The Nipper’s been sold for a pit pony!’ Losing both his job and his home when the small farm he lives on is sold, fifteen-year-old Sandy is horrified when his much-loved young pony, the Nipper, is sold as a pit pony, destined to spend the rest of his life hauling coal underground, unlikely ever to see daylight or have fresh grass again. Desperate to share his pony’s misfortunes, Sandy impulsively follows him down into the mines – into a world of back breaking labour amidst squalid conditions. But trouble is brewing and as the miners’ talk turns to strikes and violence threatens, Sandy finds himself caught up in a dangerous race against time – a race in which he is to need every ounce of the courage and strength that his gallant-hearted pony, The Nipper, can give… The Nipper is a gripping tale of loyalty and determination, set against the harsh background of life in a north-eastern mining area in the early 1800s.
Author
Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, who Catherine believed was her older sister. Catherine began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married Tom Cookson, a local grammar-school master. Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer - her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 - her readership quickly spread throughout the world, and her many best-selling novels established her as one of the most popular contemporary woman novelist. She received an OBE in 1985, was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1993, and was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1997. For many years she lived near Newcastle upon Tyne.
