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In November 1935, according to the details in the front of my 29th impression.

Can we speculate in any informed way about the age of the Walker and Blackett children in Swallows and Amazons?

In addition to what other responders have said, I seem to remember that somebody, some time in the last two or three years, posted on this board some notes that AR himself made about characters' ages. But my own belief is that AR was not very consistent about maintaining the same age differences throughout the series. The trouble is, it's several years since I last re-read most of the books, so I don't have chapter and verse at my fingertips for the textual evidence for this view. The only points I can remember offhand are:

Peggy is said in S&A to be the same size as John, but in PM to have the same size shoes as Dorothea.

It's hard to imagine that Dick, at the sort of age he's usually imagined to be, would have studied qualitative analysis in school chemistry as claimed in PM.

Bridget seems to act a good deal older than four in SW. I think there's something about her using matches (which Roger was still supposed not to in WH when he must have been eight or nine).
posted via 91.105.3.53 user eclrh.

However, Nancy refers to him in the past at the summit of Kanchenjunga and Captain Flint also tells Molly Blackett that Bob would have liked the children the way they are, rather than the way the GA wants them to be, so I think it is fairly safe to assume that Ransome meant us to understand that he was dead, but no cause or date of death is given anywhere.
posted via 99.226.100.99 user Adam.

However, Nancy refers to him in the past at the summit of Kanchenjunga and Captain Flint also tells Molly Blackett that Bob would have liked the children the way they are, rather than the way the GA wants them to be, so I think it is fairly safe to assume that Ransome meant us to understand that he was dead, but no cause or date of death is given anywhere.
posted via 99.226.100.99 user Adam.

Peggy could have been born in 1919, provided the events of S&A occurred in 1929 as stated within. (The current theory appears to be that the SD 1931 date is the correct one - however then a 1919 birthday for Peggy would make Susan, John, and Nancy really old - so old that Nancy's outrage at being taken for a native in SW becomes less understandable).

Briefly

The only one of the cildren's birthday we can be precise about is Brigit. In SD, one day after the climbing of Kachenjunga (on August 11), Mrs Walker states Brigit's birthday will be "in a few days".
And as we know it's her third birthday, and assuming an actual 1930 date for SD, she was most likely born on either August 15,16, or 17 of 1927.

One other fact is that none of the other children seem to have birthdays during any of the times covered by the books. This rules out the months of August, September (SA,SD,PP,WDMTGTS,SW), mid-January to mid-February (WH), and for the D's: Easter of 1931.

In S&A, Roger is seven. This would place his birthday in early 1922.

From WH, Dick considers Roger to be quite a bit younger than he himself "But that youngest one probably goes to bed pretty early." (Although that's not conclusive, from all the books, particuarly P&M, both Dick and Dorothea have a fairly elastic attitude concerning what bedtime should apply to themselves.)

Ignoring this quibble, I assume that Dick is at least a year older than Roger and place his birthday in Late Autumn-Early Winter of 1920.

Dorothea, probably a year earlier in late Autumn-early Winter of 1919.

Peggy, (who Dorothea considers in WH: "She did not think Peggy could be very much older than she was herself") mid-1919.

Which makes Peggy just possible as a posthumous war baby.

Susan, whose birthday is on New Year's Day, 1 January 1919.

Going back to Brigit, her birthday in S&A was on day 6 of the Island camp, and they had come to the lake a fortnight before they sailed to the island.
So they came to the lake in late July. and John "It's a good thimg I had a birthday just before we came here."

Assuming this means not more than four weeks, John was born in July, and given Susan's definite birthday of New Years day, John must have been born in July 1917.

Nancy and Titty are left as a exercise for the reader.

posted via 203.220.98.242 user Allan_Lang.

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
----------------------------------------------------
The Ages of the Characters

Only Roger and Bridget's ages are given with certainty in the whole series of novels. However, by some research into the children the characters are based on, some detective work in the novels' texts as to relative ages to other characters, and some educated guessing, you can pretty well figure out how old the main characters are:

AGES:

Swallows....Amazons........D.'s............Coots...........Eels

12 John....12.5 Nancy
...........11 Peggy.......................11.5 Tom
10 Susan..................10.5 Dot........10.5 Don
........................................9 Port/Starboard 9 Dum
8..Titty...................8.5 Dick....................8.5 Daisy
7..Roger.................................7.5-8 Death & Glories
6 Dee
2..Bridget

Swallows & Amazons = +0
Peter Duck = +1/2
Swallowdale = +1
Winter Holiday = +1 1/2
Coot Club = +1 3/4
Pigeon Post = +2
We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea = +2
Secret Water = +2
The Big Six = +2
Missee Lee = +2 1/2
Picts & Martyrs = +3
Coots in the North = +3
Great Northern? = +4?

In figuring out the ages of the characters, I began with the Swallows.
Roger's and Bridget's ages are known from the text of Swallows & Amazons. Roger Wardale quoted ages from Arthur Ransome's notes of an early draft of Swallows & Amazons; those together with an article by Taqui Altounyan in vol. 2 no. 2 of Mixed Moss (published by TARS), which gives the Altounyan children's ages in relation to each other can be used to give ages for the older Swallows. The figures I settled on take into account the birthdays stated in the books (John's just before the summer holidays, Susan's at the beginning of January, and Bridget's during the summer holidays), and try to split the difference where Wardale/Ransome and Taqui's article differ. I have done the same with Nancy's and Peggy's ages--too much seems to point to Nancy not being as old as the 13 Wardale and Ransome quote for her, but she is supposed to be older than John. (Then again, the only comparison given is the relative sizes of Nancy, John, and Peggy, so maybe Nancy and John are the same age...) The next to come are the D.'s--Dot is supposed to be not very much younger than Peggy, though she groups herself with the younger group of children, thinking of Nancy, Peggy, John, and Susan as
"the elders." Susan counts Roger, Titty, and Dick as being about the same age. Using Dot's and Dick's ages as a basis, we can figure out the rough ages of the Coots. All we know for sure is that Tom is older than any of the others; although nothing is certain, it seems as though the twins are on a par with the D.'s, and the Death & Glories are younger than any of them. All that is known of Don's age is that he is between John and Roger--with a 5 year span there, I split the difference, but a bit more towards John. Figuring that Dum was younger, I then used the ages of the Busk children the Eels were based on (taken from another article in Mixed Moss vol. 2 no. 2) to get the spread between them. John Busk was born 4 years before Michael in real life; this seeming too much to have them almost looking like twins, I bumped Dee's age up a bit--depending on the month of the year each were born the age difference could have been only 3 years and a bit, one could have been small for his age or the other big, or Arthur Ransome himself may not have been completely true to the characters' originals!

The Swallows (The Walkers)

Name Original Basis for Character

John Took Taqui's place in the re-characterization of the Altounyan
children; elements of Arthur Ransome as a boy, or of the boy he wanted to be to please his father.

Susan Susan (Susie) Altounyan

Titty Mavis (Titty) Altounyan

Roger Roger Altounyan

Bridget Brigit Altounyan (now Brigit Sanders and the President of
TARS (The Arthur Ransome Society). In Swallows and Amazons she is
named Vicky; the change is explained in Swallowdale as that had been her nickname because of her resemblance to the old Queen Victoria. In notes from an early draft of Swallows and Amazons, this character shows up in a list of the children first as Bridget, then that is crossed out to become Victoria, then that is crossed out and the name is again listed as Bridget.
-------------------------------------------------------------

The Amazons (The Blacketts)

Name Original Basis for Character

Nancy (Character's real name is Ruth.) Both Amazons were said to be
based on two girls in red caps Arthur Ransome saw playing on Coniston Water. Much of Taqui Altounyan's personality shows up in the
character of Nancy.

In notes from an early draft of Swallows and Amazons, this character was originally named Jane. (Doesn't quite fit a terror of the seas, does it?...)

Peggy No specific original other than the girls in red caps (see
Nancy, above).

In notes from an early draft of Swallows and Amazons, this character was originally named Mary.

Tom In notes from an early draft of Swallows and Amazons, there is a third character listed with the Amazons. The name was originally
Victoria, then that is crossed out to be Tom. This character would
have been about 3 in the first story, but he did not survive to the
final draft. The first name seems to have migrated to Bridget,
however, eventually becoming just a nickname for her.
-------------------------------------------------------------

The D.'s (The Callums)

Name Original Basis for Character

Dorothea (Dot) The literary, creative side of Arthur Ransome
(especially as a young man) comes to light in a character here.

Dick The practical, scientific side of Arthur Ransome, expecially as a young man.
-------------------------------------------------------------

The Coots

Name Original Basis for Character

Tom Dudgeon Symbol of the conservationist forces already beginning to
be active in the Broads at the time Arthur Ransome wrote.

Port and Starboard (Bess and Nell Farland)
No particular originals for these characters.

The Death & Glories (Joe Southgate, Bill Jenkins, Pete Woods)
Again, no particular originals, though they were among Arthur
Ransome's favorite characters--the last names are never used in the
stories.
-------------------------------------------------------------

The Eels

Name Original Basis for Character

Mastadon (Don) No particular original for this character.

Daisy Gillian (Jill) Busk

Dum and Dee John and Michael Busk
-------------------------------------------------------------

Some of the Adults

Name Original Basis for Character

Mother (Mrs Walker) A blend of Mrs Altounyan and Arthur Ransome's
Australian grandmother.

Captain Flint (Uncle Jim Turner) The Altounyan's "Uncle Arthur" himself!

Peter Duck Captain Sehmel from Latvia--he shows up as "the Ancient
Mariner" in Racundra's First Cruise.

Mrs Barrable A development of an idea for a "webfooted grandmother"
character in the story that became Coot Club.

William the pug A pug owned by fishing friends Margaret and Charles Renold.

Professor Callum Mrs Altounyan was particularly interested in
archaeology; did this influence Arthur Ransome's choice of speciality for the Professor?

Jim Brading Probably modelled on Jim Clay, whose father knew Arthur
Ransome from the Manchester Guardian.

Missee Lee Based on Madame Sun Yat Sen, and a Chinese girl who longed
for Cambridge.

The information on this page was gathered from the introduction to Hugh
Brogan's Coots in the North and Other Stories (©1988 by Hugh Brogan), Roger Wardale's Arthur Ransome's East Anglia (©1988 by Roger Wardale), and various things published by TARS (The Arthur Ransome Society). Thank you to all three sources!

Bill Wright

posted via 64.12.116.133 user Kisered.

• Guardian report

I haven't been hungry as I had the bowl to lick clean. A very Roger-ish thing to do, I reckon.

Happy 80th anniversary S&A. I hope annual sales continue to increase even past the 100th.

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1033351/Voyages-discovery-bunloaf.html

Arthur Ransome and his Russian wife Evgenia on a boat in the Lake District (Faber & Faber).

AR must be the theme for the Times newspapers for the weekend. One of the clues in the Times crossword on Saturday July 17th was

He wrote a new Morse novel (7)
posted via 82.41.180.160 user DavidGibb.

The only other nearly-triangular sail is the gunter lug and clearly this isn't one of those either.
posted via 203.129.59.79 user mikefield.

I am surprised that ANY boatbuilder could knock a clinker dinghy up in a few days, not with all those ribs to do. Perhaps the bloke took an existing rowing boat, and added fishbox and mast? Although retro-fitting a centreboard case is a pig to do...

Thanks Andy!
posted via 212.84.126.176 user Magnus.

So that photo isn't Slug.

Once he'd bought Kittiwake, there's a mention of moving to Latvia in the autobiography, in Summer 1921. "We rented rooms in a small house in Kaiserwald, outside Riga, on the shores of the Stint Sea, a pleasant lake beside the forest. A Lettish boat-builder made me, in a few days, a small boat for fishing and sailing with a fishbox built around the centreboard case and a small leg-of-mutton sail."

Possibly that (unnamed) boat?

posted via 90.195.49.198 user AndyG.

Now 'Slug' was a larger boat, with rocks for ballast, big enough to sleep (uncomfortably) on. More of a yacht than a dinghy I understand.

So what was the boat in this photo? The books place it in Russia (or over that way!). There are no Lake District hills in the background so I assume that is correct. I don't recall a mention of such a boat at that time, in any of the biographical works.

• Similar photo of same boat

posted via 90.220.78.104 user Duncan.

S&A Forever!
posted via 67.171.170.242 user Elizabeth.

• Skull and crossbones ice cube trays - Amazon

I first sailed an Enterprise over 30 years ago, and went on to own one a decade later.

I've only sailed it single-handed on a few occasions, and they are a bit of a handful in anything but the very lightest of winds.

Were I not 150 miles north of Windermere, I'd be signing on as able-seaman like a shot!

Andy

posted via 90.195.49.198 user AndyG.

I've got the ingredients for bunloaf so I will cook that up and spend the evening eating that and reading S&A I think.

I totally forgot to bring this date up at the last meeting of Southern region TARS so there are no planned events in my region sadly.
posted via 212.84.126.176 user Magnus.

Ransome and the linguist Harold Williams (who had been a father-figure to him) fell out over the Russian Revolution(s); his wife Ariadna was a supporter of the Cadets:

• Harold Williams

posted via 95.146.20.84 user jacpet.

I think you can throw that criticism at many of the books. Though they are an excellent snapshot of 1930s life, of course some aspects of the plot will have to be 'contrived'.
posted via 95.146.179.48 user MTD.

posted via 91.109.131.195 user PeterWillis.

Indeed, although as in the case of many of AR's creations, there are other sources / inspirations
such as E F Knight's account of a real voyage in search of treasure, Cruise of the Alerte.

posted via 83.29.121.86 user Jock.

There is a difference between posting announcements, discussions or information about TARS events and "discussing" TARS. If you want to tell us when there is an interesting TARS meeting or visit (preferably open to everyone) coming up, or report on one you have attended which has a general Ransome interest that is fine.

