Books with author Josephine Thompson

No one likes the Woodbury Pony Club, not even its members. They're so awful, they don't think they're up to entering the competition for second division pony clubs like them. And then they get a new District Commissioner – but what can an ex-jockey teach them and their terrible ponies? Quite a lot, it turns out, if you're prepared to be open minded. Wild, whirling Jupiter and his hapless owner Hanif, and ewe-necked Saffron, grudgingly hired for Alice for the holidays by her aunt, can be improved. There is hope. They might even be able to enter for the cup ...

The Woodbury Pony Club have been challenged to take part in a tetrathlon by the neighbouring Cranford Vale Pony Club. It's going to mean a lot of training, fast. Their cross country is improving, but that's not going to be enough, and they only have three weeks to improve their swimming, running and target shooting. They're starting to get better, but then a disastrous attempt to practise threatens to ruin everything ...

"He's erected two tents on the lawn, produced three cooking stoves, and goes on and on about the magnetic North." Competitive parents are nothing new. The Woodbury Pony Club are going on a three-day trek over the Downs. Alice is delighted but Hanif is in despair – all he wants is a quiet time with his friends, but his super-competitive stepfather has other ideas. Even a trek can be turned into a competition. But the trek doesn't go the way anyone expected, and the idea of competition fades when a pony's life is at stake.

Noel has no self-confidence. John has a nasty temper. June’s mother thinks June is wonderful (and so does she). Evelyn thinks dressage is a waste of time. Her sister Hilary is not so sure, and Richard, well Richard is very good at hiding the truth from himself. The Pony Club is the despair of Major Holbrooke, its district commissioner.The Pony Club is presented with six New Forest ponies to break in. How they go about it, and the problems and triumphs they experience, are still just as entertaining and informative as when the book was published over 60 years ago.

The last glorious swansong of the West Barsetshire Pony Club sees the Major run a camp for the Pony Club members. Noel and Henry have now left school and have returned as instructors to deal with the loose and the runaway, and that's just the ponies. The Pony Club members are even worse. Pony Club Camp is filled with extraordinarily vivid characters who will stay with you long after you finish the book. And it ends on a note that has tantalised readers ever since the book was published.

Henry is in despair. His new horse, Evening Echo, is not going well. It is cold comfort that none of the other local riders seem to be any better. Henry decides he’ll start a riding club, and with the help of Noel, that’s what he does. Josephine Pullein-Thompson gives us another cast of wonderful characters: Alex, cursed with a pony so terrible he seems to have no redeeming features; Christo, whose black mare is only rarely under control, Eric, whose cob, Princess is under such rigid control she barely breaks out of a canter, and Paulina, who prefers to waft about looking pretty than put any effort into riding well.Can the club manage to learn something and compete at a local one day event?

Mrs Van Cutler's opinion is worth having, says the Major to his nephew, Henry. But Mrs Van Cutler did not like Henry's dressage test, not at all. "Oh lord," said Henry. "Have you ever seen so many fours?" Major Holbrooke offers to do a course for Henry and the Pony Club to improve their generally dismal performances, but it will be an eventing course and not just dressage. And at the end, there will be a One Day Event.The Pony Club members tackle this in their usual fashion. Christopher is convinced he already knows it all; Noel is convinced she knows nothing and never will. June is allergic to any mention of the forward seat. Evelyn charges round at full and lethal speed, sure that a good hunting seat will get her through, and whatever she does, it has to be better than Marion, who is too scared to venture out of a trot.But at the end of the course, everyone, no matter who, has to do that One Day Event.

The classic 1950s show jumping story.Charles has had polio, which has left him with a damaged leg. Riding, he is told, will help. And so Charles tries to learn to ride on his cousins' horses. It is a while since Charles had any lessons, but he soon finds out there is a difference between how he was taught and what his cousins are telling him to do. Fortunately, Charles finds a riding school which teaches him a better way, and at the riding school he finds the grey mare, Secret. Can Charles and Secret overcome their problems and enter the Foxhunter show jumping classes?

"I don't want to spend the Easter holidays grooming a beastly muddy pony."When Christabel's father says "All right" to this, she doesn't expect that anything will happen. But it does. He sells her ponies. Christabel gets over it pretty quickly, but then she goes to stay with the Westlakes while her parents are away. It's never fun when you realise that people don't think very much of you, and the worst of it is, Christabel begins to agree with them. And she comes to bitterly regret selling her ponies. But will she ever be able to find them again? In a pre-internet age, it's not easy.

Major Holbrooke's friends challenge him to prove that the West Barsetshire Pony Club can improve. The only way of making sure that they do is by taking them back to basics and running a course for them: it's dressage all the way. Nothing runs smoothly, of course, and when the Major's nephew, Henry, arrives, sparks fly. Henry has good points, but he certainly keeps them well hidden.Can the Major overcome the Pony Club’s penchant for fighting, letting out his wife’s prized birds, and destroying his farm walls, and turn them into a team who can win?

The Conways have lived at Charnworth all their lives, and they love it. They love the farm, and the estate where their father is the land agent. But now Lord Charnworth has died, and the estate has been sold to a Mr Smithson, a financier from the city. The family know that things can't possibly stay the same, but Mr Smithson seems determined to listen to strident modernising voices, and not their father, and the relationship between him and Mr Conway deteriorates by the day. But the Conways are determined to fight back, with the help of their mysterious new friend, Nick.