Cledwyn Hughes

This is an odd book:  it’s part of a small niche of books which attempted to combine a story with instruction, and I think it’s quite possibly one of the worst of the genre.  The story is bizarre - the man you find carrying a gun in your greenhouse is of course actually a kindly Professor, and that’s just the start.  The pony book the Bynner father is apparently writing is dry as dust.  The one small flicker of light on the horizon is that if all of the finished work is quoted in the book, it is blessedly short.  This author only wrote one pony book, as far as I’m aware.  

Finding the book: this is very easy to find both with and without dustjacket.

Ponies for Children
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962
Many thanks to Amanda Dolby for the picture.

“The Bynner family loved ponies, and Mr. Bynner was writing a book all about Ponies for Children, and this
was the centre of life at Stretton House.  That is, until the day when the strange old man holding a gun was found
in the greenhouse among the vines.  But although he carried a deadly looking revolver, the Professor turned
out to the the kindest and most humble of people.  He stayed on at Stretton House to meet Nandi and her
brother; the Vicarage Twins (who were also pony experts); and Rusk, the bearded T.V. Producer.  By the end
of the book they were all experts on ponies and knew all about buying and feeding, training and illnesses -

Indeed everything any boy and girl should or could know about ponies for children.”

Bibliography