However, the Tarboard administrators have decided that discussions of TARS and its administration are not appropriate on this forum. TARS members have the opportunity to air their opinions on the TARS Forums. If non-TARS members have opinions, they are encouraged to either join TARS and express their opinions on the TARS Forums or communicate them directly with TARS.

• TARS Forums

You would be much better off logging on at the TARS official website as listed below.

• TARS forum

So are you saying that this triggered the break between the two men? And,
if so, is it an indicator where Ransome's true political sympathies lay?
posted via 83.9.163.111 user Jock.

If one thinks of detective stories written during the Thirties by the great "Queens of Crime" - Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham or Dorothy Sayers, they all have contrived plots - it is probably impossible to write a classic detective story without one!

I think Ransome does brilliantly well in this book - he demonstrates that he can "knock off" a detective story in the standard form, but with children as characters, and at the same time he does something new for him and evidently dear to his heart by taking his readers into the world of the children of the skilled working classes.
posted via 78.129.143.129 user ACB.

But I seem to also remember a remark of Muggeridge's which summed up AR as something like hopelessly naieve and optimistic. Can't find that anywhere though
posted via 91.109.131.195 user PeterWillis.

There are times I wish GN hadn't been written, and CitN had!

posted via 90.195.49.198 user AndyG.

Dave has put his finger on one of them - the feeling of estrangement from the characters -
reinforced by the book starting from viewpoint of one of the local natives!

Then there is the dark symbolism: Dick being attracted to Jemmerling and his boat until he
realises too late what the man is really about, the skin of a dead bird, the name Pterodactyl.

Finally, there is no clear cut 'happy ending'.

PM - which I love by the way - is nowhere near so dark, but the shadows of the grown up
world - with all its imperfections - threaten to derail our heroes at every turn...
posted via 83.9.160.140 user Jock.

I think you're spot on. I always felt that GN was a bit dour, but that's just GN. However, PM is much more light hearted. It's my belief that this is due to the Ds, especially Dorothea, being AR's favourite characters. It seems to me that this is clear from the moment that he introduces them in WH, and especially clear after the Tall Dutchman skates up to a narration by Dot.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Given the development of Muggeridge's views during his time in Russia, and his developing hostility to the Guardian, I would very much like to know if he stayed in contact with AR - could someone enlighten me?

This might provide a clue to the way in which AR became so acutely apolitical.
posted via 78.129.143.129 user ACB.

For me, the best and most 'Adam'-like moment comes right at the beginning- in the titles, as he mentions the collapse of the Soviet system, and the image is of a huge hall with chandeliers stretching into the distance. They go out one by one, and the reference is clearly to the statement by Grey at the start of the 1st World War "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time".

Applied. of course, to the Soviet Union, where they were very big on chandeliers.

I always found that a splendid, minatory moment. Typical that Adam should think of that connection, and find that shot. Also typical that he doesn't explain it in commentary- there's no need, as it works on any level you care to consider.

He was the most brilliant person to work near- long talks in the canteen. A deeply, deeply intelligent and imaginative man.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Hi Peter. No I didn't, but thanks to Google Video I'm rapidly making up for the deficiency! Thanks for the tip.

Returning to the optimism/pessimism debate, I remember in 1985 watching the BBC's Edge of Darkness and
thinking it unbearingly pessimistic.

Now a quarter of a century later, the way the series was positioned seems to have been 100% on target.
posted via 83.11.237.48 user Jock.

Did you ever see the BBC series 'The Power of Nightmares' by Adam Curtis? Utterly brilliant, huge fun, and covers exactly this area. It's out there on the Net, although if you have problems finding it I have it saved on several CDs. Although they're dispersed somewhere in the family at present, I'm sure I can find them again. And it's not a trivial download...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

It seems that Ransome is being referenced here as a technical source of info on the presumed "science" of dowsing.

Ed Kiser, Kentucky

posted via 205.188.116.196 user Kisered.

I always associated the Mastadon's dilemma in SW with Ransome's own attempt to ride two ideological horses at the same time.

When I was a child we lived in fear of the Russians and my comics depicted Germans and Japanese as sub-human monsters. But
at the same time you could buy explosives over the counter in mining districts and photograph trains to your heart's content.

Now Russian gas keeps my cookers burning, we admire the German economic miracles and the Japanese are those awfully nice
chaps who build our electronic toys. A replacement cast of bogeymen have been skilfully set on stage and if I wave a camera
around at as much as a bus station I'm liable to have a nasty confrontation.

There is a refreshing wind of optimism that blows through the early books. In SA and SD it's almost a gale, then it moderates
to a light breeze by SW and dies down entirely by GN.

Or at least that's how it seems to me!

posted via 83.8.252.12 user Jock.

Whether she left with him or he joined her, she wouldn't be running it by herself.
posted via 66.90.104.129 user BillKeene.

I'm still interested in any photos of real dinghy lockers you've got though...
posted via 212.84.126.37 user Magnus.

• Carnegie Medal programme

We have progressed far as a world population, yet have a long way to go to eliminate distrust, suspicions and fear of other ethnicities and cultures. We have progressed tremendeously in technology for the better, and still have an uphill road to follow.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." FDR.
posted via 63.245.162.243 user EricAbraham.

• Start the Week: 05/07/10
  

Perhaps other readers could try to turn this thread back to AR. Maybe something on the lines, 'Did AR
believe in a better future?'

posted via 83.8.160.101 user Jock.

Has anyone actually seen a dinghy locker though? In all the vintage boats I've looked at I've never spotted one. Some fishing boats have compartments for tackle etc, but there are never any doors.

Does anyone have a photo or diagram? I'm curious as to how large they are, where they are situated, and what the doors were like.
posted via 212.84.126.37 user Magnus.

Has much changed in Stuart Wier's article? I'm curious as to which bits are new/different?

• http://www.allthingsransome.net/arboats/index.html

But given that the book was his choice, that the other two present had also perforce to read it before the show, and that the third word of the first sentence of the book tells us Roger's age, I was a bit surprised to hear that none of them knew how old he was....
posted via 203.129.59.79 user mikefield.

• A Good Read

An announcement of the publication of the playscript for the stage production of WDMTGTS in the Announcements section.

A link in the Boats section to the website for the movie version of Swallow and the initiative to purchase her during the auction this spring.

A revised version of Stuart Wier's Boats of Swallows and Amazons page, in the Boats section.

A new article by Stuart Wier and Andrew Goltz on building a replica Swallow, also in the Boats section.

Posts about Coniston Launch and Gondola Ransome-related tours, in the Announcements section.
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

"When two trains (or autos, I cannot remember which) meet at a crossing, both shall stop, and neither shall proceed until the other has passed."
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

You too? My mind isn't so much wandering as gone on extended holiday. All I can hope is that it's having a nice time.

posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Terrific, thank you.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

The Youtube piece is great fun, but most extraordinary is the way in which, towards the end of the piece, the sailing train passes a group of walkers who don't even turn their heads to watch it sail by.

I'd have turned around and goggled.

posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

No I don't think so, please do.

Sailing trains were pioneered by James Spooner on the Festiniog Railway.

(Yes, I know that these days it's spent 'Ffestiniog'.)

I believe there was also a homebrew sailing train on the Goathorn line.

• Spooner's boat

• Nautical flag clothing

It didn't hurt, the water would break my fall. And it was far too much fun to take the parallel, higher path. Jolly wet, though.

• Sailing the road

(a proposed answer to my own question:

Verrry Carefully..)

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
posted via 205.188.116.13 user Kisered.

"Tell us all you can," said Nancy.
"Well," said Old Bob ...

(clearly directing his comments at her)

..."yer mother's father took me wi' him when he went to Africa after that same stuff."

So was the grandfather as black a sheep as his son, James Turner? ;-) Or did Beckfoot (and its plumbing) come from a gold find?

Andy

posted via 90.195.49.198 user AndyG.

The perfect thing to have interrupted by a capsize and the Death & Glories first meeting with Nancy in Coots in the North? That could be the same summer...

Andy
posted via 90.195.49.198 user AndyG.

He wants to use PictHaven as hiding place for the war between the S and the A's probably with D's on the side of the A's.

I reckon the D's would win the race, by some perserve sense of R humour. They will need to learn to tack better.

http://www.duck-trap.com/mde-cd.html
JMN

• Thinking of building

Check it out on his fabulous site:

www.lakelandcam.co.uk

Thanks, Tony. Your great collection is a wonderful enhancement of our
enjoyment of Ransome's stories centered on "the Lake."

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
posted via 65.80.22.135 user Kisered.

Could be so.

Somebody has published a long term rainfall record for the Lakes. It does look as though 1930 had its dry moments...

• Lake district rainfall

'This grown-up man, with pluck and luck,; Is hoping to outwit a duck.'

Quack.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

"It has always been my private conviction that any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses had it coming."

John Steinbeck

AR certainly felt that the fish really were worthy opponents. Personally I think Steinbeck was arguing native intelligence versus situational intelligence. Or just being clever.
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

See p53 of the full results at the link. It took her 12hrs 24mins to circumnavigate the Isle Of Wight.

• http://www.roundtheisland.org.uk/web/pubs/resultsbooks/RIR2010Results.pdf

There was A Kanchenjunga replica climb back in the Autumn of 1991, organised by the Northern Region of TARS that raised cash for Talking Books For The Blind, and very successful it was too!
posted via 82.27.6.18 user Goodboy.

boring (?) native meetings!

I'm sure Scottish Tars will thank you for that remark after all their hard work, but until the Membership vote to do away with such irrelevant matters 'boring business Meetings' will remain a legal necessity.

posted via 82.27.6.18 user Goodboy.

posted via 81.155.121.106 user Adam.

I was mainly asking if any AR-related dinghies were still at the museum?

Incidentally, can I also ask which dinghies USED to be on show? I visited in 1999 or thereabouts and saw three. Mavis (Amazon), Cochy (I assume) and one other?

I always thought it was Swallow 2 (the one built at Pin Mill) but Roger Wardale told me she had never been on show there. So what was it?!
posted via 212.84.123.88 user Magnus.

Almost exactly a year ago, I obtained special permission to visit Esperance. She was inside the somewhat run down original museum building in a wet berth to protect her from the elements, and was in an unrestored condition. I suspect that the limited tours currently mentioned will be in the temporary building erected in the Museum parking lot where the wooden boats are housed and undergoing work.

Claire
posted via 75.135.78.39 user Claire_Morgan.

Er..., wrong lake and location. Gondola sets sail regularly on Coniston. The Windermere Steamboat Museum is on Windermere!

Claire
posted via 75.135.78.39 user Claire_Morgan.

I tried making up some splatchers several years ago. Mine were elliptical and made from ply with 1" cleats underneath to stop them sliding round on the mud. Unfortunately the cleats didn't work to do that at all, and essentially they might as well not have been there.

I concluded that without a doubt suction is the biggest problem to overcome, and perhaps your willow wands might succeed in working where the ply didn't. On the other hand, the bearing area would be considerably reduced so you might find the whole splatcher sinking under your weight. Definitely worth trying, though.

In some cases the best answer is to simply leave your feet bare. But in my case much of the water was dotted with mangrove roots, on each of which small barnacles were growing. Ouch. So in summer I used light canvas deck shoes with holes cut at the toes to let the water drain out, and in winter ordinary sea-boots. As Clencher says in Post #29 at the link, they need to be tied on to overcome the suction problem.

Let us know how you get on.

• Boots, pattens, and splatchers

Time to get busy in the garage then. I've got some long bendy willow twigs, or would something else be better?
posted via 212.84.122.177 user Magnus.

(Isaac Asimov. Foundation)
posted via 83.21.64.69 user Jock.

I've also purchased 2 items from that set for the TARS library.
posted via 212.84.122.177 user Magnus.

After visiting Secret Water twice now, and seeing how much mud there is, I have become interested in splatchers. Last weekend I tried out two rectangles of ply laced to my feet. Result - useless! They just slipped sideways, endangering my groin muscles, and became heavy with mud, so it was worse than walking with my kids sitting on my feet!

What is the secret of the Mastodon's design? I think the splatchers need a high lip all the way around, so no mud lies on the top, and some sort of spikes or blades underneath to stop them sliding?

Here's a link to professional ones you can buy. The crucial aspect here is how they avoid the suction problem. I can verify this is a major issue!

• http://www.benmeadows.com/search/mudder/20559/252574/?isredirect=true

My father did, from living at Calgarth between 1935-40

Interviews with, and photos from, those that do :

• Flying Boats and fellow travellers

Notice how the comments change in this thread, as she goes from being in danger to having been saved at great public expense and then wanting people to give her money so she can get her boat back....

• Abby has pulled 2 EPIRBS

What does that mean for AR fans? If Mavis (Amazon) is at the Ruskin museum, what can be seen at the steamboat museum? Just Gondola?
posted via 212.84.123.205 user Magnus.

This gets mentioned a lot, but there seems to be little verification. From her reports of the voyage, I got the image of a gusty girl trying her best, in a boat beyond her ability, but experiencing conditions she was not prepared for, and should never have been facing.

When you sail around the world, even the easy way, you do it by the seasons. That's even more important when going around the hard way. When the great maxi French mulithulls attempt around the world records, their window is always November to about March. Why? Because as Adrienne Cahalan, navigator on Playstation's record circumnavigation said, "You don't sail in the Southern Ocean in the winter." You just don't do it. Not the Volvo, not the Vendée, not The Race, not nobody. If the world's greatest sailors will wait a full year just to stay out of the Southern— when there are gales 30% of the time as opposed to 5% of the time in summer — you'd think the parents of a 16-year-old minor would make their daughter do the same. Ocean in winter

• Abby Sunderland is Alive

There are those that think that perhaps she should not have been allowed to attempt such a sailing task, but she has been a seasoned sailor for most of her life.

We wish her well.

Interesting to note: the last name, "Sunderland," is also the name associated with a WW2 4 engine anti-submarine flying boat, many of which were made by the Short Company at LAKE WINDEMERE. Wonder if anyone can remember those things taking off or landing on that lake.

