Re: First Encounter with Ransome


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Posted by Andrew Barclay on January 08, 2013 at 10:16:08 user abarclay.

In Reply to: First Encounter with Ransome posted by AstronomerGuy on January 07, 2013 at 01:14:17:

I was given S&A along with a couple other books for a birthday - something around my 7th. This was one of the Red Fox paperbacks with a painting on the cover showing the two boats being sailed by crews with overly gaunt faces. I read the back, which has a very native background summary of the book and a quote about the arrow hitting the pan and Titty's "it's begun" line. For whatever reason this sounded overly silly to my 7 year old mind (and the facial expressions on the cover didn't help), so it went into a drawer for a couple of years. When I finally read it I was completely enthralled (guess that's what they mean about not judging a book by its cover). I wanted to go sailing and have adventures and all the other things they do in the book. I read my original S&A so many times that I wore the covers ragged.

I gradually read the rest of the series through the library (which still has the series, which is better than any bookstore in town), and was given GN one year. One year at school my class put together a time capsule to entomb in the newly built school and I contributed a semaphore encoded note. I took a few sailing lessons and gradually got more and more into sailing - in my teens I did several sail training trips on some local wooden tall ships (110' and 130' schooners). When I was 19 and doing some surveying in a remote underground coal mine I built a 13' clinker sailing dinghy in the living room of my rented basement. Reading that book certainly had a profound influence on my life! I sometimes wonder if I would have got into sailing if I'd just left it in the drawer all those years ago.

I was the only person I knew growing up who read any of the books, which was unfortunate as it would have been nice to have someone who could relate to them. Even now most of the people I've met who read them are older although among the tall ship/wooden boat community they do seem much more well known.

Growing up, my appreciation for the books has changed, but I still thoroughly enjoy them and they help keep me young at heart.


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