Posted by Adam Quinan on August 16, 2007 at 13:25:52 from 74.111.10.203 user Adam.
In Reply to: Re: Reverse engineering the Blackett family? posted by Jock on August 16, 2007 at 01:18:38:
Jock commented: Some librarian (or hostile reviewer) accused AR of writing for toffs. AR replied that his characters were ordinary children - sons and daughters of a naval captain, a doctor and a boatbuilder. [note nothing about the province of the Amazons] So we have AR's word for it - the Swallows are supposed to be 'ordinary', so no inherited wealth there.
Given the financial requirements to become a professional such as a doctor or a lawyer and the social requirements to become a naval captain, at least some of the families were not all that ordinary and must have either inherited wealth or come from socially upper middle class families. My own grandfather came of a family of Irish doctors and lawyers, but as his father had died when he was a boy there was not enough family money to pay for his education as a dentist so he joined the Indian Army where an officer could actually afford to live off his salary without inherited money. Socially he could pass for an Indian Army officer, but financially he couldn't afford his original choice of career as a profession.