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
posted via 64.12.117.9 user Kisered.

In most of the books, almost every day ends at the end of a chapter, so a short horizontal pencil line under the chapter number on the contents page is an excellent way of marking how the days fall.
posted via 91.107.150.10 user eclrh.

I just received the following email and thought it would be of great interest to folks on this board. I'm not connected to the museum at all, just on their mailing list. Sadly we can't go ourselves (for a while at least!!)

Cheers
Luke

Windermere Steamboat Museum
'Behind the Scenes' Tours

We are now able to offer limited access to the collection of historic vessels over the coming summer months.

There are two ways to take advantage of this opportunity; either by booking yourself on a guided tour or if you are part of a group, of at least 20 people, book your very own group visit. On the day you will be given a personal tour of the collection by members of the team. This will include a short talk by Adrian Stone, our recently appointed Conservation Workshop Manager.

For further information use the following links:

http://www.steamboats.org.uk/guided-tours
http://www.steamboats.org.uk/behind-scenes-group-visits

If you have any specific enquiries please contact Charlotte Upton, Project Coordinator on 015394 46139 or email cupton@lakelandartstrust.org.uk

www.steamboats.org.uk

posted via 216.251.209.113 user LukeDolman.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/7818796/Frank-Dye.html
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

Possibly the only date with which one could quibble would be the D's arriving straight from school in early August.
Most boarding schools would have finished by the last week of July in those days.

This may be another example of AR's haziness with dates - well spotted!
posted via 91.125.10.226 user OwenRoberts.

As you may know, TarBoard has been under attack from a botnet over the last few months - at its height attempting to post 1000s of messages per day - and I have added some code to combat this.

In certain situations, this new code may be over zealous, so if you get some strange error messages or trying to post a messages fails in some way, please get in touch.

Woll
posted via 81.174.152.45 user Woll.

Day Seven is the day of the burglary, counting Day One as the day
the D's arrived by train. Day Eleven the GA departed Beckfoot.

A line from the letter from the GA says:

You tell me your mother returns on the thirteenth. On that
day I am expecting a friend whose visit I cannot defer.

Not sure of this, but assuming that the GA arrives back in her
home the day before the expected friend, then her return date was
the 12th.

Day of the month of August
13... GA is with the friend at Harrogate
12... Ga leaves to go to the train
11... free for the day, to High Topps
10... back to houseboat, more stinks
9.... to houseboat with loot, do stinks
8.... burglary
7.... rain, cooked rabbit, Nancy soaked
6.... Got Scarab
5.... Jacky shows, NO GO, guddling
4.... Postman & Timothy scare, make harbour
3.... They move to DOGS' HOME
2.... D's arrive, spend night in Beckfoot
1.... Nancy and Peggy paint decorations

The D's had come straight from school.

From this, I conclude that the D's arrived on the second of the
month.

At the very end of PM, we see:

Timothy sat up suddenly. "Oh, look here," he said, "I'm all
for a quiet life after this."
"Well, you won't exactly have one," said Nancy. "Not yet.
You can't expect it. Not with the Swallows coming, and Uncle
Jim, and five whole weeks of the holidays still to go."

From this, I am assuming that the month in which PM takes place
is August, leaving the last two weeks of August and the first
three weeks of September for when the Swallows return, with the
Callum's, and "Coots in the North".

The August specification is documented by the reference in Chapter 1
to the drying of the skull and crossbones painting on the lawn in
the hot August sun. This dating, and the dating in the GA's letter
as to when she must be back home to meet with her friend, seem to
fix the dates of these events in between.

From this, the date of the burglary is August 8, 1933.

Assuming SA was in '30, SD in '31, PP in '32, then PM is in '33.

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
posted via 64.12.116.133 user Kisered.

After some debate we decided to post the info, as it may be of interest. SAs series, fishing, bios, guides etc.

Woll

• eBay sale

Remember that if anyone is visiting the Lakes, I'm happy (if I can) to take them out to the island or just meet up.

Rob
posted via 88.106.84.51 user humyar.

Thank you for including all of us, Rob.

Claire
posted via 71.90.71.2 user Claire_Morgan.

Ayway, there will be other occasions, and Tarboarders will be there in spirit!

Rob
posted via 88.106.84.51 user humyar.

Of course. But it was the Swallows that said 'pudding faces', even if it was at Pin Mill, and it was the transposition of the thought to the Lakes, and to Wild Cat, that attracted me.

Nothing deep or philosophical, just word association.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

If something upsets you grab a gun, it is a sad sad world at times.

Lets all escape to Wildcat Island and Beckfoot. I find it helps.
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

Bit old to take the gamble however.
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

Sweet... And a lovely 'Coots in the North' moment.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

"Anyone in the West Lakes area from Whitehaven to Ravenglass are also being urged to shelter."

So, Charlotte, 15, who lives in Australia and climbed the Old Man when she was 9, rings up at 7AM CST about midnight in Oz to say that there has been a shooting in the Lake District. She found out from a Facebook alert.

I immediately go onto my trusty source for important world news, Tarboard, and finding naught I go to that second great source the Guardian. The article above provides the very sad news along with some photos that I prefer not to share.

This sort of stuff happens in Texas all the time, but not the Lake District. One can only hope that Sammy's brethren catch the man and stop the shootings.

This is very sad news.

I hope all are well in the District. Keep your head down Rob.

JMN
posted via 74.196.227.135 user Mcneacail.

Never mind one we will be there.
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

Ditto. Have a good day!

posted via 86.25.2.80 user Goodboy.

I can thoroughly recommend to anyone who'll be available that they take up Rob on his kind offer.
posted via 203.129.59.79 user mikefield.

We will have a picnic on the Island (bring your own supplies), but if you are coming for the day there would be time to explore on the mainland too – the Igloo is nearby, and so is Swallowdale.

If you are able to come, either try and contact me beforehand, or just be at the shingle bay opposite the landing place on Wild Cat Island at 12.00ish. This is at the furthest north point of the National Trust woodland called Low Peel Near. There is some parking at the southern end of it, on the eastern shoreline of Coniston, or plenty at Rigg Wood just a few hundred metres north of it (then walk south for c. four hundred metres to the little gap in the wall).

posted via 88.106.126.149 user humyar.

We've booked the Parish Rooms for a bring your own supper (tea and coffee provided), and we'll have a short walk afterwards too.

Rob
posted via 88.106.126.149 user humyar.

• BTO page on the Great Northern Diver

Maybe to create an impression of authenticity? The point is that he wasn't really trying to write history, more adventure stories that felt as though they could have been real.

And after all he made mistakes; he did his recces quite a bit later than the putative dates of the stories, so got a few details wrong (I'm thinking of the radio towers at Bawdsey which wouldn't have existed at the time that WDMTGTS would have been happening).

If anything it makes the stories more fun to read... If you enjoy that kind of detective work. I know I do.

And when would they have had running water on the first floor at Beckfoot, eh? Somebody tell me that...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

BUT... I am descended from a family of Dyes from the King's Lynn area so wonder if I am in fact related to him. From what I have read that would be an honour.
posted via 86.174.95.231 user Whiteshill.

Offhand I can't remember any direct statements in the books about what day of the week it was at the time, or any scenes when they found a shop closed because of what day it was. And if you started examining weather records, or years when the lakes were high or low, you could probably disprove every possible theory. So such exercises should be approached in the knowledge that they're only a game, like the train timetable investigations that Tarboarders have done.

In the spirit of such games, I'll add that at my day school in the 1960s, the summer mid-term holiday was one week, coinciding with Whit week, which begins on Whit Sunday (Pentecost), seven weeks after Easter.
posted via 91.105.62.78 user eclrh.

It is fiction after all, so a little bit of latitude is allowable.

Remember that they had already been cruising for a week before the story starts and they are planning to return to the Sea Bear's home port and give up the ship to Mac. No half term holiday would have lasted a week and a bit and neither would it have been extendable, unless someone were to pull the old mumps trick again!
posted via 192.75.48.150 user Adam.

If they could detect anything over the nice smell of steam coal from the engine...

But yes, there were characteristic smells and AR was aware of them. One my favourite quotes from any of the books, PM, as the Ds settle down for their first night...

'A smell of new-mown hay drifted from the meadows on the further side of the river. "There isn't a lovelier place in all the world," thought Dorothea. London last night, and now Beckfoot. The summer holidays had begun.'
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

The Ransome characters place a lot of value, upon their arrival in the Lake area, to catch that first glimpse of the lake, announcing that sighting with a cry of joy. But they can SEE it.

I wonder if they could recognize the scent of the place as they got nearer.

Here is the poem, thanks to Tony...

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
----------------------------

The Lake District without Sight.

Water laps gently round jetty and pebble,

Where ducks and swans gather to flutter and squabble.

High above in a breeze, ropes on metal masts rattle,

And below all the crew and crowds tittle-tattle.

Boots,shoes,trainers tramp cobbled streets and tarmac lanes,

Today everyones tapping,with poles not with canes.

Jackdaws chatter from chimneys and weather vanes,

The butchers door opens with loose rattling panes.

Becks at trackside full with water rushing.

Ghylls gouge the rocks like rolling thunder crashing.

Deep peaty bogs stain gaiters with earth,smelling,

Between soft springy turf where Herdwick are dwelling.

Pubs on each side greet towny and yokel,

The chink of their glasses as each becomes vocal.

Rucksacks piled high with coats,become focal

Points to guide you to the bar like a local.

Walls built of stone cut round or cut square,

Mark your way,your clothing,scar legs if bare.

Fields bleating with sheep, single lambs or a pair;

Overhead a Buzzard mewing circles high in the air.

Great Gable and Haystacks,Pillar,Steeple,Scafell.

Skiddaw,Kidsty Pike,High Stile and Kirkfell.

Names all around,not just to see hear and tell,

But places to visit,through touch,taste and smell.

Colin Antwis

posted via 205.188.116.133 user Kisered.

AR was always (perhaps deliberately) hazy about dates. I suspect time was subordinate to the story line.
posted via 91.125.10.226 user OwenRoberts.

The length of daylight would suit late May.
posted via 78.129.143.132 user ACB.

posted via 86.23.90.18 user Goodboy.

Keeping well, thank you for asking; semi retired but still working, occasionally! Recently purchased on EBay a Kestrel 22 that had been sunk in Poole Harbour. She, unlike others, didn't have standing headroom, so I've started the long process of re-building by sawing off the cabin top!

PPS As a former local resident I have to point out that Falmouth is in Cornwall, not Devon

Of course it is! That'll each me not to type from a newspaper article!

Didn't Frank run a chandler's shop in Norwich at one point?

I believe you are correct about that Andy. He also, according to the Thetford & Brandon Times article, launched a Marina on the Macclesfield canal in 1974.

May I take this opportunity to wish the Society and its Members a very happy 20th Birthday, not technically until the end of June I know, but since the Society's inception at the end of June 1990 all subsequent IAGM's have been held at the end of May.

What would I give to be with you!?

posted via 82.26.207.55 user Goodboy.

You may want to turn the volume down before clicking on the link - quite loud on my PC!
posted via 216.251.209.113 user LukeDolman.

Frank, along with his wife Margaret, logged tens of thousands of miles in their Norfolk built 15'10" Wayfarer, which even took him across the North Atlantic and into the Arctic Circle.

He had his Wayfarer, normally found on the Broads, adapted for the ocean with a special parachute anchor and stainless steel oven.

Frank was born and bred in Watton in Norfolk and died peacefully at Cranmer House nursing home in Fakenham.

His book, Sailing to the Edge of Fear, which was published in 2000, charted his experiences of a 2,000-mile voyage along the American coast.

His exploits earned him a place in the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Devon, in a display entitled "Endurance and Survival", which featured the couple alongside other great nautical adventurers like Sir Ernest Shackleton and Dame Ellen MacArthur.

Frank is survived by his widow Margaret.

Courtesy of the Thetford & Brandon Times.
posted via 82.31.9.51 user Goodboy.

I should at this point mention the old City custom of wearing outrageous ties on a Friday.

Leslie was wearing a splendidly piratical skull and crossbones tie, bought in darkest Jermyn Street; when I complimented him on it he said that he had sent one to his German partner, who like him is ex Army, who thanked him and said he would wear it when next in London but he could never wear it in Germany as the motif is illegal in Germany.

It took a moment for the penny to drop.
posted via 78.129.143.132 user ACB.

Apparently they had looked at the film as part of discussing favourite childhood films, and then made a brief mention of the appeal. I am so sad I missed that!
posted via 212.84.123.67 user Magnus.

Oh golly. Aren't they beautiful? My faves are the multicoloured ones, but in spirit I was always a child of the '60s.

But a bit pricey for an impulse purchase. And the last black tie occasion I went to was... Falklands was in '82, wasn't it? Nothing to do with the Navy, I was remembering a wedding...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Now I've spotted what I should be wearing to the next black tie dinner party. See link for a shirt that looks normal...until you take the DJ off!

• http://www.shemeeze.com/shop.php

I've read three-quarters of it and it is bleak reading. Unlike most post-nuclear holocaust novels there is no back story, at the moment the characters notions of what life was like come mostly from reading Swallowdale.

On the dust-wrapper it says she wrote a follow-up, anyone read that?
posted via 95.146.183.135 user MTD.

Copies on amazon still available for $4 shipped.

http://www.amazon.com/Out-There-Elisabeth-Mace/dp/0688801420/
posted via 98.26.126.245 user allym.

http://allthingsransome.net/literary/mmonlineindex.html.
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

They are civilised people and will take your membership of another club on trust. Ring them in advance or better still write to the Secretary with a reply paid envelope. They also own Stone Point (Flint Island) and if you ask nicely they will let you camp there if clear of the nesting season.

It is perfectly possible to launch from the W&FYC slip, circumnavigate Swallow Island, capsize one's sister's Lark twice and still get back before the tide goes. Don't ask me how I know that...
posted via 78.129.143.132 user ACB.

