Pop promised to hold a horse race in his own field

Pop’s offer to host the Pony Gymkhana on the meadow at Larkin farm rescues an event that has lost both its organizer and its field. What begins as a committee emergency becomes, in Pop’s hands, a chance to give Mariette one more opportunity to ride before the baby arrives, welcome the community into the family’s rural world, and add his own unconventional amusements to the day.

The crisis and Pop’s offer

The Brigadier tells Pop that Fortescue has quarrelled with the committee and withdrawn from the field. The withdrawal is literal as well as figurative: Fortescue has also taken away the field that was to host the Gymkhana. With the event only a fortnight away, the committee has no venue. Pop immediately understands the practical problem and offers his meadow. When the Brigadier hesitates, careful not to rush him, Pop treats the decision as already made: the meadow is there, and all that needs doing is to cut the grass that week.

Pop’s readiness is more than casual hospitality. The Gymkhana may be Mariette’s last chance to ride in the jumping events before she has her baby; she loves jumping and has her heart set on horses. The threatened cancellation therefore carries a personal cost alongside the committee’s logistical crisis. By offering the meadow, Pop makes a communal resource of his land and keeps open an occasion that matters particularly to his daughter.

The Brigadier is deeply moved and repeatedly expresses his eternal gratitude, addressing Pop as a stout fellow and speaking of the committee’s debt to him. The exchange balances Pop’s brisk refusal to make a ceremony of the offer against the Brigadier’s awareness of how much the rescue means. The meadow is not simply available space: lending it gives the Gymkhana a future and the committee a way to proceed.

From meadow to gathering

Pop’s vision for the grounds is expansive but practical. On the afternoon before the event, he sits with the family and the Brigadier beneath a walnut tree, looking out over the meadow’s buttercups and hoping the Gymkhana will be as perfect as the peaceful scene around them. He offers to provide fireworks, imagining that they will make the occasion go with a bang. The offer shows his instinct to turn the event into a spectacle, not merely supply the committee with a field.

The committee declines the fireworks, concerned that some ponies might still be leaving when they went off and could be distressed. Pop accepts the reason but does not abandon his appetite for a joke; he privately holds on to the idea of one firework for Miss Pilchester. The episode sets a limit on his showmanship: the committee’s responsibility for the animals outweighs the amusement he hopes to create, even as he looks for another way to enliven the day.

With fireworks ruled out, Pop and Ma decide that a cocktail party can provide a substitute attraction. Ma wants it to be selective, with no more than thirty guests, mainly committee members and their families, along with people they regard as suitable company, including the Brigadier. Neither she nor Pop knows what food a cocktail party should offer, so they consult Mr Charlton, who proposes canapés, vol-au-vents and pistachios. Pop’s first thought of adding a leg of pork is rejected, making the preparation a comic negotiation between unfamiliar etiquette and his hearty instincts.

The drinks bring out a sharper contrast. Pop wants to serve strong Rolls-Royces and two new mixtures from The Guide to Better Drinking, Red Bull and Ma Chérie; Mr Charlton recommends keeping to sherry, port and gin-and-French. Pop finds that advice dull, but champagne wins immediate approval from Ma and Mariette. He agrees to serve it and adds the other drinks as reserves. The party is thus not an incidental detail: it is the replacement entertainment Pop and Ma devise after the committee refuses his fireworks, and a further expression of their wish to make the Gymkhana their own.

The day of the Gymkhana

The event begins early. On the humid, overcast morning, with low mist on the river, Mr Charlton is up at half past four. Pop has already been working for an hour, feeding swill to the pigs and fodder to the Jersey cow, before eating bread and Cheddar cheese with a thick covering of tomato ketchup. He hopes the weather will clear by noon. The scene places preparations for a public event inside the ordinary work of the farm: the Gymkhana does not replace the household’s daily labour but is built around it.

At breakfast Pop is pleased by Mr Charlton’s appetite and his willingness to rise early. He asks him and Mariette to feed and water the donkeys, because there are forty thousand other jobs to do and Miss Pilchester is expected by six. Mariette and Mr Charlton take on the task, while Pop watches Mr Charlton eat another slice of bread and butter with admiration. His growing estimate of his future son-in-law is registered through the practical details of farm life: getting up on time, helping with the animals and eating well.

These are not the household’s usual donkeys but four animals Pop has obtained for racing. He thinks a conventional Gymkhana, with its familiar rounds of trotting, riding, leading rein, jumping, bending and walk, trot, canter and run, can be rather dull. The donkeys are his attempt to add variety. His private jokes, including the idea of a firework beneath Miss Pilchester, belong to the same comic impulse, although the committee’s objection prevents him from carrying out the fireworks plan as intended.

What the arrangement reveals

The episode brings Pop’s generosity and irreverence together. His land solves the committee’s immediate problem, and his motive includes Mariette’s chance to ride before the baby comes. Yet he does not treat hosting as a solemn duty. He wants the event to be lively, supplements its established programme with donkey racing, and proposes fireworks before accepting the committee’s concern for the ponies. His hospitality is active and inventive, shaped by the same appetite for making things happen that governs his family life.

The Gymkhana also draws the household and its guests into shared work. Mr Charlton, still on sick leave, helps Mariette with the donkeys; Pop measures his improving health and character by his appetite and willingness to lend a hand. The formal committee depends on Pop’s meadow, while the event itself depends on the practical cooperation of the family and their farm. That overlap gives the gathering its distinctive character: a community occasion made possible by land, labour and hospitality rather than by committee arrangements alone.

The episode’s final preparations extend beyond the Gymkhana itself. The cocktail party, carefully limited by Ma to a select gathering, and the debate over champagne and Pop’s stronger mixtures show the family translating a public sporting occasion into its own social celebration. Pop’s offer changes a threatened cancellation into a day with a venue, races and an after-event gathering. His meadow becomes the hinge between committee business and the unruly, welcoming world of Larkin farm.