Posted by PeterH on September 14, 2006 at 14:46:37 from 86.130.137.139 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Beckfoot Hot Water System posted by andyb on September 14, 2006 at 13:54:18:
certain ghastly fascination in the hold it [plumbing that is both fictional and extinct] has on some people
Andy - you don't appear all that often, but when you do post something, it stays posted! Yep, you're right - I'm a-starting to believe that one of the personal characteristics of Tarboarders is the tendency to skate round a topic. Why is plumbing mentioned so often? Could it be perhaps, that we are all secretly obsessed with the Ransome non-lavatorial phenomenon, and that the Beckfoot bathroom is the nearest we dare get to this? Isn't the real topic here - how did they 'manage' on Wild Cat Island, and more to the point, how did they 'manage' at Camp Might-Have-Been, in PP, where the ground must have been bone-hard? (Even I am reduced to using polite substitute terms.) Isn't that what this is all about? Maybe the reference to the 'longdrop' latrine wasn't so off-topic after all . . .
If this isn't what this thread is about, may I suggest that it should be? Call ourselves Ransome experts! Dare we discuss this? Dare we equally venture onto, eg, the topic of Missee Lee and possible lesbian characteristics? Or do we cosily remain with 'Boy Topics', like how a blowlamp works?