Posted by Alan Hakim on March 10, 2004 at 18:53:44 from 212.137.171.238 user awhakim.
In Reply to: Plea from a duffer... posted by John Turnbull on March 10, 2004 at 17:18:09:
There has been endless discussion, even argument, in TARS about who were the originals of the Amazons, Ds and Coots. But Susie (not Susan) was one of the Altounyans, and was in fact the last of the original Swallows to die, quite recently. She had married and lived in France since the 1940s, and unlike the other girls, took no active part in TARS, with a notable exception.
When Jill Goulder and I went to Turkey in 1994 to look for the Altounyans' summer house and the lake where they sailed, and AR fished when he visited them, the family got very excited at our plans. Susie dug out her family snapshots of 1930 and sent them to me, so that we could compare them with the views on the ground when we got there. And indeed they were instantly recognisable, even by the local inhabitants, who confirmed the area had been in Syria in those days. I spoke to Susie on the phone before and after our expedition, but never actually met her.
You don't mention Bridget (Brigit) who was of course the President of TARS for its first ten years.