Posted by John Wilson on March 19, 2004 at 11:44:54 from 202.154.157.202 user hugo.
In Reply to: The ages of the Swallows and Amazons posted by Laurence Monkhouse on March 19, 2004 at 07:24:31:
Bill Wright’s guide & chronology has SA in 1930, and WD in 1932 (along with PP, SW & BS) or two years later. So the “tall wireless masts at Bawdsley” that they saw at the end of WD, actually the new Radar Masts (erected 1936) were anachronisms! The book was released (for the Christmas market) in 1937 (November, from the dates of the reviews), so AR must have written WD in 1936 when the masts had just gone up and may have been in the news.
John is put off appealing for help in WD by Jim Brading’s story of how Ellwright lost his yacht to “longshore sharks” in Chapters V (& IV) of WD. Jim had said “Never take help”.
AR must have heard stories of sharks and wreckers, as he also mentions
the Yarmouth Wreckers in CC Chapter 18 (Through Yarmouth):
A man on the bank offered to take them through Yarmouth or make them fast, but both Tom and the Admiral had heard of the “Yarmouth Wreckers”. When they refused he rejoined three other men to play cards and “wait for an easier victim”.
PS: and from AR’s experiences of boatbuilders, Captain Flint’s joke that Nancy tells in PM about Noah: he was the only boat-builder to finish on time, because he knew that he would be drowned if he didn’t.