The yacht club say they welcome members of other clubs, but didn't say how I was to prove this. If I fail to time my return correctly I will be left on the mud unable to get the boat back on its trolley I assume? Hmmmm, sounds dodgy...but then, it is 18 quid to launch at Titchmarsh.
posted via 212.84.122.60 user Magnus.

I'll assume you want to have a "proper sail". Even in a Merlin (a vintage one I hope?) you will need a couple of hours, say three, to get round the island.

Here are some options:

1. Walton Public Hard

Advantage - free.
Drawback - top of the tide only

2. Walton and Frinton YC
Advantage - the natives are friendly; bar, showers, lunch
Drawback - temporary membership fee, half tide ramp

3. Tichmarsh Marina
Advantage - good showers. All tide access straight into the Twizzle
Disadvantage - you need to pay a launch fee, bit isolated.

posted via 78.129.143.132 user ACB.

Yes, a lot of those sites are like that- for obvious reasons. But I'm assuming that in the spirit of Mate Susan, we all have our antivirus protection up to date. Or, alternatively, use a Mac or Ubuntu (which I am told is very nice, although I use the Mac...)

posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I'll take my Merlin Rocket as 'Swallow' won't be varnished by then I expect.

Is there anyone reading this who is familiar with launching sites for visiting dinghies? I see there is a public slipway near the yacht club, but what about parking? More advice is always helpful in advance....particularly as to how much water there is where at low tide!

• Old Gaffers Association - Swamazons Weekend 2010

... She has the kind of healthy, athletic body that makes me think of Swallows and Amazons and cheese and pickle sandwiches.

Hmmmm. That's a reference to a model called Inga Eiriksdottir. When I think of AR's Amazons, I think of something like Pauline and Georgina Rawdon-Smith. It's actually quite hard to think of anybody more different... And I'm making allowances for poetic/journalistic licence.

But however grotesque the comparison, it's still pleasant to see SA being used as a modern reference...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

... She has the kind of healthy, athletic body that makes me think of Swallows and Amazons and cheese and pickle sandwiches.

Does that win the award for the oddest most obscure reference to S&A?
posted via 95.146.183.112 user MTD.

Winter Holiday
Is this a Dorcas party? asked Mrs Blackett (WH9) when they are making quarantine flags from scraps of material; a reference to the New Testament disciple Dorcas who made clothes for the poor; see wikipedia:Dorcas.

Don't know who provided this input - but thanks somebody...

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
posted via 205.188.116.209 user Kisered.

The books on the Penderwick Family are quite good. Very Ransomish, but with two Dot's and a Titty. If you have a young girl you are looking for a present for, these books are good.

JMN

• Jeanne Birdsall

Nature Books for Children.
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

• ebay - Bohemia in London

• ebay - Childs Book of the Seasons

Doesn't that depend more on the way the urls are included? If they are within the message text, then they get parsed and attempt to display when you open the 'Latest Messages' page.

If they are included as Optional Links (which personally I much prefer) then you need to click on them to display them.

The snag is, of course, if you want to display multiple images in one message. But then if possible it's best to wrap them up in one url, for one site, and make them accessible that way.

Or have I got that wrong?
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I've been ishing for years.
posted via 83.21.64.81 user Jock.

If you go to the "home" page for Tarboard, it's not expanding the messages just showing the threads, so the downloads don't happen until you go to one of the messages with the GE link in it.

Don't know if there's anything that can be done about this given the design of the Most Recent Messages section, at least without stripping out the actual message text from everything.

Dave

posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

An unrelated question.

In WH while the arctic explorers are making quarantine flags in Holly Howe farmhouse, Mrs. Blackett arrives to inspect school health certificates.
'What on earth are you all doing' she asks, 'Is this a Dorcas party?'

Any explanations from anyone? Jeeves didn't provide a positve answer!

posted via 83.104.41.160 user cousin_jack.

Not here, either. All working as it should.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

It did not - I just got the log in page. Of course it may happen after I send this message. Let's see........

posted via 71.90.44.233 user Claire_Morgan.

Well of course he could.

With the new hydraulic ram providing water under pressure to the top of the house; 'Feel the force, Dick.'
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

"Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

But could he discuss Beckfoot Plumbing?

I think not!!!!!!!!!

JMN
posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

Please keep your posts appropriate...-ish
posted via 95.146.179.193 user MTD.

HAPPY STAR WARS DAY

May the 4th be with you
posted via 64.160.111.153 user DavidMaxwell.

never expected rounding Tasmania to be much of a big deal, but all of last week's struggles made finally getting around the cape 10 times sweeter. (Insiders tip, jumping up and down in a 5 metre swell isn't a good idea. ouch!)

The Last Cape!

posted via 203.220.98.87 user Allan_Lang.

If you could get the 1923 edition, you could scan it and put it online. Later editions might include new material that is still under copyright so it could be a little tricky using them.

But supposedly you can get a 1st edition for $45 + shipping
http://www.jhbooks.com/store/102040.htm
posted via 98.26.126.245 user allym.

All details there.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Nope. That's the other side of the real Alma Cottage; you can see the sign for it on the TARS photo.

I think the red brick building is gloriously nothing special...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

And you can just see the red tiled roof of the Butt & Oyster peeping out from behind Alma Cottage.
posted via 121.127.222.62 user mikefield.

Yup. I did get it wrong; Alma Cottage looks like being the next one down the road, which sticks out like the one I thought was it.

There's a picture of it on the TARS site.

Oh well...

• Alma Cottage- really.

Hmmm. Actually, I think I got that wrong. But none of what's there looks right according to AR's drawing- which in other respects (the Butt and Oyster and the sailmakers' hut at the top of the hard) is spot on.

I saw them in real life some years ago. But hard to tell in Street View as it doesn't cover quite that far. It does show an 'Alma Cottage' but that's pretty unlike AR's version. Which might be what you'd expect, after 80 years of improvements. And Google Maps pointers can be fairly deceptive.

Any thoughts?

posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Oddly enough, I never saw it as being red brick. But I think that's it.

• Alma Cottage

Thank you.

And WOW! What a url...

But it works.

• Low Ludderburn

Gosh yes, at the entrance. I'd never paid attention to that before, but it's nice to know that I was looking at the right place. My reference was some pictures of the place when AR and Evgenia lived there; it's still recognisable.

I don't remember about the next owners changing the name but it's quite possible. Whatever they did, it seems to have been changed back, or was a year or so ago.

Finding these places is great fun. Pin Mill, especially, is covered by Street View just to the top of the hard- you can look back at Alma cottage in closeup. But there's also Oxenholme Station, from where the Roger let the pigeon fly, with a great view of the wall which AR carefully drew into the illustration (PP, JC 1948, p.17 'Letting Fly'). Coincidentally (or is it; I'm sure Jock arranged it all) there's a Virgin Pendolino providing a splendid 21st Century touch in the station. Lots more, when you ferret around a bit...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I confess that this 'street view' is new to me, although I've been using Google Earth for a while without fuss.

posted via 121.127.222.62 user mikefield.

Well, I fiddled about and seem to have discovered that in Google Earth it helps to have Street View switched off to get a more accurate lat and long.

54°18'46.15"N 2°54'56.90"W

Copy and paste that into the location bar and it gets you a lot closer. Then the nearby Street View cameras will get you there.

Sorry to faff about... This really isn't my game.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I ought to be able to give you a proper detailed url but in Google Earth it's close to 54°18'48.13"N 2°54'53.30"W. But that's not precise and I can't find a way to make it so. I have no idea what they've done; it used to be easy... The Street View camera nearby should show you the place.

Since Google introduced Street View, my url-foo seems to have deserted me. And Street View in Google Earth seems to have been a bit flaky as I move from camera to camera although it seems a lot better today.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Thanks, Mike
posted via 121.127.222.62 user mikefield.

Ah... I think it's in the Pennebaker film 'Town Bloody Hall'; there's an excerpt on Youtube, but not of the crucial Greer Basque moment...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I've been away- just saw it on the iPlayer.

Miss Barrable impression? Hmmm... The thing about Mrs Barrable is that she was a woman after AR's own heart; gentle and motherly but under it, tough as old boots, knowing exactly how to put in the boot, in that quintessential English way. Hullabaloos dead in the water.

Greer was quite wonderful and her flirting act with James Corden was unalloyed pleasure, but she has never seemed cuddly in any shape or form. Sexy yes... After all these years. Does anybody remember her many years ago turning up at a university debate in a Basque with a long feather boa and chewing up Normal Mailer- and spitting him out? On TV? It gets reshown from time to time in '60s compilations.

posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

But you can go to Low Ludderburn and see it (and AR's writing barn) in such a wonderful clear light that you wonder how he ever found the willpower to sit in there and write...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I am starting the planning. We are going to Dresden, Narbonne and Rio.

JMN
posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

I'd be interested in a photo of any press cuttings, or let me know where you see Swallow mentioned.

posted via 212.84.123.153 user Magnus.

posted via 88.106.126.136 user humyar.

I am amazed at how many different ways there are nowadays to be informed about AR and Swallows and Amazons electronically. There are discussion boards especially Tarboard of course; the Yahoo groups (including the junior TARS one); TARS and AusTARS sites; many websites about AR, his books, boats e.g. Nancy Blackett, locations etc with most accessible from the All Things Ransome portal; Wikipaedia; semaphore font downloads!; I've used Google earth and there's now street view; blogs e.g. Great Northern; video clips on YouTube; Facebook groups; and now Twitter.

There is of course lots more information available from non-AR specific internet sites, I'd mention the Lakeland Cam as an example.
posted via 88.106.126.136 user humyar.

• Signals from Swallows and Amazons on Twitter

Thanks Andy, that's exactly the phrase I remembered. I was pretty sure it wasn't in S&A because of the 'well-remembrance,' but for the life of me I couldn't think where it was.

(I suppose "long-memoried patch" would have been a bit extreme, wouldn't it? :-) And in any case it wasn't Dorothea doing the remembering.)

In my long-but-not-necessarily-accurate memory, in the books Swallow was painted while Amazon was varnished. But with the real boats (albeit with Swallow now only a replica) it seems to be the other way round. Curious. The way AR had it would have been more logical. Paint lasts longer than varnish, while varnish looks nicer (at least in many people's view) than paint. Swallow was essentially a work-boat so paint was a better choice for the preservation of her hull. But Amazon was essentially the Pirates' pleasure vessel, for which brightwork could well have been considered more attractive.
posted via 121.127.222.62 user mikefield.

In SA there is no reference to the patch, even in 'Making Ready' where there is a detailed description of the craft when the Swallows first get their hands on it. There are, however, quite a few illustrations which show the patch is there that summer, when they first sail her.
The only oddity is the drawing 'There was a bang.' Depicting the battle with the houseboat. Here Swallow is half hidden in smoke and the boat is middle distant, but the patch is shown, though this time AR has lowered its position to below half way up the sail and there is a small white bottle shaped object just above it. I don't know if this is a printing error or an attempt by AR to show the cannon's wadding which Cap'n Flint fired with his second shot.
Looking at the books and pictures again after many years when they were languishing in the loft, I notice that the perspective is less than perfect, though very atmospheric. I notice that in the books the Swallow seems to be painted rather than varnished. I presume in white.

@Had difficulty sending this last night, twice, let's seeif it goes...
posted via 83.104.41.160 user cousin_jack.

"God's Wonderful Railway"
posted via 78.129.143.132 user ACB.

(And if you're running a bit late, look for the "Bodmin" photos, linked in the top RH coner.)

• CornwallCam

Apparently the boat did not sink right down, but lingered with the tip of her gaff just above the water. So in that case the wooden hull was enough to counteract the lead ballast or metal centreplate, whichever she had.
posted via 212.84.124.28 user Magnus.

The film Swallow has no lead, but we will absolutely HAVE to give her buoyancy equipment of some sort, else we will be risking people's lives, as well as risking losing the boat. Even without today's level of Health and Satefy assesments, you would be duffers to risk this.

I know the S&A had no lifejackets etc, but in those days we also allowed people to drive cars when completely drunk, and without seatbelts. We can still enjoy vintage cars responsibly.

Dinghies CAN capsize, and if they do, they need to have extra buoyancy in order to support the weight of 2 or more humans sitting on the hull too.

We will be very careful how we add any new equipment to Swallow, and of course it will be removable for display purposes, so she can look authentic then.
posted via 212.84.124.28 user Magnus.

Our house can take seven visitors, so costs could vary from just the airline ticket, pocket money and a few trainfares (cheapest by searching the internet and being flexible in times); to additional car hire and campsite fees; to B&B or hotels and meals out.

But also, being in a group can help to get discounts; to getting special visits organised (e.g. Townend house); having barbecues and cook-outs in a social gathering; and group transport discounts etc.

posted via 88.106.84.109 user humyar.

I'd vote for the third week of June as a target date. That is after most US schools are out, some only just. Sometimes it can be a bit hard to take kids out of school just before the year ends--graduations, plays, concerts, etc. tending to pile up a bit in the last week or two. I would love to see some of our Junior TARSUS group there to enjoy seeing the "real" places!

posted via 67.171.170.242 user Elizabeth.

For display purposes, the flotation can be removable, for safety it should be there while people are on the water. I also suggest that people should wear lifejackets while sailing despite the fact that the S, A & Ds didn't have them.
posted via 99.226.100.99 user Adam.

I am going to spend 4000 USD to bring Charlotte to Europe in july for 2 weeks so she can experience Ransome.

money well spent is all I can say.

JMN
posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

As to the price, there was a reserve of £3,000 - Turks were fairly free with this information, so the eventual price was not all that far above. If it seems high, reflect that auctions always present a dilemma and in this case, while donations and pledges were ahead of the price, I think Magnus had no option but to keep going. How bad would it have looked to turn round to donors who gave money to buy Swallow and say 'well, I didn't think she was worth it'.

posted via 91.109.150.162 user PeterWillis.

