Jill's Gymkhana (The Jill Books by Ruby Ferguson Book 1)

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Susan makes it very clear just how little she thinks of Jill, and Jill's chances in the local gymkhana. She received her education at Bradford Girls Grammar School and then at St Hilda's College at the University of Oxford, where she read English from 1919 to 1922, gaining a 3rd class BA [2] and, a few years later, the Oxford MA. Four-and-a-half paragraphs have been removed detailing Jill’s improved relationship with Mary and Pierce, her exams, a letter to her Mother, joy at being home and the observation the chapter is more about moral lessons than horses. Money is tight and although Jill dreams of having and riding a pony of her own, she feels it is just that – a dream.

Please remember it can take some time for your bank or credit card company to process and post the refund too. Missing nine paragraphs (41 lines) of Jill describing the essays (about horses at her suggestion) being read out aloud at school and subsequent report. Jill might not have ever actually handled a pony before, but of course she knows absolutely everything about them, and assumes that the reader must be the same, and is totally familiar with all sorts of titles like 'M. Gymkhana is the first entry in the Jill series and sets us off on our journey as we see an 11 year old Jill, newly moved into town, gain her first pony and her riding skills and ends with the much awaited Gymkhana.Not only does Jill get her pony, but she learns to take care of it -- AND become a decent rider, too.

Seven paragraphs (37 lines) detailing Ann’s bulgy saddlebags and the hiding of the vests under a hedge have been deleted. Light brown hardcover cloth binding with black imprint illustration on front clean, tight, but spine cocked, very mild water stain outside bottom of spine - interior not affected.Many thanks to Hazelhunter on my old forum, who did all the work in this section – a labour of love, indeed! Missing two paragraphs (20 lines) describing Ann having lunch at Jill’s, what the girls wear, make up and nail varnish, and Mrs Derry arriving with Ann’s sisters to collect Mrs Crewe. Jill Crewe has always wanted a pony and when she meets Farmer Clay, who just happens to have one for sale, she can't wait. Such a fascinating revisit of my childhood favourite - I still love her, and my memories of spending time with Jill are literally the way most people think of their childhood friends, I can't emphasise enough that Jill WAS my childhood friend - but she can be so truly awful. And yet I know I knew that a bit at the time, and that I saw myself as pretty awful too, so we were good company for each other.

You mean, if she had two eyes she'd be riding like a centaur,' said Martin, and we all laughed as we munched our sandwiches and put away a lot of ice cream. She meets Martin Lowe, an RAF veteran who has lost the use of his legs, and he teaches her how to ride. Oh, the book isn't disgustingly racist, definitely not by the standards of the time - it's that casual kind of racism you come across in books written pre-civil rights where they casually refer to working hard as "working like a Black".I personally am looking forward to reading the remaining 5 books in the series, I may even go so far as to read under the quilt with a torch to really go back to my childhood! There is so much of this book I remember which goes to show how much I loved it when I first read it. lines including a four-line verse have been removed describing Jill purchasing flowers and a card to take her mother; a short description of the dental hospital and replaced by a modified abridged version without the verse. The writing took a 'voice' for Jill which was a bit too cloying and twee, and had weird interjected parenthetical excuses that only drew attention to passages where Jill exhibited a wider vocabulary than you (or, rather, Ferguson) might expect of a 14-year-old girl.

There is a sort of training montage about Jill learning to ride her pony, and at the end there is a weird timeskip which seems to point to the book being partially based on life experience, as all sorts of previously unmentioned characters show up in the final gymkhana where Jill wins a bunch of ribbons (but not, we note, in her first gymkhana, which would be the obvious if implausible narrative solution). The Hodder and Stoughton original (page 72) says: ‘Mummy recklessly melted down our whole week’s cheese ration …. Här får man veta hur hon fick sin första ponny, Black Boy, och hur hon lär sig rida, för att till sist nå större framgångar . Jill is grateful for her mother's success; however, as she says repeatedly throughout the series, she "can't get on" with her mother's books at all, finding them impossibly sweet and whimsical (possibly a veiled criticism of the works of Enid Blyton).The protagonist is enjoyable, and like all good pony books, she faces interesting horse-y challenges along the way.