AR's boyhood at Windermere (was Flag at Beckfoot)


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Posted by Jock on February 13, 2006 at 00:09:11 from 87.105.81.146 user Jock.

In Reply to: Re: Flag at Beckfoot posted by Andy Clayton on February 11, 2006 at 17:48:23:

I seem to remember from when I read 'Brogan' that there was a severe winter in about 1896, when AR was a boy.

There was, and the headmaster interupted academic activities and took his pupils skating every day. I know this will be read as still yet more heresy, but there seems to be quite a lot of the schoolboy Arthur's Bowness-on-Windermere geography imbedded in the fictional Lake. Arthur was not very happy at boarding school and used to trail behind his schoolmates when out on class expeditions. I think that his imagination must have been working overtime during those walks.

Superimpose the map of the Lake on a large scale Ordnance Survey map and visit the book locations near 'Rio'. Bear in mind that 'Rio' has grown somewhat since AR's schooldays, and try to avoid the holiday crowds. You find a nice farmhouse where Holly Howe is supposed to be, with a meadow sloping down to a minature Darien at Cockshott Point, with tantalising glimpses of Rampholm.

'More of senile Jock's ramblings.' I hear the cry, 'What's this got to do with flagpoles and the location of the North Pole?' Well, when I first visited the Windermere Steamboat Museum they were exhibiting an enlarged Victorian photograph of Bowness Bay with a summerhouse that was a deadringer for 'The North Pole' at grid ref. SD399 971. Certainly, not the right place as per the fictional Lake, but quite possibly 'The Furthest North' that the boys were allowed to skate when out with the school.

For those Tarboarders without a large scale Ordnance Survey map of Windermere try the link below and keep clicking the map where Windermere should be. 'You're not sure where Windermere should be?'. Oh, all right then! Find the Isle of Man (the big island between Ireland and England) and click just a little bit to the right.



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