Posted by Peter Ceresole on January 07, 2007 at 17:40:18 from 80.177.22.49 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Commander Walker style upbringing posted by PeterH on January 06, 2007 at 15:26:04:
It's what happened when they got there that matters. During the holiday, the children were amazingly free to do what they like, and do it for the whole of the holiday.
But for all that time, there was a network of adults who knew where they were and would report back to the parents if anything appeared amiss. It's true that Mrs Walker didn't visit them frequently on the island, but they collected their milk from Dixon's every day; Mrs Walker had clearly arranged to pay for the milk either in advance or later, so she was known to Mrs Dixon. If the children hadn't turned up for a day or two, Mrs Walker would have known about it soon enough. Similarly with Mrs Tyson in PP. And after the storm in SA, she turned up on the island quickly enough, as any mother would.
Clearly from day to day the children were trusted to the care of Susan and John, in much the same way that at school they would be left under the authority of prefects, who would be older children but not that much older. In that arrangement, teachers' direct involvement in maintaining discipline etc would be minimal, but they'd keep a weather eye open. I think the same happened here.
On the Broads, Mrs Barrable furnished the liaison.
It seems to me that AR was being perfectly realistic in all this. Ted Walker, being a Navy man, would know all about delegation and the chain of command, and he applied those principles to his children. But these were principles well established in any boarding school in England.