I liked both authors as a child and have both on my adult shelves. The illustrations in grey rabbit are especially gorgeous aren’t they.
Interesting post thank you for sharing, look forward to reading the rest. Did you read Green Smoke by Rosemary Manning as a child? Great books and an interesting author.
Thanks for this fascinating post.I look forward to reading more and am quite glad that I haven't read the biography! I loved the Little Grey Rabbit books (although that has a lot to do with the illustrations) but haven't read her other books. I'll look out for the diary. I was warned off Enid Blyton by a teacher who refused to stock her books in the school library and took the warning to heart!
Thank you. Blyton definitely seems to have been frowned on by many parents, teachers and critics. She's the author who got me and many other children reading though.
I haven’t looked at Uttley’s books for years, but as a child I both loved her books and HATED Blyton. As to the problems of the writing mother? That greatest of all children’s writers, Edith Nesbit gave us the portrait in The Railway Children.
The writing mother - quite a useful device to get a parent out of the way, so the children can have adventures! Certainly for the Railway Children. Also Ruby Ferguson's Jill books.
Yes. Ferguson’s is however almost entirely derivative I think. Her books are beguiling but her utter ignorance of horses is revealed in every page - unlike for instance the Pullien-Thomson books. But I suspect ‘Horray! A sensible editor! Buns for tea!’ is only too real.
I enjoyed them for sure. And she was a good writer. And she had good story lines. But. Look if you take Diana P-T’s first book, which she didn’t much like, I Wanted a Pony, the authenticity of her problems, the difficulty of training her pony to do quite a simple thing, the joy of getting there, then the ending, where she canters her pony down a verge, and knows she doesn’t want her dreams of a fancy horse half as much as she wants that moment? I’ve been there. I’ve lived that moment. And at 73 I still live it sometimes. There is something in the authenticity of experience that captures the heart, and Nesbit has that, and especially in The Railway Children.
That’s a lovely explanation. I never read the P-T sisters but I always thought the Jill books, at least the first, must be based on Joanna Cannan’s (their mother’s) book A Pony For Jean. I adored both but thought the Jill books far more realistic – Jean teaches herself to ride (while Jill struggles until she has lessons), and at one point scales a five bar fence while defeating a burglar! A Pony for Jean did have the most wonderful illustrations by Anne Bullen. (Just checked and Bullen also illustrated I Wanted A Pony. I feel a purchase coming on!)
To me - it’s THE pony book, in that it best describes what having a pony and not much dosh is actually like. What it’s like to feel despair and hope and … later I acquired a pony who started head shaking. I paused, thought, and remembered the solution. And it WAS the right solution. My current chap has the same problem.
I loved the writing of Alison Uttley, especially her essay collections and A Country Child, but was horrified when I read Judd's biography and confess it stopped me reading her. So, I read this with great heart and can begin to understand how she was misjudged. I feel I can now read the diaries!
Thanks for such an absorbing essay and I’m looking forward to part 2! It really reminds me of the entrenched view of Sylvia Plath over the years- that she was mad, inevitably drawn to death- and how Heather Clark’s biography dismantled the myths with her careful research. It does seem that Alison Uttley has been judged unfairly and it’s not the first time a woman writer has been dismissed in this way.
I remember reading the Judd biography years ago and being struck by the resemblance between Uttley and my own unhappy mother’s behaviour.
A friend remembers her from his childhood when they were neighbours. She was known as ‘that dreadful woman’ and his father would hide if he saw her approaching the house. So perhaps some kernel of truth in her reputation as a difficult woman?
How interesting! When was that? I do think she was spiky and difficult. But she's been completely monstered, with all kinds of dubious claims against her. The Judd biography didn't seem to me to have much appreciation of the sensibilities of the time, e.g. what it would have been like being a widow as a result of suicide in the 30s, and the shame/taboo around suicide and mental health. Critics and reviewers then just seem to have poured fuel on the fire.
I liked both authors as a child and have both on my adult shelves. The illustrations in grey rabbit are especially gorgeous aren’t they.
Interesting post thank you for sharing, look forward to reading the rest. Did you read Green Smoke by Rosemary Manning as a child? Great books and an interesting author.
