OMG! Just finished Black Beauty for the First Time!

Tillypup

Tillypup

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www.valleypoint.co.uk
I am a keen reader and as a child read many many many "horsey books" but never Black Beauty and last night I finished reading it for the first time as I got it on a free download for my Kindle.

My goodness me did I weep buckets and buckets during parts of it!! My poor husband didn't really know what to say, just every so often "what's happened now dear?":rolleyes:

It is a book that I have always meant to read but get put off as I know it would upset me, boy did it do that, but still a good read none the less.

Think I need to read something a bit more cheery now, probably not War Horse then!!;)
 
Wonderful book isn't it? It's many years since I've read it, but I do remember being very tearful too.

Anyway, non-horsey, but I also now want them to publish this new Enid Blyton manuscript they've found, which they mentioned on the news last night. Might not be as though provoking or tearful, but will certainly take me back to my childhood!
 
lol.
i didnt find war horse quite as sad but it was awfy good.
i can recommend chosen by a horse - susan richards
riding lessons, flying changes both by sara gruen
the horsey life - simon barnes
im reading secretariat just now
 
Faro said:
Wonderful book isn't it? It's many years since I've read it, but I do remember being very tearful too.

Anyway, non-horsey, but I also now want them to publish this new Enid Blyton manuscript they've found, which they mentioned on the news last night. Might not be as though provoking or tearful, but will certainly take me back to my childhood!
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I didn't know about that, I loved Enid Blyton books as a child! I recently had a bit of a second hand books splurge, bought a bunch of horsey books I'd read as a child (Horse Called September, Red Rosette, I'd Rather Not Gallop) and some St Clares/Mallory Towers books. Still great reading even in these "modern times"
 
I love, love, love Sewell's Black Beauty - read it many times as a teen. I also had the movie on VHS, the one with Sean Bean and Ian Kelsey I think he's called who was in Emmerdale yonks ago. Also cried at that... never watched it as an adult as I'm worried I might cringe and I've no VHS player anyway!
 
I bought the Sean Bean movie the other day on DVD £3 and the best money ever spent!!! Wept like a baby and couldn't get myself together all day!!! :rolleyes:
 
If you want a book about gypsy life and horses set in early 1900s then 'Winner' by Maureen Odonoghue is excellent. An old book but I have read it again and again.
Another good book is 'Bred to win' by William Kinsolving which is based in the racing world. Again old but a good read.
 
I love Black Beauty as in the original unabridged version, and I recommend it to my slightly bemused looking students as a great "textbook"!

Did you know that AS wrote it to highlight horse welfare issues and in the hope of improving the condition of working horses?:)
 
She was particularly horrified by the bearing reins used to keep the horses heads up which meant as they struggled up steep cobbled hills they couldnt put their heads down and their shoulders into pulling the load; just so they would look smart and alert :-((

Wonderful book but I cant read the part about Ginger even now, I skip it (and Im middle aged!)

I bought all the Enid Blytons and horsey books off eBay as was horrified my parents had chucked them out.Have zillions now and love them. Pullein Thompsons and the Jill books especially.
 
I am Reading War Horse to my kids as their bedtime story. Last night we got to the bit about Topthorn and looked up to see three sad little faces! It made me feel so guilty that I had to keep reading for ages till I got to a happier bit!

I think I'll save Black Beauty till they are older!
 
You HAVE to get the Sean Bean version of the film! Ginger in the film looks exactly like the horse I lost to an injury a few years ago, and I can't watch the final scene without sobbing hysterically! Seabiscuit has the same effect lol
 
Oh I was sobbing away for poor Ginger.

The films Champions and Far Lap make me bawl my eyes out.

My Mum and I cried at the War Horse scene they did at Olympia at Christmas, we decided there and then we could not cope with seeing the whole play.

Years and years ago my Nan brought down to us a load of my Mum's old horsey books for me to read, lots of pullein-thompsons etc.

