Posted by PeterH on June 04, 2006 at 09:07:59 from 86.130.138.74 user Peter_H.
In Swallowdale I notice from the illustrations that Susan and Titty are wearing frocks all the time, whereas the Amazons wear what we would call ‘shorts’. It strikes me that frocks are surely inappropriate clothing for children exploring, camping, scrambling etc. Look at the illustration ‘Watch Tower Rock’ in Ch XVI – Titty is helping Roger ascend or descend from the Rock, but how did Titty manage to climb up in that skirt? The skirt widths seem to vary a bit – in the picture ‘Roger fell on it’ in Ch XV Titty’s skirt seems wider, and here she seems to be wearing a belt. In ‘Candle-Grease Aunt’ in Ch XVIII, it almost looks as if Titty is wearing a separate top and skirt – there’s no belt but the skirt appears to be ‘tucked in’. Susan is dressed identically – see ‘Hi! Hi! Stop him!’ in Ch XXI, but note also that Titty’s skirt is here flared out – how did it keep its shape? What happened when Susan washed everyone’s clothes after the shipwreck – how did the skirts retain their shape? What are the frocks made of? How did the girls cope with getting frocks dirty?
Oddest of all is the Swallows’ reaction when they saw the Amazons in the carriage with the G.A. – they expressed horror at the sight of the Amazons wearing frocks. But isn’t that exactly what the female Swallows were wearing?
(BTW – with regard to the carriage and the recent discussion, I now recall that in fact AR borrowed the image of the carriage (a ‘victoria’) from the real-life carriage used by Emma Holt, of Tent Lodge, the visual model for the G.A. Miss Holt’s victoria was presumably kept at Tent Lodge, which Pauline Marshall suggests might be a candidate for ‘Beckfoot’ (it had a robust trellis up one wall) but crikey I don’t want to get mixed up in all that . . .)