You were born in 1937 and had a glorious childhood in the Yorkshire countryside, later moving to England’s south. How did it shape you as a writer?
Jilly: There were always writers in the family. My grandmother was a vicar’s wife, but she used to read novels the whole time: Jane Austen and the like.
As soon as anybody came into the room she would pretend to be mending and sewing, and then go back to her book when they left. I also had a relation who edited a newspaper and my aunt Gwen used to write poems. She wrote one called I Have Raped the Chambers of Knowledge, and I remember her sending it to me. My mother was horrified; she rang Gwen and said, “You’re not to send Jilly poems like that!”
Where did your passion for horses come from?
Just after the war I was mad about horses. I went to a riding school where we lived, and then we went to stay in Cornwall [on England’s south-west coast] where there was a lovely pony called Rufus. I persuaded my father to buy Rufus for me, and so I went back home and Rufus arrived. I said to all my friends at school, “Come and see my pony, Rufus, and how wonderful he is.” I went into the field and Rufus promptly bit me three times. He hadn’t been gelded. He was a stallion. He was absolutely vicious. Rufus was sold, and I got a pony called Willow,
