Five Proud Riders

Some books swagger into your life with Nobel Prizes, embossed dust jackets and the faint smell of inherited money. Others arrive slightly foxed, proudly unfashionable, and carrying the unmistakable atmosphere of a church jumble sale held during a thunderstorm. Five Proud Riders belongs very much to the second category, which is precisely why it is wonderful.

Published in 1953 by Puffin, back when children’s books assumed that young readers could cope perfectly well with danger, mud, horses, emotional resilience and occasional mild peril without requiring a safeguarding officer, Ann Stafford’s Five Proud Riders gallops along with the cheerful confidence of an era when a picnic, a pony and a badly judged shortcut across the moors could sustain an entire summer holiday narrative. Modern children’s fiction tends to involve dystopian governments or dragons trained in mindfulness. Here, the excitement is more refreshingly traditional: riding, rivalry, determination, and the ever-present possibility of somebody saying “I say!” while staring anxiously at gathering clouds.

The title itself sounds magnificently overcommitted. Not one proud rider. Not even three. Five. A complete cavalry of upright youthful determination. One imagines windswept hills, clipped dialogue, scraped knees and at least one highly-strung pony with more personality than several modern literary protagonists. These were the years when books encouraged children to disappear outdoors for ten hours with only a sandwich and a vague promise to be back before dark. Consequently, there is an appealing toughness to stories like this — nobody pauses for therapeutic reflection; they simply tighten the girth and continue onward.

As a Puffin edition, the book also carries that glorious mid-century paperback charm: practical, slightly austere, designed for actual reading rather than decorative shelving. Puffins from this period have the wonderful feeling that they survived generations of school satchels, damp caravan holidays and enthusiastic readers armed with sticky fingers and alarming optimism. They were books intended to be loved to death, and many nearly were.

This particular copy is in good condition, which in Crappy Old Books terminology means it has survived the better part of three-quarters of a century without being converted into compost, a wasp nest or a support for a wobbly table leg. That alone deserves recognition. There is something deeply comforting about these old Puffins still existing at all — relics from a Britain of steam trains, sensible cardigans and unquestioned confidence in the moral value of pony-related adventures.

Whether you collect vintage children’s books, adore horse stories, or simply enjoy owning paperbacks that look like they’ve witnessed several constitutional crises and at least one camping disaster, Five Proud Riders offers exactly the sort of sturdy nostalgic pleasure that modern publishing struggles to manufacture. It is earnest, adventurous, faintly chaotic and utterly sincere — which, frankly, makes it rather heroic.

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