Posted by Robert Hill on December 02, 1997 at 10:08:27:
In Reply to: Inconsistencies (Was: Water on the carbide) posted by Robert Hill on November 28, 1997 at 18:37:25:
When I said that Roger is between 4 and 5 years older than Bridget, I
should of course have said between 5 and 6 years. Bridget's birthday
in S&A is her second and not, as I was imagining at the time, her third.
This correction strengthens the inconsistency of her apparent advanced
age in Secret Water.
It also draws attention to a minor inconsistency in Swallowdale, which
is set the year after S&A but not so late in the summer. Bridget's
third birthday should occur either towards the end of Swallowdale or
after the end of the book, but already on the first day of the
narrative (towards the end of chapter 2) we are told that she is 3.
(Her tendency of ageing at more than the usual rate of 1 year per year
was established early!)
It is also, if not exactly an inconsistency, then very nearly one,
that after being led in S&A to believe that her real name is Victoria
(as in the icing on her cake), we find in Swallowdale that it was
Bridget all along.
Not an inconsistency but something which always struck me as
unbelievable is that the Swallows don't know whose birthday it is!
Was there ever a period or a section of society in which this could
have been plausible?