Posted by PeterH on September 14, 2006 at 18:08:14 from 86.130.137.139 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Shades of Yesteryear - was Re: Beckfoot Hot Water System posted by Ed Kiser on September 14, 2006 at 16:32:42:
they could afford at their ages to ignore those rumblings from across the Channel
Indeed, Ed, but I doubt if the Swallows' father could afford to ignore what was going on. We know his ship was at Malta in 1932, and it has been reckoned* that the circumstances in which Cdr Walker was sent for in Secret Water, ie by means of a sub-lieutenant with a car, can only indicate that he was being summoned by the Commander-in-Chief, The Nore. Promotion? Well, something important, because Mrs Walker felt she had to accompany her husband to London. Cdr Walker would have surely have heard something about the ever-expanding German and Japanese Fleets. AR didn't let any of this impinge on the stories - rightly so, IMHO. He must have sensed that he was writing 'for the future' and wartime references would have anchored the books too much to their period.
*The Service Career of Commander Edward H R Walker, RN by David Carter (Mixed Moss, vol 1, no. 2 (1991))