Posted by Roger Wardale on May 02, 2014 at 00:30:48 user RogerW.
In Reply to: Re: Ransome Items Up For Auction posted by Mike Dennis on May 01, 2014 at 12:27:42:
Mike:
I have dug out Meriol's letters.
Extracts that might be of interest — Susie stayed with us in term time (at the Perse School) . . .
actually Susie was not a bit like Mate Susan. She maintained Susan was like Evgenia . . . and when I met her, I vould just see it, though Evgenia was a much more formidable lady than Mate Susan would have been.
Meriol and her brother pretended to be the crew of an imaginary boat Albatross and went for long walks, wore pirate caps made out of football stockings and had imaginary adventures. In response to their fan postcard, AR called on them at home and to Meriol seemed 'exactly how I imagined Captain Flint'
She never thought of the Atlounyans as Swallows although 'Susie and Roger were quite like the two in Ransome's stories'.
Perhaps her most interesting remark was, 'The whole [Altounyan] family were interestingly exotic.' Exactly the word AR had used in one passage on how he came to write Swallows and Amazons that she could never have read.
She only went to Pin Mill the once and according to AR's log, the poor girl was dreadfully sick aboard Nancy.