Timeless Fun Wilful Ponies And Tiny Heroines

Thelwell’s iconic cartoons remain as popular as ever. Martha Terry investigates the inspiration for his recalcitrant ponies, and why they stand the test of time

THE choice of a Thelwell cartoon for Horse & Hound’s advent calendar cover this week is bound to bring a smile to both young and old. I’d defy even the non-horsey other halves not to chuckle at the hilarity of the scene, as a gang of (very well turned-out) mini tyrants mounted on hairy natives hunt down Father Christmas with pop-guns, stirrups akimbo and tiny bottoms in mid-air.

And the rural experts can marvel at the brilliant rendering of this bucolic setting, with the variety of tree species and the undulating hunting country stretching invitingly ahead. It’s slapstick fun, yet so real that you feel you could gallop into that snow and race Santa’s sleigh down the track into the yonder. It’s no ordinary cartoon. As Lucinda Green says: “Thelwell is the best — no one else has ever cartooned the randomly hysterical side of things when ponies go wrong quite as well as he.”

Nearly 70 years after Norman Thelwell’s first pony cartoon was published, his work is as popular as ever. Very rarely does a cartoonist’s appeal continue beyond his lifetime, because they satirise a moment in time or a political agenda. So what is it about these funny little ponies that still captures our imagination?

CHARLES SAINSBURY-PLAICE has been a Thelwell fan since the days of his childhood New Forest pony, Jenny. He used to relish his Christmas stocking inevitably containing a Thelwell annual, “which provided hours of amusement and happiness”.

He now runs CSP Countryside Greetings, which sells products featuring Thelwell images to rural and equestrian retail outlets all over the world. Charles has noticed “a huge resurgence in demand for Thelwell products”.