Pat Smythe

Pat Smythe wrote two pony book series: the Three Jays and the Adventure series. The Three Jays series is one of the most visually attractive of pony book series. All the hardbacks have dustjackets by J E McConnell, and it’s these which seem to be remembered more fondly than the stories, despite the inaccuracy of the horses’ portrayal in the early books. J E McConnell did get better at drawing horses as the series progressed. The trio on Three Jays Against the Clock are dire, with spectacularly awkward heads, but three books later, the cover of Three Jays Over the Border is almost unrecognisable, with a well-drawn horse set against the backgrounds he did so well. J E McConnell was obviously a confident artist: Three Jays Go to Rome has no pony on the front at all - and I can’t, at the moment, think of another pony book where this is the case.

The Three Jays themselves were wildly contrasting characters: the spoilt Jacqueline, and brother and sister Jane and Jimmy. They are at boarding school, but stay with Pat during the holidays. The Three Jays uses the slightly odd literary device of having a trio of fictional children in a story told by the author using herself and her own horses and stables as background. (This device was later used by Marion Coakes in Sue-Elaine Draws a Horse - not a wild success). The parts of the books where Pat Smythe is writing about her own horses are the best: and she is a better writer than her children’s books would suggest. Her non-fiction books are remembered fondly: she writes vividly about her horses. The Three Jays and Adventure books were not amongst the most popular of pony books. Armada only printed the Three Jays series once in paperback in the 1960s, which suggests this lack of enthusiasm was shared by readers.

Patricia Rosemary Smythe was born on 22nd November 1928, and died on 27th February 1996. Equestrianism is perhaps unique in allowing women to compete on equal terms with men, but it was not always so and Pat Smythe (and Brigitte Schockaert of Belgium) were the first two women to ride in Olympic showjumping events at the 1956 Stockholm Olympics. She won a bronze medal, and was one of Britain’s most successful showjumpers in the 1950s and 1960s, with horses like Tosca, Flanagan and Prince Hal.

She married the Swiss Sam Koechlin and moved to Switzerland, returning to England when he died. She died of heart disease at the age of 67.

Sources: Wikipedia,
Many thanks to Dawn Harrison for the postcards and plate of Pat Smythe which illustrate this section.