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‘It was sunny, in the cool, golden way, as on the other days. The trees and hedges, and the grassy line of a hilly field stood out clearly in the pure light, and yet it was impossible to see for a very great distance. A lilac mist hung all round and rose up to meet the sky, where it turned rosy and then gradually melted into the golden rays’ (Silver Snaffles, 59).

Amy Primrose (Peggie) Cumming, author of pony stories for children, was born on the 7 April 1915 at Minster on the Isle of Thanet.¹ She was the third child of Arthur Sommerville Cumming, a retired tea planter, and Emily Christin Heath. Primrose’s grandfather was a tea broker and the family had links with the Assam tea gardens in N.E. India.

Primrose’s older siblings Richard and Violet were both born in the Cranbrook district, so Amy’s birth in Thanet may have been linked to a visit to Arthur’s brother Claude and his family, who were living at Cleeve Court, Minster. Cleeve Court had been the home of Baroness Emma Orczy, the author of the Scarlet Pimpernel stories between 1908-1911, and was later owned by Lord Edward Carson who defended the Marquess of Queensbury against Oscar Wilde’s action for libel.

Primrose grew up in Sandhurst, near Cranbrook on the Kent and Sussex border, where she was privately educated at home with her sister Violet. On recognising her talent for writing stories, her governess encouraged her to write for publication, and her first story was published in Nursery World. As well as writing, which she did in bed, Primrose loved fishing on the River Rother and recalls that she was once nearly pulled in by a large eel.²

Cumming’s first book Doney was published when she was 17 and is about a horse and his mistress Janet.³ The novel is set in the “The Borderland” where Kent and Sussex meet, in the villages of Bodiam, Sandhurst, Salehurst, Cranbrook and Northiam. It included an introduction by Sheila Kaye-Smith, who lived in nearby Northiam, and whose own novel Shepherds in Sackcloth had been set around Sandhurst in the imaginary village of Delmonden. In an article in Country Life Cummings described herself as:

so keen on riding at this time, that I used to steal out early in the morning and ride the farmers’ horses in the fields. Then I wrote a book about my friend’s pony, Doney, and sold it. With the money, I bought Black Jack – who was rather too spirited for a beginner. When I took him hunting, he broke his bridle and off I came – in front of the whole field. At last we got on better terms and we both made our names by jumping everything in his path. To feed Black Jack, I wrote more books about country life, drawing on my own knowledge and experience. I had several published by the time I was 21.⁴

Cumming’s most famous novel, Silver Snaffles was published in 1937. American poet and children’s author, Maxine Kumin described it as set “in a sunlit world where articulate ponies with good English country-squire manners and highly individual personalities give lessons in equitation and stable management to some eager, horseless youngsters.”⁵

Cumming’s stories were often based on her own experiences including foxhunting with the Romney Marsh Foxhounds.⁶ In Silver Snaffles, a talking fox, congratulates the hunt for “an excellent day” in which : “the hounds hunted beautifully, thanks to the Huntsman and Whip, and that both ponies and riders surpassed themselves in getting over country as they have done.”⁷

In 1938, Cumming’s father died. It was during this year that her book The Silver Eagle Riding School was published. In the story three sisters open a riding school after the death of their father in order to support themselves and to prevent the sale of their horses.

Primrose and her sister Violet continued to live with their widowed mother at Wynberg on Back Road, Sandhurst.

In the Spring of 1939, her novel Rachel of Romney was published. It was about a lamb who was found on the marshes by David and Alice Warren, the children of an unsuccessful chicken farmer. With the help of the lamb, the children find Roman treasure which helps to save the family’s fortunes. Cumming’s inspiration may have come from her own failed attempts to keep chickens at the age of 12.⁸

During the second world war, Cumming spent a year working on a farm, an experience which she fictionalised in Owl’s Castle Farm. In the book her character Sheela reflects on the black out: “It was one of the things by which she would most remember the war, Sheelah thought: this passing from a still fairly light world with blackbirds chattering up and down the hedges into night-time with curtains drawn and lamps lit as if it were quite dark beyond the windows.” Owl’s Castle Farm was at Lamberhurst, 10 miles from Sandhurst. On the 15 October 1940, a Messerschmitt 110 crashed on the farm in a field of sheep whilst Cumming was looking after them. Cumming fictionalised this incident in her book. Cumming’s sister Violet also undertook war work.⁹

Cumming’s novel Silver Eagle Carries On, published in 1940 continues the story of the Chantry sisters and the Silver Eagle riding school. Set during the war, the Chantry sisters face challenges as their horses are nearly requisitioned for war purposes, petrol rationing creates a demand for ponies to pull carts, and one of the sisters goes off to do war work.¹⁰ Cumming’s brother Richard, a garage proprietor, lived at nearby at Clematis Cottage with his wife Marjorie and may have inspired the petrol rationing plot line.¹¹

Cumming joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service and served for the rest of the war in an anti-aircraft battery. Between air-raids, she wrote The Great Horses.¹²

In the 1940s, the schools radio service featured Scenes from “Ben” in their ‘English for Under nines’ programme. It was a story about a cart horse which was arranged for broadcasting by Jean Sutcliffe, who later published stories from the popular Listen with Mother radio series.¹³

Cumming’s 1951 book Four Rode Home is the story of four friends who decide to ride from the New Forest back home to Kent and who meet with many adventures on the way. Her stories were often based on her own experiences, including her riding tours along the Pilgrim’s Way and in the New Forest.¹⁴

In her book Flying Horseman, published in 1959, Morgan Knight, who contracts polio, goes to stay with “a horse mad family on a fruit farm”. The airfield in the book is named Broadfield Airfield and was modelled on Lydd Ferryfield. Cumming wrote of the “homely but not ungraceful freighters with gay markings on their silver skins”.¹⁵

For over 20 years, Cumming was the honorary secretary and judge of the annual Sandhurst horse shows and Gymkhanas. Not only this, but she enjoyed gardening, entering both local and national flower competitions. She won prizes for her long carrots, shallots, peas and roses.¹⁶ In 1953 she organised a plant sale which raised £16 for the International League for the Protection of Horses.¹⁷

An active member of the community, Cumming ran the village library along with three other helpers. The library opened for an hour twice a week at the Old School and had over 500 books and 100 members. In 1975 Cumming complained to the Kent and Sussex Courier about Kent County Council proposals to replace the volunteer run village library with a mobile van service. Cumming also gave talks to the Women’s Institute on the history of Sandhurst and the Romance of Gardens.¹⁸

Cumming published 20 books and wrote numerous short stories for children’s annuals including a series about ballet.¹⁹ According to Alison Haymonds, pony stories follow the narrative convention of “the transformation of gauche girls and neglected ponies” but Cumming “experimented more than most with the genre” writing about working horses as well as ponies.²⁰

Primrose Cumming died in 2004. Her funeral took place at St. Nicholas Church, Sandhurst, on Monday 6th September 2004.

Other Kent writers of tales about horses and ponies include Marion Stapylton Pares (pseud. Judith Campbell), author of Family Pony and Gillian Baxter who wrote Horses and Heather.

This article was published: 9 March 2025. Illustrations from the Westerham Hill Horse Show of 1926 have been used to add colour to the piece, but these are not linked to Primrose Cumming.

References