Posted by Katharine Edgar on August 13, 2003 at 16:09:15 from 81.96.140.67 user Katharine.
In Reply to: Re: Is Commander (or Captain) Walker on leave or isn't he? posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on August 13, 2003 at 15:06:54:
Is there really no doubt that the Swallows are less well off than the Ds or the Amazons? It seems unresolvable to me: the Swallows' lack of a boat may have more to do with the prolonged absence of their father and the fact that they seem to move around a bit. There were, and still are, many good reasons for not buying a boat (as my own family keep on reminding me.....)
We don't know that they have only the father's salary to live on, either - Mrs Walker may have been a sheep farm heiress, who makes her own tents more out of rugged Aussie independence than because she can't afford to buy them! (Though come to think of it, I wonder if the Jacksons at Holly Howe would have given her a reduction for the time the 4 children were camping on the island instead of occupying their rooms?)
I'm not too convinced by the white lie hypothesis either - imagine the covering up that would have to go on later when Mrs Blackett asks what they did at Easter with their father....