The thought of Sean Bean makes me think that £3 would be well spent!;)
 
Black Beauty made me slightly tearful when I was a child, but re-reading it as an adult I nearly cried myself into a breakdown and therapy. Got myself in a right old state.

Has anyone read 'Son of Black Beauty' by Phyllis Briggs? Quite an old book, another tear jerker.
 
Also loved, The black stallion, phar lap, and sea biscuit, and also an animated film that I forget the name of....

A native indian stallion that has to work on the american railways!!! anyone?

Just remebered Brumbies and Flicker
 
Thinking about it, I reckon Black Beauty is a more poignent read as an adult because we are all now much more aware of horse welfare etc., and it makes the story even more dramatic somehow. I found myself crying over all the 1000's of horses that lived such awful lives in those times....and then I was blubbing about the working horses in the third world who still live in misery and abuse. Honestly, I'm quite pathetic!
 
Oh dear - poor Ginger - I don't think I could re read it now as an adult without therapy afterwards! Anna Sewell lived just round the corner from me and horses still graze the field in front of her house.
Another tearjerker is 'The Red Pony' - terrible, many tissues required.
 
Daisydo said:
Also loved, The black stallion, phar lap, and sea biscuit, and also an animated film that I forget the name of....

A native indian stallion that has to work on the american railways!!! anyone?

Just remebered Brumbies and Flicker
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Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmeron :) I am glad I am not the only adult who cries like a small child at these films and books! The scene where Beauty is pulling the cart up the hill :'(

Agree that Sean Bean would be well worth £3 ;D
 
Quite a lot of the story of Back Beauty was based in Bath, not far from where I live. Some of the hills in and out of the city are very steep, and I often think of BB and Ginger when I'm driving up and down them.

On Warhorse: One of the original choreographers lives near me and spent a lot of time one summer sitting with a notebook on an artist's stool in the road by our field. Later she told me (she's non-horsey) that she'd been studying my mare's little quirks and mannerisms for the play.Wwhen I eventually got to see the play I cried throughout, as so many of my mare's little habits were there. I don't think I could watch it again.
 
I cannot even make it through the opening credits of the film (with Sean Bean) without sobbing! :o In my defense it is because I know what is coming! It has been years since I read the book and to be honest I cannot remember if I ever read it all the way through, I feel I am going to have to dig my old copy out later tonight!

I bought the dvd not so long back for £4 it also came with The Secret Garden, another favorite childhood film of mine, gave myself a lovely headache from watching (and crying :o) both one afternoon.
 
I am now the proud owner of the DVD, given my VHS of Black Beauty is obsolete. I have a date with the TV and a box of tissues once it arrives! I must grab my copy of the book next time I visit the parents. Think it'll be read on the nights I'm home alone so no one can see my sob! War Horse will be waiting for me to pick up in the library soon. Cheers folks!

I don't think I've ever read My Friend Flicka actually or seen the film...
 
I have watched Spirit so many times - the music is magic, I'm in tears before the first scene!
If you want a real adult weepie, read Our Horses in Egypt by Rosalind Belbin, it's a novel based on Dorothy Brooke's bio about the British horses which our then government chose to leave behind after WW1. The real war horses. Heart rending.
 
intouch said:
I have watched Spirit so many times - the music is magic, I'm in tears before the first scene!
If you want a real adult weepie, read Our Horses in Egypt by Rosalind Belbin, it's a novel based on Dorothy Brooke's bio about the British horses which our then government chose to leave behind after WW1. The real war horses. Heart rending.
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It's titled For the love of Horses, by Glenda Spooner, I bought it for £2.50 in a seconhand book shop. The story of thousands of Army horses left behind after the Egytian campaign and what happened to them is heartbreaking.

Also there is a book by Jillly Cooper about the horses in France during the Great War, can't remember the title.
 
Ditto, The Red Pony lives on my bookshelf too, neglected and unread for many years.

Has anyone here read 'Black Beauty according to Spike Milligan'? Funny, but dark at the same time.
 
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