No, Manning was one that passed me by. I'm not sure how!
Thanks for this fascinating post.I look forward to reading more and am quite glad that I haven't read the biography! I loved the Little Grey Rabbit books (although that has a lot to do with the illustrations) but haven't read her other books. I'll look out for the diary. I was warned off Enid Blyton by a teacher who refused to stock her books in the school library and took the warning to heart!
Thank you. Blyton definitely seems to have been frowned on by many parents, teachers and critics. She's the author who got me and many other children reading though.
I haven’t looked at Uttley’s books for years, but as a child I both loved her books and HATED Blyton. As to the problems of the writing mother? That greatest of all children’s writers, Edith Nesbit gave us the portrait in The Railway Children.
The writing mother - quite a useful device to get a parent out of the way, so the children can have adventures! Certainly for the Railway Children. Also Ruby Ferguson's Jill books.
Yes. Ferguson’s is however almost entirely derivative I think. Her books are beguiling but her utter ignorance of horses is revealed in every page - unlike for instance the Pullien-Thomson books. But I suspect ‘Horray! A sensible editor! Buns for tea!’ is only too real.
I guess Nesbit was writing from life? Jill's horsey expertise, inaccurate or not, certainly beguiled 10 year old me.
I enjoyed them for sure. And she was a good writer. And she had good story lines. But. Look if you take Diana P-T’s first book, which she didn’t much like, I Wanted a Pony, the authenticity of her problems, the difficulty of training her pony to do quite a simple thing, the joy of getting there, then the ending, where she canters her pony down a verge, and knows she doesn’t want her dreams of a fancy horse half as much as she wants that moment? I’ve been there. I’ve lived that moment. And at 73 I still live it sometimes. There is something in the authenticity of experience that captures the heart, and Nesbit has that, and especially in The Railway Children.
That’s a lovely explanation. I never read the P-T sisters but I always thought the Jill books, at least the first, must be based on Joanna Cannan’s (their mother’s) book A Pony For Jean. I adored both but thought the Jill books far more realistic – Jean teaches herself to ride (while Jill struggles until she has lessons), and at one point scales a five bar fence while defeating a burglar! A Pony for Jean did have the most wonderful illustrations by Anne Bullen. (Just checked and Bullen also illustrated I Wanted A Pony. I feel a purchase coming on!)
To me - it’s THE pony book, in that it best describes what having a pony and not much dosh is actually like. What it’s like to feel despair and hope and … later I acquired a pony who started head shaking. I paused, thought, and remembered the solution. And it WAS the right solution. My current chap has the same problem.
I loved the writing of Alison Uttley, especially her essay collections and A Country Child, but was horrified when I read Judd's biography and confess it stopped me reading her. So, I read this with great heart and can begin to understand how she was misjudged. I feel I can now read the diaries!
I'm glad! She wasn't all sunshine and roses I'm sure, complex like most people, but not the monster of the biography.
Thanks for such an absorbing essay and I’m looking forward to part 2! It really reminds me of the entrenched view of Sylvia Plath over the years- that she was mad, inevitably drawn to death- and how Heather Clark’s biography dismantled the myths with her careful research. It does seem that Alison Uttley has been judged unfairly and it’s not the first time a woman writer has been dismissed in this way.
Thank you Ann. I'm going to write more soon about why the unfairness. I don't know much about Plath so interesting there might be parallels.
I remember reading the Judd biography years ago and being struck by the resemblance between Uttley and my own unhappy mother’s behaviour.
A friend remembers her from his childhood when they were neighbours. She was known as ‘that dreadful woman’ and his father would hide if he saw her approaching the house. So perhaps some kernel of truth in her reputation as a difficult woman?
How interesting! When was that? I do think she was spiky and difficult. But she's been completely monstered, with all kinds of dubious claims against her. The Judd biography didn't seem to me to have much appreciation of the sensibilities of the time, e.g. what it would have been like being a widow as a result of suicide in the 30s, and the shame/taboo around suicide and mental health. Critics and reviewers then just seem to have poured fuel on the fire.