Posted by Robert Hill on November 28, 1997 at 18:37:25:
In Reply to: Re: Water on the carbide in detail posted by G. Andrews on November 24, 1997 at 02:59:30:
Hello, folks. I have been a Ransome fan for almost 40 years, since
I was only marginally older than Roger is at the time of S&A.
I discovered TARboard a month ago, though I am not a member of TARS.
Gareth Andrews points out that Dick seems to know less in "The Picts
and the Martyrs" than he knew a year earlier, and asks for other such
anomalies. Some which spring to mind are:
1) Somewhere in S&A, probably when the S's and A's sign their alliance,
the date is given as August 1929. It is abundantly clear from many
references that Swallowdale is set (slightly less than) a year
later, yet on Kanchenjunga the date is given as August 1931, and
a footnote somewher in the book refers to a 1931 reprint of
Captain Flint's book.
2) Roger is between 4 and 5 years older than Bridget. In Winter
Holiday he is still not old enough to use matches. Yet about 7
months later in Secret Water, she is using them. Hugh Brogan
comments that in that book she behaves as if she was about 7,
in which case she has aged 4 years in 2 years.
3) Peggy is introduced as being about as big as John and it seems to
be suggested that she is about John's age, yet in Winter Holiday
the impression is given that she's younger than Susan.
Of course it could be that she is big for her age (though in
The Picts and the Martyrs her feet are no bigger than Dorothea's).
4) In one of the books (alas I forget which) the D's are twins:
a phrase like "Dorothea, the older by an hour" is used.
This idea could not have been present in Coot Club, where
"the twins" is constantly used to mean Port and Starboard.
5) In Winter Holiday Dick is not much older than Roger, so in
tP&tM (when Roger would be 10) Dick can't be more than about 12.
Yet he has done qualitative analysis in chemistry at school,
for which I would have thought he would have to be much older.
6) In tP&tM, Dorothea knows that Susan always butters bread before
cutting it from the loaf, but in one of the earlier books
Susan is described doing the opposite.
7) In Swallowdale, the Blacketts have more than one servant, and
a parlourmaid (or some such) is described as dancing a jig
(or something) when the Great Aunt leaves. In tP&tM (set 2 years
later but written after a much larger margin, and after social
change, and when readers were undergoing wartime privations),
only the Cook is employed at Beckfoot; fair enough that in the
circumstances Ransome should tone down the Blacketts' social
or financial position a little. But Nancy tells Cook that it was
she (Cook) who danced the jig.