Robin
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

Re: Patch I guess I did not research this first, in the description of the sail on the TARS website states she had a distinctive white patch, and looking at the illustrations closely on PD and Swallowdale you can just see something there. Most likely the constant reproduction of the illustrations made the patch all but disappear.
Robin
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

I've been adding code to combat a botnet that has been trying to send spam messages to TarBoard every minute or so, and I accidentally uploaded some code which made it stop working...

Woll
posted via 81.174.152.45 user Woll.

As far as the patched sail goes, I think it is mentioned somewhere just like that, without any specificity as to the size or location of the patch. But without going through the series I can't now remember where.
posted via 121.127.222.62 user mikefield.

No doubt the new movie if it ever comes about will be in a studio tank
surrounded by blue screens and all the detail will be added later.
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

Not going to comment on the bidding..................

I recall that the Swallow's sail was repaired and patched after the "Incident at Pike Rock", but the one in the film looks too small for that and in the wrong place. Perhaps it is just intended to show that she is an old and well-used but cared for boat. Maybe some earlier holidaymaker at Holly Howe had carelessly torn the sail and Mrs Jackson had to make a repair but didn't have any tan canvas.
posted via 192.75.48.150 user Adam.

On a different issue why does she have a patch on her sail, it seems it is cosmetic but I cannot recall any reference in the book, or in AR's illustrations.

Robin
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

The journey to the island showed her off perfectly! (It was a long journey too, considering it was filmed on 3 different lakes)! Seeing her move through the rougher water to the accompaniment of stirring music, was enough to even let me forgive the unlikely encounter with Tern. She looked perfect for the role, with the right degree of looking used and worn that one would expect of a boat used by holiday visitors.

I find it a little ironic that our Swallow is varnished, while Mavis/Amazon has always been painted. But I hope that she stays that way. She has a history, even if we know nothing of it before the film. But in the film, she looks a lot like now, supporting the idea that she has been in storage since 1974. If you look in the film, you can see the replaced chunk of wood on the transom, to starboard of the sculling notch. And the tell tale dark compression circle showing frequent mounting of an outboard motor is apparent too. I almost used "Hooray for Swallow 4" as the subject, since that is what she is. Swallow one was the boat that Arthur Ransome probably learned to sail in, when visiting the Collingwoods. The next Swallow, (named for the first one), is the one that AR and Ernest Altounyan bought along with Mavis, for the Altounyan children to sail. Swallow 3, sometimes known as Swallow II, was the 10 foot version that AR had built as a tender for Selina King, later restored by Roger Wardale. And our movie Swallow, is the 4th boat of that name to be closely associated with AR.
posted via 81.174.152.45 user Claire_Morgan.

To stop incorrect speculations, I will add the price to our homepage.

• http://sites.google.com/site/swallowbid

Well done indeed. But I am also curious how much she went for. I can't seem to find that info anywhere.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

the idea of a TARSUS expedition in general is a great one! I'm sure there would be lots of native guides offering accommodation and/or camping gear - does Bank Ground Farm still allow camping? And of course now Swallow to sail!

Even if she needs some work, it would be great to get her out and about over summer to at least be seen - there's Swamazon (joint OGA and TARS), TARS' Rutland Water and Oulton Broad day and Cobnor camp, as well as other events such as the Thames traditional boat weekend. And especially, wherever Nancy Blackett goes she could help pull people in to see both.

So lots to do but lots of fun as well!

Rob
posted via 88.106.84.109 user humyar.

Lets us know when she is restored and able to sail and we will have to arrange a TARSUS expedition.

Fair winds and smooth waters to her and everyone.

Robin
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

Dave
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

JMN
posted via 165.91.199.96 user Mcneacail.

Did anyone watch it at the end?

JMN
posted via 165.91.199.96 user Mcneacail.

More news when I have calmed down again....

• http://sites.google.com/site/swallowbid/home

If you go look at the photos you will see she has a more traditional arrangement for the mast, much as they talk about with Swallow.

JMN
posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

Thank you so much!!!

Magnus

• http://sites.google.com/site/swallowbid/making-a-donation

I love the Norwegian Clinker, I wish I had seen it early enough to see if I could afford to ship her home.

Dam

JMN
posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

Magnus if you are 50 pounds shy I am good for the money. I want to sail on that boat.

JMN
posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

Peter Willis too has come up trumps, inspecting the boat and persuading NBT to back it.

It's been quite exciting to see the way Arthur Ransome appreciators from around the world have pulled together to support this bid, on their own without any backing organisation (though full credit to NBT).

So hopefully we'll win the auction, but if not at least we've not been duffers.
posted via 88.106.84.109 user humyar.

Robin -

Apex have a system called 'overtime bidding' in case bids are placed in the last ten minutes. If they are, then the auction is extended by a further ten minutes. It seems to be designed to maximise the bids:

"Overtime bidding occurs if there is a bid placed on an item in the final 10 minutes of the sale. When the bid is placed the end time will extend by a further 10 minutes. Further bids will not extend the end time unless placed in the final 10 minutes.
Why Do Apex Use Overtime Bidding?

Apex's bidding software attempts to re-create the experience of a live auction room. With a fixed cut off time the item is sold to the bidder who clicks the bid button last, whereas with overtime bidding the item is sold to the bidder who is willing to pay the highest amount." Quoted from Apex.

Let's keep calm and let Magnus keep placing our bids!

Rob

posted via 88.106.84.109 user humyar.

That is a lot of money, who ran it up, at 50 pounds a bid increment that is equivalent to 18 bids ?

JMN
posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

Thanks everyone.

• http://sites.google.com/site/swallowbid

I may have picked it up from a teacher at school, some of them were former military men or perhaps from someone who was in the Boy Scouts. I honestly can't recall, I have just always known of it as a possible technique. You are right that it is a sharp double tap like double clicking a mouse button.
posted via 99.226.100.99 user Adam.

What I would like to see is some "official" definition that defines this "double tap" to be a DASH. So, Adam, where did you see this method described?

Tapping was meaningful in sending messages back in a memory from History. When the US Navy Ships were sunk at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, by Japanese carrier-based airplanes, some ship actually rolled over, trapping some sailors inside. They cut holes in the bottom of the ship to let the trapped ones out. There was communication with those inside by using TAPPING to send MORSE code. But that was a lot of armor plate to burn through to make those holes. Only a few of the trapped ones made it out. Apparently, there was some agreement there as to what tap was a dot and what was a dash.

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
posted via 64.12.116.133 user Kisered.

http://www.seascout.org/about/program/signaling.html

as this seems to illustrate the Naval Signal Flags, the two handed semaphore, and the Morse code. In the Morse section is no mention of a TAPPING convention, but it does define a single flag flapping as being used as: a flick to the sender's right is DOT and a flick to the sender's left is a DASH. This seems to be different from what is described as Nancy's method, where a quick flick is DOT and a wide sweep is a DASH. I suppose the method does not really matter, as long as it is agreed upon by both the sender and the receiver as to what is to be used to mean DOT and what means DASH. Without that agreement, one might as well be signalling to MARS.

I can see TAPPING HARD for DASH, and lightly tapping for DOT, would be meaningful, once it is understood as to how hard that tap has to be to become a DASH. This could also be a problem when the tapping is very faint anyway.

(I am thinking here of the coal miners trapped and killed in a recent accident in West Verginia very recently. If they could "tap", they could be MILES away from any listener, so such a tap would be very faint at best. But no one seemed to survive the explosion to do any tapping anyway. But if one had been able to do any tapping, the message has nothing to do with MORSE, or DOT/DASH, but simply, "Somebody is alive." That would be a very meaningful message.)

In TAPPING, "Silence" already has multiple meanings, as:

"end of character"
"end of word"

To use "silence" also as a part of DASH would make it rather ambiguous with resulting confusion as to the meaning of the message. I cannot see how any pause after a bang would make it a DASH, when it could have meant, that is the end of the character that ends with a DOT.

As for TAPPING as used by Ransome's characters, CF was in a pirate ship, held prisoner, and was communicating with Nancy. It that exchange, DF sent a "Swear" word, and then, ammended it. Oops...

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
posted via 64.12.116.133 user Kisered.

posted via 94.1.203.220 user JennyB.

I'm not saying you couldn't find one, only that it would be hard work.

Due to those factors I think she is worth a decent price. I would never pay a ridiculous sum for her solely because she is a film prop, but I am guessing we may be forced to pay slightly more than we feel appropriate because someone else bids against us. Can't do much about that.

Obviously, building a new boat would be much much more - perhaps double.
posted via 212.84.122.40 user Magnus.

• Boat Bargains of the year

In general usage as far as I know "12 AM" means midnight and "12 PM" means noon. However in 24 hour time 1200 is noon and 0000 is midnight; the previous minute is 2359. So there is in fact no actual 12 AM in terms of what it's supposed to mean.

posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

I always avoid saying "twelve AM" or "twelve PM", and when I hear someone else say it, my esteem for that person decreases. I don't know if there's an accepted standard meaning.

I could argue from a mathematical point of view that 12 AM should mean noon and 12 PM should mean midnight. Or I could argue from a linguistic point of view that 12 AM and 12 PM should both mean midnight and neither of them should mean noon.

If I had to choose which day midnight belongs to, I would probably say the day that's ending, but I don't know whether others would agree. The military usually arrange operations start at 00.01 to avoid the confusions concerning midnight.

Eight bells (or four bells in the case of the two dog watches) always refers to the watch that is just ending. A mathematically inclined person could claim that it's also zero bells in the watch that's just beginning. Eight bells tends (or tend) to be more audible than zero bells.
posted via 91.107.165.246 user eclrh.

I stumbled across this NVDIA screen saver whilst I was updating one of our puters. It is an old fashioned stream engine hauling freight, but it gives you a good idea from a birds eye view of what it would have looked like. Nice music as well. When I watch it I think of PP

It is a 30 MB download.

JMN

• Train Screen Saver

I have rowed many boats in some tough conditions as only 150 mm waves on a lake can be tough.

The human being doing the rowing is doing all the work and say you are sitting in the stern sheets. It is only fair to the oar human driver to give them directions relative to their left and right. You are not hot and sweaty.

It also means that if you say pull left the boat will head to port or your left. So everyone wins.

A win win row,
win win row

etc..

JMN

posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

My question: "Whose left?" Since the ones at the oars and the one guiding the boat are facing in opposite directions, one's "left" is the other's "right".

It reminds me when Nancy was jotting down the semaphore code guide in Dick's notebook, that she stuck in a face in one of them, so you can see what direction they are facing. She said something to the effect that if you get that wrong, everything comes out all wrong.

It is also a reminder of the designation of the date for MIDNIGHT. For example, late Monday it finally becomes midnight, then it becomes Tuesday. But to say something happened at Midnight, which date should be specified? The date that was just finishing up, or the date it was starting?

When one says, "Twelve o'clock" - and then adds AM or PM, how is NOON distinguished from MIDNIGHT? Actually, these two "twelve o'clock's" are neither in the morning (AM) nor in the afternoon (PM) but on the boundary between those those broader concepts of the halves of a day.

The same question regards the Navy time using Bells. Eight Bells signifies the end of one watch and the start of the next watch. When identifying when an event happens, one can say at "eight bells" but of which watch? The one just ending, or the one just starting?

I am still trying to understand the concept of tapping to send Morse code. I don't mean tapping a telegraph key, which can be held down longer to send the dash, I mean banging a pipe with a wrench. How can one do a "SHORT" bang and make it OBVIOUSLY different from a "LONG" bang? In Missee Lee, Nancy and CF communicated in the pirate ship, with CF locked in a cage, by BANGING, but HOW does one bang a dot differently from a dash? Pausing after a "dash' doesn't do it, as how can that pause be separated from the pause that means end of character (or word)?

Amazing the things that come up in the mind when studying "All Things Ransome" - what an education experience these books have been...

Just thinking, and puzzling. You'd think by the time I got to 75 I would have understood these things.

But then, I'm not 75 yet. That won't happen until about a week and a half from today. Maybe by then, All will be revealed...

Thanks for all you folks for these years of explaining Ransome to me. I'm still learning.

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
posted via 64.12.116.133 user Kisered.

We think the prop-buyers decided on a slightly smaller boat so it would be more manageable for the children. More in proportion with them too perhaps!

Obviously it is a shame this 'Swallow' is not an exact copy of THE Swallow, but I think she will still be an excellent way to give people a sailing experience just like the characters in the books.
posted via 212.84.122.40 user Magnus.

If you try again now it ought to be OK as I've embedded the button on the page differently.

Thank you to everyone who has donated, and sorry to all those who got hit by the problem.

• http://sites.google.com/site/swallowbid/making-a-donation

The description for the Swallow on the auction site includes the note above. The most interesting thing, at least for me, is the differences between the lengths for Swallow given in the books.

I believe I am correct in saying the first mention says 14 feet or 4.267 metres

JMN
posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

Internet Explorer 'might' work, but I did not want to write down the URL and type it in, so I do not know. I hope this information helps others having problems.
posted via 71.87.116.26 user Claire_Morgan.

My guess at 3000 UK pounds is for a brand new boat, and the Swallow is not brand new. I simply translated the cost for an equivalent boat from Maine at about 5000 USD that I had seen last week on a web site. Anyone purchasing her for anything except her provenance at more than 1000 UK pounds is mad.

Her provenance is interesting, but only to a Ransome fan, and there are few Ransome fans I know who would take the boat away from the Trust at an auction. At the trust children can sail her and experience Ransome.

I considered placing a comment in here about such a person, but children and elderly folk read these posts so I did not, but they would probably own a loud radio and a motor boat.

So I discounted provenance and ignored a lack of local knowledge.

JMN
posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

So assuming that she costs about 3000 UK pounds to buy. Anyone who reads and understands Ransome is not likely to bid against the Trust. Have to be a right blighter, say what, to do that?

