How it all happened

In 1936 Katharine Hull (1921-1977) and Pamela Whitlock (1920-1982) met at boarding school whilst sheltering from a thunderstorm. They discovered their shared interest in ponies and the moors and decided to write a story together using the works of Arthur Ransome as a model. The girls, then aged 14 and 15, kept their project a secret from everyone and vowed 'to cut off all our hair if the book was not finished' by the time they took their Higher Certificate in July of 1937.

They worked together in a very methodical way; working out the entire plot and becoming familiar with the characters before they begun to write. During the winter term they worked on alternate chapters and then swapped them over to edit. By the Easter term they had completed their story ‘by children, about children, for children’.

Katherine and Pamela also wrote "Escape to Persia" in 1938 and "Oxus in summer" in 1939 and "Crowns" (which was not one of the Oxus series) in 1947. Pamela continued to write throughout her life and married John Bell who was a literary editor for the Oxford University Press.

The books sold well and were reprinted from time-to-time, most recently being reissued by Fidra Books.