Cumming's writing career spanned over 30 years, and produced some fine examples of the pony book genre, combining accurate observation of human and equine with a certain wry humour.
In her most sought-after title Silver Snaffles, Tattles is brilliantly observed: by turns tetchy and patient, he is the archetypal family pony who has long-sufferingly taught generations of children to ride; in contrast, Smug, the evil pony in Silver Eagle Carries On has a mind strictly her own: “Smug, of course, had no intention of jumping anything, but she held upon the right course until the last second, when she adroitly stepped to one side.”[1] Cumming was equally good at human characters: the Silver Eagle Riding School series has Josephine, the brilliant, but irritating middle sister, alternately a torment and an inspiration to her elder sister Mary.
[1] Cumming was the youngest of a family of two girls and a boy, and was born on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, in 1915 during the First World War.
She said: "I found it tremendously exciting writing about the country things I knew, and being paid for it – even if I did collect piles of rejection slips, too!
To feed Black Jack, I wrote more books about country life, drawing on my own knowledge and experience.
After parting company with J. M. Dent in the late 1960s, Primrose Cumming carried on writing for D. C. Thomson & Co., the magazine publishers, on many subjects and also contributed short stories to several editions of The Pony Club Annual.