Cost is based on what it would cost in Maine to build a replacement, and if you built a replacement one could be closer to the real Swallow class.

So I will own 1.667% of the Swallow from the Movie.

Of course it is not the real Swallow class boat, but it is a good approximation.

Hopefully I can take a sail one day.

JMN

posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

Help!
posted via 71.87.116.26 user Claire_Morgan.

With Gift Aid bumping up the UK donations by 28%, we've been able to get so much nearer to our mystical target!

Fingers crossed we don't get into a bidding war...
posted via 212.84.124.29 user Magnus.

Don't worry about watching the current bids on the auction website. The real action will not happen until the final day, I assure you. That £1000 you can see at present is my bid though, and it can go higher!

Lots to announce on the website...click for latest details...

• http://sites.google.com/site/swallowbid/

Any news on the Turks 'Swallow' bid? I see from the auction site that the price has reached £1000. Is that us sunk?

Duncan
posted via 82.132.139.187 user Duncan.

• Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransome

• The Swallows and Amazons Guide to Camping

(might have to do this in two messages sorry...)

posted via 82.132.248.161 user Duncan.

Duncan
posted via 82.132.248.161 user Duncan.

Some anti-virus products give negative positives (flag up a problem that isn't a problem), some like Norton are too heavy-handed and often cause more problems than they solve (in case you're wondering this is what I do for a living, I have seen too many PCs with problems that have been simply cured by stitching from Norton to another anti-virus product; thankfully there are a number of very reliable free ones around that do a much better job.)

Back to AR, good article, pity it can't be more widely distributed in print.
posted via 95.146.183.239 user MTD.

It seems slightly odd to me to mention the names of the D's, as characters introduced in the fourth book, without having said anything about who the characters are in the first three.

This could be fixed by adding something along the following lines near the beginning:

"The Swallows of the title are the four Walker children, who borrow the sailing dinghy Swallow for exploration and camping in the Lake District, and the appropriately named Amazons are the piratical Blackett sisters with whom they have wars and alliances."
posted via 91.105.29.225 user eclrh.

Any way of finding who the IP address in Mark Dudley's warning message belongs to?
posted via 91.105.29.225 user eclrh.

Having said that I've got very good anti-virus software that did not alert me to the site, so I wonder if the problem was perhaps only there quite briefly?
posted via 82.132.248.164 user Duncan.

Did it?

I'm using Firefox on a Mac; it puts up alerts if it has info about anything dodgy on a site, and it didn't do that there.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I really liked the Five Find-Outers, but graduated onto AR!!
posted via 94.10.62.86 user JennyB.

Also can you post your article somewhere which doesn't set off alarms?
posted via 99.226.100.99 user Adam.

I'd like to know whether Ransome counted it amongst his own favourites. Was it in Coot Club where Dorothea meantions how Mr Toad disguises himself as a washerwoman? You'd expect a mention like that to spring from fond memories of a book.

However, I was then confused by the link below, where I read that:
"writing for The Bookman, Arthur Ransome called it 'a failure, like a speech to Hottentots made in Chinese'."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/24/wind-in-the-willows-bonhams
This was 1907, when he was 23...is it the same AR?

There is greater detail in this link:
http://www.bookride.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
"Arthur Ransome gave the book a studied review in The Bookman in which he claims the book 'is an attempt to write for children instead of about them. But Mr. Grahame's past has been too strong for him. Instead of writing about children for grown-up people, he has written about animals for children.' He went on to claim that the book, written for the nursery, is full of wistfulness and that it is a failure - for children will not understand the dual nature of the animals."
posted via 212.84.124.29 user Magnus.

Yes I have; it's a lovely, warm, affectionate piece, and as far as I can see it's dead accurate.

Well done.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

• Realism and Fantasy in Swallows and Amazons

I wrote this article as an introduction to the Swallows and Amazons series for new-comers and wondered if anybody had any comments? I can edit it, so if you think there are things I should include (or remove!) let me know! :-)

• The Swallows and Amazons Series, by Arthur Ransome

It does have the problem of clearly being aimed at children but in style and language written for adults. Years later Richard Adams was to have the same problem - a book about thinking talking rabbits has to be for children? Well, no - but Adams is now saddled with that reputation; and though he did write other animal books he wrote an adult book that tends to get overlooked (The Girl in the Swing).
posted via 95.146.183.40 user MTD.

Inspired by a summer spent teaching his friends’ children to sail, Ransome’s tale of Lakeland adventures follows the Walker and Blackett children. Meeting one summer on Wildcat Island, the children form an alliance against the Blacketts’ irritable Uncle Jim, whom they believe to be a retired pirate. After days spent sailing, camping and fishing, the allies hatch a plan to seize Uncle Jim’s houseboat and force him to walk the plank.
posted via 90.200.120.77 user AndyG.

Tolkien certainly sent the chapters of one part of LOTR to his son Christopher, but as Christopher was at the time serving in the RAF (I think) in South Africa it doesn't really support the children argument very well.

I don't think Tolkien was very much concerned as to whether his readers would be eight, eighteen, or eighty so long as it was a "rattling good yarn" - I think like most really good authors primarily he wrote it for himself, although he refers to "those who asked for more about hobbits" having to wait quite a while.
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

That's true- and of course, it was AR's first book in the series, and he was getting into the swing of writing them. Not suprisingly, the later ones are more polished.

However, because of the signifying title it's become shorthand for 'the series'. Can't be helped... And it was hugely successful, after all.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Some versions of the story claim it was C. S. Lewis, but others more plausibly say it was Hugo Dyson, another member of their group, the Inklings.

I've never heard of J.P. Snow. The only person I've heard of with a similar name is C.P. Snow (later Sir Charles Snow, later Lord Snow), scientist, novelist, civil servant, eventually a member of the government, and inventor of the phrases "the two cultures" and "corridors of power". I don't think he ever moved in the same circles as Tolkien and Lewis. I don't think they would have liked him. Lewis would probably have written something horrible about him, as he did about a very thinly-disguised H.G. Wells in That Hideous Strength.
posted via 91.105.29.225 user eclrh.

The only problem with Swallows and Amazons of course is that when Ransome fans compile their 'favourites' lists S&A itself doesn't usually do too well. Winter Holiday, We Didn't' Mean to Go to Sea and Swallowdale are all more popular.

posted via 91.109.177.197 user PeterWillis.

Fitting the rudder on a small dinghy for the first time, Charlotte struggled. I am thinking I will make a swing tiller or a drop plate one like the skiffs use.

Lord of Rings is not a children's book, it is a 14 to 19 year old's book. Now the Hobbit is different.

is there not a famous story about Tolkien reading one of his stories aloud at a meeting of writers and JP Snow? or someone of that ilk saying, Not another ...... elf story.

JMN

posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

I would; I think that for children, as opposed to adults, 'Wind in the Willows' is terribly over rated. I remember, when I was about 12, being bored to death by it, while I was never bored by the AR books, from eight years old onwards.

Unfortunately the list is somewhat devalued with No. 2 being Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings, I'm fairly sure Tolkein would be disappointed to see it viewed this way

Do you think so? I know that the book he actually wrote for his children was 'The Hobbit', but I believe that as he wrote 'Lord of the Rings' he tried it out on them as he progressed; it's for older children, but still I think for children.

Of course it was freighted with his ideas about language and heroic morality, the Norse sagas and the virtues of the English yeoman, but that didn't stop it being a rattling good yarn. I read it a bit late- first time round I must have been 16 or 17 and even then found some of the language a bit arch- but I wasn't bored for a second, and played in the background the froglike sounds of Gerry Mulligan and Zoot Sims in 'Western Reunion', which was a perfect accompaniment; I can't re-read a page of it without hearing that music or hear the music without feeling the brooding threat of the Dark Tower. The point being that if the definition of 'children's books' shades into adolescence, then LOTR is included all right.

Tolkien might have felt he intended it to be more serious than that, but once an author has released a book, it leaves his control, a bit like a pigeon being released at Strickland Junction.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Unfortunately the list is somewhat devalued with No. 2 being Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings, I'm fairly sure Tolkein would be disappointed to see it viewed this way.

• 20 Greatest Children's Books

I suspect you were referring to the difficulty of fitting the rudder while on a beach -- which I agree can be a problem if it's deeper than the dinghy's keel (as Swallow's is. It was because Aileen Louisa spent her life in a mud berth that, with heart in mouth, I took 3" off the bottom of her rudder to bring it up to keel level.)

But Swallow's tiller is a very simple slot-over-stock affair that would present no difficulty in fitting once the rudder was mounted, the traveller being present or not.

posted via 121.127.222.62 user mikefield.

This is the problem I agonized the longest over in making the Ecco. I renamed her once completed to cover all my three daughters. I only had two daughters when I started.

Getting the tiller and in and out when it is fixed is a problem when you launch from a beach. Having the sheet in the road would be annoying a lot.

I finally used a heavy gauge wire along the top of the transom and a Hobie Cat sheet block with a running block on the wire.

JMN
posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

This comment appears on the site trying to buy the boat.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

What if we buy Swallow and then find out she is unsailable? For starters, two people will be visiting the boatyard before we bid, to examine her condition. If we fail to spot something that later means Swallow cannot be sailed (or rather, the cost of repairing such a problem is too large) then we are left with a static exhibit. This would be upsetting to all those who donated, and all we could offer would be to transport Swallow to various TARS events for inspection, or loan her to a suitable museum. We therefore need to inspect her carefully, but remember that we have a donation towards renovations (mentioned earlier).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Having built a 12 foot clinker boat, there is absolutely nothing that can not be fixed on a small wooden boat. I have sailed her once and I am already on the second mast. Long sad story of ineptitude.

She looks good in the photos, I assure you mine looked a lot sadder than that before I took out the sander.

JMN

posted via 75.109.93.174 user Mcneacail.

John or anyone else, here is the link to contribute.

• Swallow donation and info site

Your comments about the possibility of her sporting an iron horse at some stage I found interesting -- the film shows her with a rope horse fastened inside the transom (my guess would be to the quarter-knees, but you can't see, regrettably,) with a block running on it on a bullseye. Maybe she came in for some more use after the film was finished? -- which might also explain additional wear to the varnish etc.

[ Image ]

posted via 121.127.222.62 user mikefield.

Singer was Josh MacRae.

Lyrics:

http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/m/messingaboutontheriver.shtml

posted via 83.104.41.160 user cousin_jack.

• www.nancyblackett.org

"When a thing's done, it's done,
and if it's not done right,
do it differently next time.
Worrying never made a sailor."

"We're all duffers sometimes,
but it's only now and
then we get found out."
Captain Flint (SD CH 8)

in WD CH2:

"Daddy always says, 'Grab a chance and you
won't be sorry for a might-have-been,'"
said Titty.

Upon reading the above from "We Didn't Mean
To Go To Sea" I am reminded of an old saying
that I cannot remember where it came from.
I am quoting here from some ancient memory,
and hope I have it right...

I'd Rather be a "Could-Be"
If I can not be an "Are"
because a "Could-Be" is a "Maybe"
who is reaching for a star.

I'd rather be a "Have-been"
than a "Might-Have-Been" by far,
for a "Might-Have-Been" has never been
but a "Have" was once an "Are!"

And speaking of quotes,
a recent radio broadcast from BBC
of "Swallows and Amazons" has in
its intro, the phrase "Messing
about in boats." This phrase
sounds like it should be a quote
from something Ransome wrote, but
it is from "Wind in the Willows""

`Nice? It's the only thing,' said the Water Rat solemnly, as he
leant forward for his stroke. `Believe me, my young friend,
there is nothing -- absolute nothing -- half so much worth doing
as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,' he went on
dreamily: `messing -- about -- in -- boats; messing -- -- '

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
posted via 64.12.116.133 user Kisered.

Damn right they have! You lot have been wonderful! But the Aussies are hot on your tail with a good chunk of pledges too. No reply from Japan yet though. Shall I email the Czech group too I wonder?
posted via 212.84.125.161 user Magnus.

But back to Swallow.
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

• BBC 7 Newsletter

The effort to save the movie replica of SWALLOW-is mentioned in the
weekly BBC Radio 7 newsletter, with good wishes.
That's pretty exciting, I think. Doug

I have not been able to confirm this as yet.
But sounds good.
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

For immediate release:

12 days to save the Swallow! (or however many days it is)

Writer, broadcaster and part-time dancer, John Sergeant has joined the campaign to save a movie star... The boat that starred in the classic film of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons - the Swallow herself.

etc, etc.

Not too many words - a couple of quotations...

Supporter, Magnus _______ said '...

Contact email and phone number and then email it to editorial boards.

posted via 212.219.3.40 user Duncan.

Today's exciting news is that John Sergeant (UK journalist/broadcaster/celebrity) has joined us! I was glad to find out he was a keen sailor.

I suppose, as a political journalist, his career was similar to Ransome's, in some ways....
posted via 212.84.125.161 user Magnus.

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cp2zn/episodes/player

One of the problems we're finding is just getting the message out to enough people. So many AR appreciators think this is so worthwhile a project, but the readership of Tarboard and the TARS forum are limited in number, so it would be helpful if people could forward the information to anyone they know who might be interested. We also missed the deadline for TARS' Signals which closed just before the auction was announced, about five weeks ago. However, I will include information in Outlaw, with the angle of could you be Titty and make a new pennant for her.

The key website to include if you do email anyone you know is: http://sites.google.com/site/swallowbid
(Obviously my IT skills are so poor that I can't get that into a clickable format. However, you can cut it and paste into the address line on you browser.)

Many thanks

Rob

posted via 88.106.89.136 user humyar.

I strongly suspect that in the real life books the Best of all the Natives put her foot down firmly to squash Captain Flint's suggestion and that Roger had to be consoled with adopting a monkey at the zoo as "his".
posted via 192.75.48.150 user Adam.

