Posted by Ed Kiser on March 06, 2006 at 00:15:03 from 205.188.117.66 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Re: CC w/o a map posted by Laurence Monkhouse on March 05, 2006 at 13:33:20:
It was back in '83 when I had the opportunity to be in London at company expense. Not much time to "do" the town, but did get a few hours to walk about the Tower of London. Standing there on the bank of the Thames near the Tower, very near some sort of Egyptian ancient monument, I was looking into the water by my feet and seeing a few fish swimming by just under the surface. I commented on this sighting to a chap also standing there nearby. He observed that we could not be seeing such a few years back, but saw this was a good sign of the river's recovery from pollution. In the past ages, that river has certainly been the repository of all too much filth, but those were the signs of the times. There was progress being made, and there is yet more to be done - in many places all over the world, for us to learn from the expensive and tragic lessons of the past.
I wonder just how proper it would be for someone today to do as the Swallows did on WCI, to dip the kettle into the lake as a source of drinking water. At least, they did boil it first. But even then, I fear they may not have allowed it to boil the proper length of time to ensure the demise of the baddies in that water, but probably just got it to boil, and then immediately used it to make tea.
Nothing like dipping a kettle into a splashing running beck, then the next day, to discover the remains of a dead sheep some hundred feet upstream of the dipping point. Boiling does not sound all that sufficient any more.
Perhaps this drinking of the lake water is just another example of the way things have changed since those early days of Ransome. The amazing thing about all this is to have lived long enough to have actually experienced and noticed these changes.
Just think where a few cell phones scattered among our Ransome characters would have altered the plot. But they were modern enough to understand the fading of the torch as the batteries wore down, or to notice an even older technology, how the lantern went out after the oil was gone, maybe spilled in the upsetting of the sledge in the storm.
At least, their level of technology let them have matches to help in starting fires.
And today, who still understands and uses Morse code? The telegram is now gone into the mists of time and fading memories.
The reading of Ransome give us a look into another place, and at another time, at a different set of customs, and modes of speech.
How many times have I wished I could have been with them.
And in a way, I have that chance, every time I pick up one of those delightful tales of my childhood friends and and am taken back to be with them, once again, and still young, once more.
I wish my children had accepted my invitation to be a part of all that wonder.
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Totally unrelated side note of more personal import: 2006, March 3, 8:45PM, I became a great-grandfather for the first time. Crystal India Johnson. Perhaps there is yet a chance for the new generation to come to know of my childhood friends as well. It is the miracle of new life, of fresh opportunities, of reaching unknown horizons.
Ed Kiser, South Florida