Book description
The Colonel, owner of Follyfoot, the Home of Rest for Horses, has been
ill and has to go away to convalesce. Dora and Steve are left in charge,
with the strict instruction, 'Don't buy any horses'. But when Dora sees
the rangy, cream-coloured lame horse, Amigo, she is determined to save
him from spending his last days pulling a heavy log-cart - even if it
means borrowing money from sly Ron Stryker. But to pay Ron back, someone
from Follyfoot
must
win the Moonlight Pony Steeplechase . . .
Monica Dickens was a
great granddaughter of Charles Dickens and born in 1915, She was one
of the two or three best-selling woman's novelists of her generation.
She was educated at St Paul's Girls' School, but was expelled after
throwing her school uniform over Hammersmith Bridge. She joined a
drama school before being presented at Court in 1935.
During the war she worked as a nurse and in a Spitfire factory, and
began writing novels. Praise came with every book: JB Priestley wrote
'Monica Dickens gets better and better', AS Byatt argued that she was
much underestimated. John Betjeman declared that she was a novelist
'who has all the airs and graces a reader could wish for'.
Monica Dickens felt the challenge to write for children and began in
the 1970s. Her Follyfoot books were made into one of the most
successful TV series for children of the 1970s and remain a favourite
of horse-lovers everywhere.
Monica Dickens loved riding and she kept horses. She died in 1985