• Coniston Launch website

I can well believe that, but I reckon there's a world of difference between the public recognition of the Dog's Home and that of Wild Cat island. The island (and SA) have become icons in the way that the Dog's Home and PM have not.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I don't know when this version was recorded, of if it is any good. The guide says Jean Anderson and Penny Downie star in it, so I assume it is 'dramatised' not just 'read'.

Is there anyone up at 5am with the necessary technology to record an MP3 of the show? That will save me stuggling!

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cp2zn/episodes/upcoming

Ernest Altounyan described to John Berry how he used fibreglass (not epoxy) to sheath Mavis. It then mentions polyester resin, but not the glass mat you'd expect.

This was 1958, so hardly the peak of technology for either fibreglass or resin, especially when applied by an amateur.

Of course, if he hadn't done this, Mavis might have rotted through long before...?
posted via 212.84.122.98 user Magnus.

I have been closely involved in the Merlin Rocket fleet for many years now. These racing dinghies are clinker built, and have been produced in various shapes for over 60 years. I have a wealth of experience to draw on with my fleet contacts. The number of vintage boat renovations is high! No-one keeps their boat in the water - most are in garages 6 days a week.

The first ever Merlin was built in 1946, and has been epoxied sucessfully. She is able to race regularly, with no leak problems.

Since the film Swallow was built as late as 1973, I am anticipating less problems than my friends who have '50s boats - with or without ribs.

I do understand that epoxy is not always the answer. It is very inflexible, and some old boats do need to flex a bit. We will make sure we have the right answer before dunking Swallow in either salt water or resin.

• http://www.merlinrocket.co.uk

I really enjoyed it! One of the joys in life is meeting people from around the world bound by a common interest. So far I'm meeting up with three separate family groups this summer to visit WCI, including another from Australia, and I'm really looking forward to this.

I remain to be comvinced that the majority of people you stopped in say, Coniston village centre, would know what you meant by Wild Cat Island. When I was at the Dogs Home I think with Matthew (UK resident American) a family walked past. We talked to them: they knew the building as the wicked witch's house...

Rob
posted via 88.106.89.136 user humyar.

Isn't Coch-y-bonddhu already treated in this way (i.e. the planks were dried and impregnated with epoxy resin). However, re-reading Liz's article in the last Signals reminds me of exactly why we need to secure Swallow: epoxy resin treated boats (the article says) are meant to be kept dry and out of water. She goes on to say TARS will need to be very cautious about her use and travel in the future. I would contend that there is therefore a need for another, newer boat that we can actually sail!

Having said that, Titty Walker, my little Sparklet 12, is now 58 years old. I use 'boat soup' (StuartWeir's recipe) on her rather than varnish - it seems to soak in which I guess/hope helps the mahogany. I have used some Sikaflex (black gunge) especially on the prow/bow, but no epoxy.

In respect of the film Swallow, what this discussion conveys to me is that there is a wealth of knowledge within Tarboard that can be used, and this is only for the best!

Rob

posted via 88.106.89.136 user humyar.

With this Swallow, the fact that she's planked in mahogany, a much more stable wood than larch or pine, may help
posted via 91.109.187.57 user PeterWillis.

And I was guided to The Dog's Home by Rob too, even without asking....

So I reckon your scheme works okay, Peter.
posted via 121.127.222.62 user mikefield.

Please disabuse your minds entirely, absolutely, and forever of any such plan.

Should the bid succeed the only material you should consider using to help make the laps watertight is the US product Slickseam. This is a wax-based product which can be used to seal the laps until the wood takes up, and which is extruded from between them without damage to the planking as it does.

Epoxy in new construction designed for it (eg Iain Oughtred's glued clinker designs) is one thing. Epoxy is a wonderful glue, and can make a good gap-filler in the right circumstances. But you don't want the stuff anywhere near the laps of an existing clinker vessel. It sets rock-hard, and once the wood swells against it as it absorbs water the planking becomes always, forever, and permanently damaged.

For myself, I wouldn't use any filler at all, I'd let water do the job. But given the length of time the poor girl has been kept in dry storage I would expect if to take at least several days' immersion for the timbers to swell to the point where occasional bailing is all that's required. And unless she was floated regularly (say, every weekend or two) she would need at least several hours soaking each time before being again ready for use.

The problem with owning any clinker vessel that is predominantly kept out of the water is the constant drying she undergoes between launchings, necessitating subsequent swelling once she's launched (during which time of course she can't be used.) A traditional clinker vessel is not a good purchase-choice for a vessel that will be stored on dry land and trailered to outings -- unless you're prepared to use Slickseam on a regular basis.

I was fortunate with my own clinker dinghy Aileen Louisa that my back gate opened on to the waters of Western Port, and so she could be left permanently wet (even though drying between tides.) Once I moved inland I found, very sadly, that the best thing I could do for her was to sell her to someone who could keep her afloat the way a clinker vessel should be kept.

• 'Aileen Louisa' in her tidal berth

I have just updated the website with a document that covers the financial/legal aspects we've considered (if we win). Some people way wish to see a greater level of detail than we were publishing before.

The only other news is that the Aussies have done us proud! Their latest boost means we have nearly hit 40% on the totaliser.

Still need many more donations though! Pleeeeeeeeease!
posted via 212.84.126.194 user Magnus.

I'd bet that if you rock up to Coniston and ask for 'Wild Cat Island' they'll put you right, especially if you also mention 'Arthur Ransome'. And I guess you'll pretty quickly find a way to get out there.

Looking helpless and asking usually works, wherever you are and whatever you're looking for.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

• Swallow Bid

http://sites.google.com/site/swallowbid/
posted via 67.171.163.159 user Elizabeth.

I started this as a new thread to bring it higher up in the message queue. See the recent Mangus post in the original thread for the appeal URL.

Claire
posted via 71.87.116.26 user Claire_Morgan.

Thank you. What a splendid piece!
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Actually, they don't tell you that on maps it will be called Peel Island, so really it's not much help at all. Which might be a good thing.
posted via 88.106.89.136 user humyar.

More connections:

Edith would read RLS to the children, and AR grew up with RLS books.

AR and RLS both played the penny whistle.

• http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books--treasure-for-ransome-true-literary-finds-are-rare-but-a-brown-paper-parcel-that-lay-forgotten-for-80-years-has-revealed-a-lost-book-by-arthur-ransome-a-tribute-from-one-great-writer-to-another-1431906.html

Thank you so much to everyone who has made a pledge so far!

I still need you all to pass this news on to other Ransome fans, far and wide...please keep spreading the word.

• http://sites.google.com/site/swallowbid

May I suggest the link of Captain Flint, i.e. one of the influences on Ransome. Also the All Things Ransome page is part of a number of mini recommendations of other books by Ransome readers for other Ransome readers.
posted via 192.75.48.150 user Adam.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8588371.stm

They note correctly there have been "several" sequels to Treasure Island written in the past; in this article on All Things Ransome, Thomas Grimes discusses a few of them: http://allthingsransome.net/rrreviews/treasureisland.html. ATR would welcome more articles about other Treasure Island prequels, sequels, and non sequiturs.

posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

• Arthur Ransome on Twitter

• Post Cards from the Norfolk Broads

[ Image ]

posted via 99.242.24.77 user dreadnaught.

I'd never heard of this, but I am forcefully struck by the fact that the doggie is apparently called 'Skype'. So maybe she meant 'We'll be keeping in touch'?

In fact it does sound as though the twins, or perhaps AR, had come across it at school... Sounds as though it would have been a solid Victorian literary survival.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

"The puir wee doggie", said Port, turning suddenly away and looking out of a porthole.

Does anyone know what this refers to?

The only reference I have found is:
http://www.sermonsearch.com/content.aspx?id=24134
which I assume is correct.

From the wikipedia page on Ian Maclaren,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Maclaren
it sounds as if his works were well-known, so maybe that's correct, although they were published in the 1890s. Does anyone know if they were still well-known in the 1930s?

I assume that Port is not really crying because of thinking of the doggie, but because she is sad she and Starboard are not going.
posted via 81.174.152.45 user Woll.

TARS did celebrate the 75th anniversary at Abbott Hall - I wonder if there are any plans to do something this time.

I'll pop it into The Outlaw too.

One thought, to balance the literary and the activity sides of TARS, why not buy a first edition of the book, to be kept on display in the Museum of Lakeland Life at Abbott Hall, at the same time as buying the Swallow from the movie, to be kept on display at...
posted via 88.106.89.136 user humyar.

I'm not old enough to have been one of the TR pioneers, though I was a member of the TRPS in the 1960s. I spent many happy hours playing in the nearby slate quarries inspired by the mining adventures of PP.

Is this one of 'your' trains? Because, yes, that would be really uncanny.

I arrived on the Swanage Railway scene in May 1972. The previous preservation effort had just folded. There were insuperable difficulties in dealing with the Ministry of Transport, British Railways, Dorset County Council, Swanage Urban District Council, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

Suitably inspired by NB's defiance of the GA in PM and her diplomacy with the doctor, postman and Squashy Hat, I organised the local residents into an efficient lobbying force and led the campaign which managed to turn the tide. I was actually involved in the SR from 1972 to 1978. Since then I have had a paternal affection for 'my' railway ;-)

posted via 79.184.61.146 user Jock.

Incidentally, it was a Hunter Europa 19 that my son sailed round Britain in in 2008 - still I think the youngest male to do so. I'm not going to tell him about David's Transatlantic adventure.

Rob
posted via 88.106.89.136 user humyar.

You probably know Suzanna Hamilton played Susan and went on to star in many movies. She's still acting on TV these days, according to IMDB.

With the help of Google I found out some basic info, but I wondered who knew more?

Titty: Sophie Neville - currently a wildlife painter in South Africa if www.sophieneville.co.uk is the right match

Roger: Stephen Grendon - possibly the chap who lives a hermit's life in a shack in the Gloucestershire countryside

John: Simon West - no further clues
Nancy: Kit Seymour - no further clues
Peggy: Lesley Bennett - no further clues

I will also mention Sammy: David Blagden - this guy was also the sailing director, and I wonder if it was the same David Blagden who won Transatlantic races in a tiny yacht?
posted via 212.84.125.182 user Magnus.

If so, could they let Tarboarders know so that we don't have to try and raise the money and bid against each other!

Rob
posted via 88.106.89.136 user humyar.

Would Robin and Duncan please email me so I know what amount they want to stake? That will help me maintain a running total.

So are there any other ways to reach AR fans in the next fortnight? The message is out on Tarboard, Facebook, the CVRDA...where else? We need another 10 generous people at least!
posted via 212.84.125.182 user Magnus.

Robin
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

I'm happy to put £100 down on this project, so I believe our total is £300 so far, with a few more likely candidates still to approach. Please pass the message around.

The auction currently stands at £450 and I expect we are going to need at least £1000. However, I also think £1000 is probably a reasonable maximum for us too!

I seem to be gravitating towards the role of organising this...is there anyone else who would rather be in charge? I'm happy to take a front or back seat role.
posted via 212.84.125.182 user Magnus.

Sorry Jock, I don't quite get the reference. I know about the railway you helped to revive and I've seen pictures of you at what, if I remember right, was the (re)opening. Is this one of 'your' trains? Because, yes, that would be really uncanny.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/lost/novels.html

http://forums.abebooks.com/abesleuthcom
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Juvenile-Children-s-2215/
http://www.librarything.com/groups/namethatbook
http://loganberrybooks.com/stump.html
http://www.auntbook.com/
http://www.webrary.org/rs/flarchive.html
http://www.pubyac.org/
http://project-wombat.org/
http://www.whatsthatbook.com/

posted via 98.26.126.245 user allym.

And yes, I know the AR connection is getting a bit thin, but if I hadn't been inspired by NB and her battles with Authority in the shape of the GA, I would have never been foolish enough to have taken on every man and his dog to set up this particular railway.
posted via 83.29.120.74 user Jock.

Stuart is right to say this is a great opportunity to buy any such a boat, though the film connection may push the price too high. I think Geraint's replica idea was going to cost nearly £10K however.

Rob

posted via 88.106.89.136 user humyar.

There were also a few more-recent comments posted on

• this thread.

[ Image ]

posted via 203.129.46.137 user mikefield.

• BBC news item

Actually, it's quite uncanny. How did they know about Jock, so they could give us a clear view of The Wall at Oxenholme.

And Jock, that's a Pendolino in the station; how did you organise that?
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Hasn't it just? I've used it quite a lot in the big cities, but they really have spread the coverage.

And they had to choose what streets to drive down... It does look like there's an AR fan helping make that decision.

Look in Google Maps at IP9 1JN. Alma Cottage is at the very end of their coverage, the red brick house just by the road, to the right when you're going towards the hard.

• Alma Cottage

Initially, this does seem a terrible shame, but I have to reluctantly admit that their reasons are entirely valid. Even if they did suddenly find enough volunteers able to give up a substantial portion of their time, there would still be terrible logistical problems in getting this boat seen/sailed by more than (say) 20% of the UK membership, which is unfair.

However, I myself do not have to pay much attention to sense and logic, and feel inclined to live by the motto "grab a chance..."! I am happy to stake some of my own cash on this, and I know the names of 2 others who feel the same. Perhaps there are more like us, who might post their names below?!! I think a modest fund-raising effort is worth the hassle, though it is wholly possible we might be outbid.

My desire is to see this Swallow sailed by as many fans as possible, and not hidden away in a private collection. I know she was never owned by Ransome himself, but she has enough connection to warrant an attempt to purchase. Indeed, it is because she is not as precious as the original Swallow, that the new owner could risk getting her wet!

posted via 212.84.125.182 user Magnus.

Here is an opportunity for obtaining a Swallow-like boat for, perhaps, a comparatively small cost. Of course the auction may run up the price, but having a new boat like this made by hand would be very expensive.

Due to the widespread interest in the "Swallow," and since in future boats like this will be harder to find or build, it would be well if this boat were obtained by someone well qualified to maintain it. That means a place to keep it inside, to work on it and to protect it when not in use, and next to water so that there would be no need to haul it on a trailer, which is no good for wooden boats. It would be good if there were long-term prospects of resources to maintain it.

