Jill books

BSL said:
Me too. Spent hours laying on my bed reading Ruby Ferguson..Happy days.:)
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Me too!! Really loved those stories.

I just gave the books by number as I understood them to be the order in which they were published. I could well be wrong, and I do know the stories changed titles over the years to keep up with ‘fashion’. They also changed the name of Jill’s beloved Blackboy, as it wasn’t politically correct (fgs)
 
I absolutely loved these books! Am going to go over to my parents this week now and see if they’re still in the loft!
 
I love these books! Reread Jill and the Perfect Pony just the other week, in fact!

Persephone Books have republished one of her adult novels which is delightful.
 
I had a full set of the Jill books and re-read them so many times the front and back covers were all cellotaped on. Sadly I think my mum got rid of them when she was having a clear-out.
 
Funny how anyone who read these in their younger years knows exactly what "Jill books" means.

Loved them, always wanted to be Jill, whitewashing a shed at the bottom of the garden that would make a perfect pony stable...
 
Ruby Ferguson had a fabulous dry sense of humour.

As I recall, Challenges For Jill ends with the (male) celebrity showjumper advising her and Ann to stop mucking about with ponies, and go to secretarial college to get a proper office job. To be fair, he had a point....
 
Captain Cholly-Sawcutt and his fat daughters April May and June! Yes they were allowed to be called fat back then.

A slightly sad revelation was reading these as an adult and realising Jills dad must have died in the war and the lengthy descriptions of every tea they had (cream buns for all) were in there as another idyllic dimension for all the children still living on rationed foods. :(
 
I spent a while tracking them all down also :)

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Flummoxed said:
Serious envy Floxie! My lovely daughter managed to track down Jill's Gymkhana for me Christmas 2016 in a 1960's edition. I would love to find the rest too.
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Lovely! 1,2,4&5 of mine are new prints with rubbish colours, but I wanted to read through them! I should see what my mum has, she has all sorts of old pony books including the Punchbowl Farm ones.

What did they rename Black Boy in the later editions?!
 
All this talk of Jill books has got me all nostalgic for the first Pony mag I ever bought – it would have been probably in the late 1970’s and had a picture of a black fell (?) pony’s head as it was grazing on the cover. Any idea where I could find a copy? Would love to see it again after all these years.
 
HashRouge said:
Did they really? When did they do that? I've got a variety of editions, up to the 1980s I think, and he's always called Black Boy.

I could never work out if he was supposed to be black, or black and white. Seemed to vary from book to book :p
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I always imagined him as black and white, as he was nicknamed patchy by Jill before she bought him.
 
I loved the Jill Books as a child and now I am 62 re read them all the time.I go to the local boot sale and if anyone has any 'horsey stuff' I always ask if they have Jill Books,They either know what they are straight away or have never heard of them.
 
ElleSkywalker said:
Some point in the 90's I think.

He is Piebald in the first book, there is a whole bit in her learning to groom him and 'his black patches shone like ebony'
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I’m pretty sure he was black in the original hence his name “Black boy”

My original copy of Jill’s Gymkhana disappeared so I can’t check.

Some of the covers of pony books used to really annoy me as they bared no resemblance to any horse in the story let alone the main characters.
 
Nativelover said:
I always imagined him as black and white, as he was nicknamed patchy by Jill before she bought him.
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He was nicknamed Blackie in the very old hardback copy of Jill's Gymkhana a friend's mum gave me. He was intermittently Piebald in the paperbacks I had but they weren't edited consistently so he changed colour all the way through.

My mum got rid of all of them when I went to Uni but I've since picked up some very early ones to replace and he's consistently black in those.
 
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criso said:
He was nicknamed Blackie in the very old hardback copy of Jill's Gymkhana a friend's mum gave me. He was intermittently Piebald in the paperbacks I had but they weren't edited consistently so he changed colour all the way through.

My mum got rid of all of them when I went to Uni but I've since picked up some very early ones to replace and he's consistently black in those.
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Glad I'm not just imagining it! The books I have are from a variety of different editions, so that might explain the inconsistency.
 
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