofs. He looked back and saw Alice and Hanif coming out of the bridle path at Four Cross. They waved, shouted and urged their ponies into a trot. Then there were more hoof sounds, ahead this time, and as he bicycled round another bend in the narrow road, he could see the Wheelers trotting towards him. They met at the Garland Farm lane and rode up together, all talking at once.

  They were halfway to the farm when a car horn hooted imperiously behind them and turning in their saddles they saw Mrs Rooke, the pony club secretary, at the wheel, glaring at them through her thick-lensed spectacles.

  “Car,” shouted James as ponies and bicycles crushed themselves against the hedges and the car swept by towing a sparkling new trailer. Sarah Rooke sat beside her mother, Lesley, her older sister, in the back.

  “They looked very tense, I think there’s been another squabble in the Rookery,” announced Rupert with relish.

  “Yes. they were grim-faced. We didn’t get a single wave.” agreed Alice.

  “Terrific new trailer, though. A much newer model than ours,” said James enviously.

  “But no Julian,” observed Oliver. “I don’t like him much, but he’s the only boy in the pony club of my age even if he is a bit weird.”

  “His mother told ours that he was a mathematical genius,” announced Netti. “He spends all day at his computer. Mum says she goes on and on about how marvellous he is, like she does about Sarah and her riding.”

  “So Lesley’s the only one she doesn’t like?” asked Alice.

  “Yes, it’s terribly unfair; I’m glad our mother doesn’t favour Netti and Oliver,” answered Lizzie.

  “Life favours them though,” said Rupert gloomily. “They get beautifully schooled ponies, while you and I outgrow them, and we have to start all over again with dotty, new, green ones.”

  “I’d like a mother like James’s,” announced Oliver. “She cleans his tack.”

  The Robertses, Lynne and Paul, lived in the Garland Farm cottage. It was really two cottages knocked into one, built of red brick and covered in Virginia creeper. Mr Roberts ran the farm for David Lumley and Mrs Roberts had done a great deal to help David through the difficult time after his accident. Paul, who was small for his age, with dark hair and grey eyes, was feeling quite hopeful of being chosen for the Prince Philip team. Banjo, his black pony, was twelve-two, fast for his size, very handy, and good at most gymkhana events. But Lynne, who was a year older, much larger, and who looked quite different, with her wavy, light-brown hair, and wide, plump, usually cheerful face, felt very dejected. She was fond of Berry, her red roan pony, but she had to admit that her only talent was a fast trot and her habit of kicking other ponies had made her justifiably unpopular in the pony club. No one would want to be in a team with them.

  It was a shame, thought Lynne. I’m better at games and races than most of the pony club members; I love them and I’d be willing to practise really hard, but without the right sort of pony, I’ve no hope at all of being picked.

  Tina Spencer; small, reddish-haired and freckled, and Sebastian Fuller, who was tall with brown hair, brown eyes and a wide mouth, had ridden along the edge of the Downs and then through the woods to the rally. It was the same distance as going by the road, Seb had explained, but much more fun and, as it was only a boring mounted games rally, it didn’t matter if they arrived on muddy ponies.

  They didn’t talk much. It’s not going to be easy, thought Tina, as they rode side by side, Seb on skewbald Jigsaw, she on the smaller, bright bay Bowie. They were both embarrassed by their new relationship of stepbrother and sister. It was all very well for Mum and Mr Fuller, John, she corrected herself, to go on and on about how essential it was to communicate, about how they must talk everything through, and, if they were going to make a go of becoming a family group, each member must feel free to put a point of view or voice a complaint, but you had to find out what you really thought first. I keep changing my mind, thought Tina. Sometimes it’s great: having Bowie and living on the Downs is like a dream come true, sometimes it’s just O.K. and sometimes, when things are difficult or people are cross, I think we’ve made a terrible mistake. Better to keep quie
t and see how things go, she decided as the ponies, sensing an occasion, pranced along the farm track and into the yard.

  “Hullo.”

  “You’ve come too. Great.”

  “Here are Seb and Tina,” The other pony club members gathered round, obviously pleased to see them.

  “How are you two getting on?” Oliver asked the question that the rest were too tactful to put.

  “We haven’t had a stand-up fight yet,” answered Seb, dismounting.

  “And we’ve given the parents a week off—they’ve gone to Venice,” Tina added. “We’ve Seb’s grandparents staying with us; they’re really nice and not a bit fussy.”

  “And when the parents come back we’re going to do some serious house-hunting. My father only rented the cottage for the summer and it’s much too small for four people,” explained Seb.

  “That’s Janet calling us,” said Netti, looking towards the paddock. “We’d better go. Come on, Ollie.”

  “We’re only spectators,” Rupert shouted to the waving figure at the paddock gate.

  “Perhaps we’d better go and spectate,” suggested James.

  “A great mistake to appear too soon, she’ll give us jobs,” warned Rupert.

  Sarah Rooke on piebald Chess and a stranger, a long-legged, long-haired girl who dwarfed her chestnut pony, were warming up. Paul, Netti and Oliver joined them.

  Alice and Lizzie were dithering. “Does Janet want some impossibles to ride against the possibles?” Alice asked Lesley Rooke, who was carrying a bundle of flapping flags on canes.