Posted by Jock on June 17, 2011 at 00:49:25 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Nancy and Peggy posted by Magnus Smith on June 16, 2011 at 04:17:35:
I'm glad Peggy gets her moment in Winter Holiday to show how capable she is. I wonder if
she is otherwise considered to be a less-explored character because she wasn't based on
someone Ransome knew personally/well.
Oh, what dangerous waters you navigate in Magnus. The implication of the above is that
Nancy may have been based on someone AR knew quite well – certainly better than Peggy's
alter ego. Speculation along this line (albeit in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek fashion)
once got me me a couple of warning shots across the bows from my fellow TarBoarders.
The orthodox thinking is that AR based the Swallows loosely on the Altounyan children
and that the Amazons – other than their red caps – were entirely made up.
Yet there are some tantalising clues to the contrary, i.e. that the Amazons like the Swallows
had their real life prototypes. This was a line of speculation first persued by Iain Hobbs
in the early days of TarBoard. There is little hard evidence, just a trail of strange
coincidences that fall suddenly into place...