Can My Pony Come Too

'It's always hot in Australia. And you can ride your horses to school and tie them up under a gumtree,' my mother told us with a knowing smile, as we stared at her in awe.

Gathered on a cold, misty morning in their Georgian mansion on the shores of Lough Derg in depressed 1950s' Ireland, with debts mounting, this seemed like a dream for the prominent Esmonde family, including the teller of this captivating memoir, then seven-year-old, Rosemary.

Hardship awaits down under, but Rosemary and her...