Posted by Owen Roberts on October 24, 2014 at 15:21:17 user OwenRoberts.
In Reply to: Re: Childish behaviour posted by Roger Wardale on October 24, 2014 at 06:50:21:
I am not sure that I can agree with Roger regarding his thought that “AR had very little experience of children, apart from his own siblings”.
For a long period of his adolescent life he was at boarding school and would have experienced much more interaction with other children than had he been at a day school. Where he might have missed out was the Rugby was a male only school – I am not sure about Old College Windermere in those days.
However there were always the holidays when other friends beyond the family could be made.
We can read that he always tried out parts of his stories to children like the Kelsalls for child age input and feedback. Whilst he did make more friends with children when he moved away from the Lake District – I am not sure that they provided the level of critical input. After WDMTGTS, with the exception of P&M, in my view the series content decined.
I have always considered the book characters to be the family he never had with either Dora or Barbara Collingwood. Perhaps if he had such a family the books would never have been written.