Posted by Peter Ceresole on December 07, 2014 at 02:34:37 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Grandparents posted by Peter Hyland on December 07, 2014 at 01:14:22:
Missing parents certainly are part of AR's plots, but not obvious ones
I agree; I'd not been struck by this when I first read AR. But could the fact that AR himself was an absent parent have something to do with it?
Also, although I wasn't at boarding school until adolescence, by which time I was no longer reading AR's stories, more W.E Johns's Biggles tales, I was well aware that many other children were living in term time away from their families. I hated the idea of it, but it was a very normal thing to encounter in the stories.
Incidentally, when I went to boarding school, although I made some good friends, I still cordially hated it.