Posted by Peter Ceresole on July 20, 2014 at 03:26:25 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: AR's places now. Was: Udal Bridge posted by Roger Wardale on July 20, 2014 at 01:18:09:
But this is not the same as seeing them as Ransome saw them.
And of course it never can be. And even less after another metre or two of sea level rise- although the lakes will be relatively spared that.
But for me the whole point is to see the locations in context- not just of place but of history. They can only be seen now in concert with AR's descriptions. So yes, Pin Mill has changed in many ways, but looking at Street View, his Alma Cottage comes to life in his descriptions; you can see what they saw out of the window, you can imagine what it was like to walk up to the front door for Mrs Powell's teas, or to walk down to the hard. The Butt and Oyster has become a typical middle class weekend joint, but it's there still, solid in place. It helps my imagination expand, take off beyond what's strictly in the books.
I look at the present day images, and I can feel my way back to the time in which AR was writing. I'm sure than in each generation we experience things in broadly similar ways- we're human after all. AR knew what he was about- we're reminded in WD (the radio masts at Bawdsey) that he must have been feeling the dread that everybody was feeling then- although that's emphatically not in the stories, it was a centrally important part of the time; would Commander Walker, by 1944, be part of D-Day? Maybe by then not in command of a vessel, but on the planning staff?
And with Street View there's everything- the deeply commonplace, things like pavements and ratty little side turnings and laybys, as well as the overall picture. AR won't have seen the same plastic farm waste bags, but I have wood cuts of English farming scenes from the 1930s that all mix in to create a time and a scene in his locations.
The pictures of Witches Quay, even if not exactly as it was in SW, are a positive addition to the terrific sequence in SW which I remember reading with a real sense of wonder as they navigated from one mysterious marker to the next. But approaching from the other direction, on Street View you can only get part way to the cottage before the coverage runs out, but the totally banal detail of a gentrified countryside lane actually helps to make the cottage more real, to enhance the feeling ot the children's imagination creating a bubble in which they- and AR, and us, live through the story.
I do repeat; this is not precise, and having read your books (and enjoyed/enjoying them hugely) I know you are after something more rigorous. But for me the important thing is the emotion, reliving the stories.