Rumer Godden

Jane Badger Books

Rumer Godden

Rumer Godden (1909 - 1998) was born in Eastbourne, but was taken to India at the age of six months. She and her sister Jon were sent back to England to school, but their ways seemed wild and exotic to the other pupils, and they changed schools several times. Rumer Godden learned ballet, and established a dance school in Calcutta. There she had a fling with Laurence Sinclair Foster, and married him when she became pregnant. The baby died, and the marriage did not prosper. Rumer Godden and her two daughters retreated to Kashmir after Foster left them (and his debts) to join the army in 1941. Rumer Godden was by this time already a successful author, having published Black Narcissus, the book for which she is probably best known. She married again, to James Haynes Dixon, a more successful marriage that allowed her to write. She wrote novels for both children and adults, and her horse books fall into both camps.

I bought The Dark Horse, an adult novel, on a whim, intending to sell it in my next catalogue, but I picked it up and read it, and smartly removed it to my own shelves. Initially, the cover illustration made me wonder what on earth I was going to get, combining as it does several nuns, a racehorse and a backdrop of India. A horse book set in India is a very rare thing, but wherever it was set, this would still be an excellent read. Rumer Godden’s portraits of nuns are always sympathetic, and when they are surrounded by a cast of variously eccentric and determined characters, as well as a horse, the result is intensely readable. Rumer Godden also wrote two children’s books with an element of pony content: The Diddakoi and Mr McFadden’s Hallowe’en.

‘"There are several things children will not put up with in a book," she reflected. "You have to have a proper beginning and an end; you cannot have flashbacks. Then you can't have a lot of description: keep it to a minimum. And you must be very careful with words. I find I use fewer, and they have to fit the case exactly and be chosen with extreme care."’

She won the Whitbread Award in 1972 for The Diddakoi: KingsleyAmis described it as “the sort of book children had to fight for to get it from adults.” I have only recently read it myself, but I can see what he meant. Supper appeared very late the night I read it.

Many thanks to Susan Bourgeau, Hannah Fleetwood, Dawn Harrison and Lynne Goundry for all their help with the photographs.

Finding the books: Dark Horse is reasonably easy to find. The Diddakoi, Operation Sippacik and Mr McFadden’s Hallowe’en are very easy to find in paperback; a bit less so in hardback but certainly not impossible.

Sources and links
Obituary, Daily Telegraph, 14 November, 1998
The website of the Rumer Godden Literary Trust
Encylopaedia Britannica on Rumber Godden

Bibliography - pony books only

The Diddakoi

Macmillan, London, 1972, pp

Viking Press, New York, 1972

Puffin, 1975, reprinted 1976. 140 pp.

Macmillan, pb, 1994

The horse content in this if fairly minimal, but it is an excellent read. Kizzy lives with her
grandmother in their wagon in the Admiral’s orchard, but then her grandmother dies. What
happens to seven year old Kizzy is then up for grabs: her family don’t want her, and although
the Admiral takes her in, that’s not considered “suitable” by some. Kizzy is eventually taken
in by Miss Brooke, and then there begins a struggle for them both. Kizzy is horribly bullied
by the local girls, which does not help, but eventually she and the village come to understand
one another.

Mr McFadden’s Hallowe’en

Macmillan, London, 1975, 150 pp, illus Anne Strugnell

Viking Press, New York, 1975

Penguin, 1977, pb
Piper, London, 1991, 150pp. Pb.

"A novel about life on the Scottish Border that concerns an inheritance, a small pony named Haggis, a cantankerous
but kindly old man and an abandoned boy."

Operation Sippacik

Macmillan, London, 1969, 96pp. Illus Capt James Bryan

Viking, New York, 1969

As A Reader’s Digest Condensed Book, 1970

Corgi, pb, 1971

The Rocking Horse Secret

Macmillan, London, 1977, illus Juliet Stanwell Smith, 87 pp.

Puffin Books, 1979, pb, illus Juliet Stanwell Smith, 89 pp.

The Dark Horse

Macmillan, London, 1981, 202pp (left)

Viking, New York, 1982, cover Eugene Schongut (right)
Chivers, 1982 - large print

Methuen, pb, 1983

Dark Invader is an English race horse. He is bought by a spoiled owner who loses interest
in the horse after he does badly following his initial success. The horse is put up for sale,
and is bought by a wealthy businessman living in India. There, the horse meets with far better
luck: his new owner has the foresight to employ Dark Invader’s groom; the person who truly
understood him, and he is placed with a trainer who is prepared to tread the unorthodox path.
In the same neighbourhood is a convent, who work constantly to provide for the city’s poor.
Central to their efforts is their aged but valiant horse, Solomon, who works every night with the
sisters, collecting the food they are donated. As Dark Invader’s star rises, his groom, Ted’s, seems as if it will wane, and after Solomon dies, Dark Invader’s future and the Convent’s become inextricably linked.