And due to the widespread interest in the original "Swallow," many people would love to see this "Swallow." So it would be good if this boat was used to promote public interest in small boats and boating.

The Nancy Blackett Trust or similar orgnaization with facilties and personnel in place seems like a very good choice. And that would allow the boat to be seen and sailed by many more than if owned by an individual.

If some such organization steps forward with plans for purchasing this boat, for maintaining it, and for making it available for public viewing and for sailing by qualified crew, just as the "Nancy Blackett" is, we ought to give them our support, including doubloons.

Stuart Wier
Colorado

• The Boats of Swallows and Amazons

Here's Low Ludderburn where S&A was written.

Andy
posted via 90.200.120.77 user AndyG.

I used to think that as time passed, and more and more AR locations changed beyond
all recognition, or were demolished altogether, that it would become impossible to film
the whole series.

Yet today, with CGI and digital matte techniques, becoming ubiquitous. It would be
easier than ever before to recreate the lost world of the Ss, As and Ds.

Come on BBC, let's have all the books filmed in loving detail and broadcast as a TV
series. I predict that they would be a hit in the UK and massively popular in Japan.
posted via 83.21.67.83 user Jock.

• The Heald (and dromedary)

• Lanehead

Starting with place of birth :

• ^ Ash Grove, Leeds - with Blue Plaque

They were originally accompanied with some sample screenplay which didn't really suit the blog idiom! Might be of interest to some anyway (was originally actually just part of an interesting but ultimately fruitless discussion with BBC film...)

• Great Northern?

And it certainly seems to be working fine again.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I recently received an e-mail from Ian Watkins, a fellow Ransome enthusiast in Australia, asking for help in locating a book which he read years ago, but of which he cannot remember either the title or the author. He is asking for help from the Tarboard constituency. Here is what he remembers:

The plot is similar to "Great Northern?" in that it is about a sailing ship with one (I think) adult and a group of children sailing around the coast of England. Early in the book there is a storm and a yacht near them sinks. There is a discussion on the merits of full bowed craft vs. flared bow craft (the flare bowed craft being the one that sinks). There are small inset illustrations of the different bows (I can easily visualize this page).

The story unfolds with people taking birds from an island. The kids eventually repel the birders from the island by building a rock throwing ballista and, by firing their signaling cannon each time they fired a rock, made out that they had a big gun on the island and thus protected the birds.

There is a great one page drawing of the ballista about two thirds through the book.

The book seemed to me to be very accurate in the sailng detail and I have the impression that the book was post WW2 (I think from some statement about those damned flared bows).

I would be appreciate of any help you could provide.

I (Dave) don't recognize the book at all, but I hope someone on Tarboard can identify it. Suggestions are welcome!

posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

And ML.
posted via 91.107.189.110 user eclrh.

The hull's frames and keel assembled on the building board.

The prop shaft fitted (and some planking underway on the starboard side).

Now to get my head down and plank on!

Andy, glad to see Tarboard back!
posted via 90.200.120.77 user AndyG.

I've tested most things, like posting new messages, and it seems to work OK. However, there might be something I've missed, so if it starts acting up please email me at:
woll@2-islands.com

The original problem was caused by someone attacking the internet provider's web server on which TarBoard is hosted, and defacing all the websites (replacing the home pages of about 300 sites with an uplifting quote from the "founder" of Turkey - Kemel Ataturk).
posted via 81.174.152.45 user Woll.

At least the film boat doesn't have a centreboard housing, though whether there are lead pigs under the bottom boards and/or some sort of keel instead isn't clear. The seating arrangement with thwarts and side benches looks right. It's not painted, I suppose a new owner could do this if they really wanted to.

But at 12' 6" long it's 18" short of the 14' mentionned twice - see Mike Weir's article in All Things Ransome. Nor does she have the rubbing strake at the bottom of the top plank that Mike talks of - but this isn't clear from the drawings, it could just be the top plank is left unpainted. The film boat also seems to have a strange looking arrangement to mount the mast between the second and a third thwart - was this added to give Roger somewhere to sit while filming? In Peter Duck ch 2, there is clearly just one forward thwart with the mast mounted through it, and Roger sitting on this. The rudder is not shaped like the drawings which show a more curved top rather than the squareish design on the film boat.

It is odd if they had the boat built especially for the film that they didn't go for a 14' hull. Maybe they felt this would be too big for children to handle (?!). Otherwise it is probably as good a replica as you could buy, and I feel with its history it would be a great boat to own! If you're bidding, remember to allow for a good quality trailer. It would go well with my suggestion of replica Swallow tents and camping gear.
posted via 88.106.89.136 user humyar.

Andy
posted via 90.200.120.77 user AndyG.

Let us begin the geekery by discussing how accurate a copy the film Swallow was of the original Swallow as described in the books....
posted via 212.84.123.164 user Magnus.

The big clearance (see the link on Magnus' second post) is because they're moving.
posted via 203.129.46.137 user mikefield.

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/apexauctions/sets/72157623255242403/

I wouldn't tell the wife until the hull is safely in my garage....but if I'm being restrained for a minute, I think TARS or the NBT ought to consider if they could/should bid.

There is much talk on the CVRDA forum (classic dinghy lovers) about this action. I trust everyone has seen the photo gallery link?
posted via 212.84.123.164 user Magnus.

• Photos of the film 'Swallow'

A passing thought - the Nancy Blackett might like, one year, to visit the Baltic, call on her former master's old haunts and renew acquaintance with the POMMERN!

• The life history of the Pommern, from the Bruzelius website

1929, Liverpool
1930, Glasgow
1931, Cork
1932, Glasgow.
1933, London.
1934, Hull.
1935, London
1936, Ipswich
1937, London
1938, Belfast
1939, Hull

The only time that she visited Ipswich was in 1936.
posted via 92.48.99.29 user ACB.

I see no javascript errors here, but I'm using Firefox on a Mac.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

The gallery has no detailed photos of Nancy though, something I mentioned to the chairman last year. I will email in my own photos which you can use if desired. There are 2 videos too.
posted via 212.84.126.232 user Magnus.

• http://www.nancyblackett.org

posted via 68.238.252.63 user Didymus.

1932, Arrived Queenstown 7th July, 129 days from Port Germein, discharged at Glasgow.

1933, Arrived Falmouth, 20th May, 98 days from Port Victoria, discharged at London.

1934, Off Queenstown 11th June, 110 days from port Victoria. Arrived at Mariehamn 26th July, 14days from Hull, so most likely she discharged there.

So she never was at Ipswich within the "canonical time line", and indeed AR was very lucky to catch her being towed to sea. He must have been delighted.
posted via 92.48.99.29 user ACB.

HWF&C at Harwich is around 12.00 GMT so with Low Water at around 8 am we can see that we are at the top of Springs.

Jim Brading anchors the "Goblin" on the Shelf, which is very shallow, at around Low Water, intending to be gone for an hour or at most two, so he veers a short scope, as he does not want to make unnecessary work for himself. She is probably in around six to eight feet of water when he anchors. If he has veered five fathoms, which is what I have often done in those circumstances, he is at a good 3:1 scope at Low Water but at High Water, allowing for the Goblin's freeboard, he is nearer 2:1.

The ebb runs harder than the flood so she drags on the ebb.

posted via 92.48.99.29 user ACB.

Would that be able to cause the Goblin to drag its anchor? Maybe especially if Jim Brading had not let out the full scope because he was only planning to be gone for a short time, or if there were other boats or obstacles close by which would restrict his swinging room.
posted via 192.75.48.150 user Adam.

Hullo Peter- yes, you're right of course. But 1936 really just confirms the date of AR's recce, that we know otherwise from his logs and diaries. That's why I believe that although it's huge fun looking for these internal clues within the books, we really need to suspend disbelief and take them at what seems to be AR's intended value; that these are small children, still, although maybe not as small as they were in SA, and circumstantial evidence is pleasant but doesn't rule the story.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Thanks, Andy!
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

As to Jonnat's shed, I ought dispel your visions: I'm limited to the garden and (for the less sawdusty bits) the kitchen table. It's so unromantic, but needs must!

Andy

posted via 90.195.49.231 user AndyG.

That said, I hope to have the keel and frames on the building board by this weekend, ready for planking.

Andy
posted via 90.195.49.231 user AndyG.

• Postcards From The Norfolk Broads.net

In that thread, the name is posted in a scrambled form.
posted via 98.26.126.245 user allym.

Yes; that was one of the things of which AR was especially proud, wasn't it? A big table to write at, room to sit, deep bunks and deep storage beyond them. And the unintended consequence of the beam and the shape being that she rolled abominably...

It'll be lovely to see your model when it's there. In the mean time, do please keep us up to date with photos, or give us a link where we can see the progress.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Now, a proper build log will arrive at a website once I'm properly underway on the construction, but for a teaser, here's the keel and one frame underway, along with a tentative start for the dinghy (about which I know nothing other than she was 2.5m long - though I believe the plans for this are in Leeds).

(The left-handed scissors** are in the pictures to suggest that she's one-eighth scale, so she's around 44" long (and has a disturbingly squat 17" beam).

Regards,

Andy

** Fantastic things for us blighted with this debilitating condition.
posted via 90.195.49.231 user AndyG.

Claire
posted via 71.87.116.26 user Claire_Morgan.

1) Dung beetles aren't just creatures of filth, there is also a big invisible one above us all - the scarab god Khepera was said to push the sun across the sky.

2) The well-known photo of 'Slug' published in several books, ISN'T! The photo shows a centreboard dinghy, whereas Slug was a larger keelboat, ballasted with rocks which AR tells us he spent an uncomfortable night sleeping on.
posted via 212.84.126.232 user Magnus.

On a more serious note, the Felixstowe Dock into which Jim Brading rowed the Imp, and which Ransome drew, is no more; it has been filled in and the dock buildings drawn by Ransome demolished as part of the Felixstowe South reconfiguration.

posted via 92.48.99.29 user ACB.

But Durrell's 'dinghy' (coracle would be a better word -- it was built by his brother Leslie, who was not a boatbuilder, and named by his elder brother Larry, the other noted author of the Durrell family) was not called Bootle-Bumtrinket, although that was the name that appeared in the book and which you're no doubt thinking of.

The real name was considerably less polite, and probably not for posting on a family-oriented site like this....

posted via 203.129.46.137 user mikefield.

I didn't know that AR had explicitly set it all so close together. But that's what I meant when I said that the more you look the less likely it all seems. It's an absolute rush hour of adventures, and I can't believe in that aspect of them.

I've always taken the books more or less one by one. Related, of course, by the characters, but not hugger mugger in the course of a year or two. And if this creates problems with the children not aging at a reasonable rate, it's never worried me. I suspend disbelief in the series and enjoy the books almost in isolation. Not quite of course, but the relationship between the explicit date (1931) for SA, and the (inadvertent) evidence for 1936 in WDMTGTS is really of no importance to me.

It does, of course, provide wonderful opportunities for train spotting.

Beckfoot plumbing, anyone?
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

From one point of view, they could equally well have named the boat Dung Beetle, but it might have seemed less attractive.
posted via 91.107.147.135 user eclrh.

our Mirror 25677 on Windermere.

posted via 194.80.32.8 user IanEN.

The quote in my last item on this thread was from Amazon Publications' The Best of Childhood, which prints a list, from the AR archive, of the books' fictional dates, and the ages of the children. And I also have a photocopy of a different but similar document in his own handwriting confirming the timescale. WD is "Summer hols 1932. Fourth week", i.e. late August, leaving time for SW and BS ("Summer hols. End").
In the real world, AR bought Nancy Blackett on September 10th, 1935, and moved to Broke Farm, Levington (near Pin Mill) on October 21st. Meanwhile he had had a difficult passage in Nancy from Poole Harbour to Pin Mill in mid-September, and sailed around the coast in the Pin Mill area during the autumn.
When he started sailing again in 1936, he did the passage to Flushing on June 1st/2nd (25 hours) but stayed longer in Holland than the Swallows, arriving home on June 11th, meeting the Pommern in the early evening.
He started writing WD on November 8th, 1936, and did most of the first draft through the winter, but had various distractions (Carnegie medal, Far-Distant Oxus, Nancy) in the spring and summer - not to mention having Evgenia's devastating criticism of the second draft in July - and the final version didn't go to Cape's until September 4th, 1937.
So if the radar towers were built in 1936, he would have probably have seen them building. Perhaps as Geraint suggests, they were already complete in 1935.
posted via 86.178.114.68 user awhakim.

I'm sure you're right. Both they and the Pommern were there when he did his recce for WD, they were nice incidental plot elements and in they went.

The fact seems to be that he didn't really have a detailed internal time line for his stories; the only time line that counted was external, hitting the Christmas selling season for Cape.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I do of course accept that the books are works of imagination taking place in a time that never was but which is "generic 1930's"!

(Keeping the anorak on for a moment, though, I think the Thorneycroft "Handy Billy" was intriduced in 1934, as that appears to be the date on the owners handbook!)

Slightly more seriously, the "Pommern" was no more likely to dock during the school holidays than the Great Northern Diver was to nest during them, so this is an argument for "Great Northern?" being "real" and not a "Peter Duck story"!
posted via 195.93.21.5 user ACB.

June 11, 1936. At 2.25 Longsand bore W. Log 59. At 4.00am Sunk bore E. Log 67. At five waked by the daylight... we were close to the Cork and W of it before it showed up like a ghost. Then we saw a lovlier ghost, the four masted barque Pommern being towed out. I was lucky to get three photographs of her in the mist from close to...

This was on AR's return from his trip to Flushing to research WDMTGTS.

However, I very much doubt you can take this as indicating that the novel was set in 1936, as the internal timeline for the series suggests WD took place soon after Pigeon Post, a year after Swallowdale. It seems far more likely to me that AR saw a wonderful sight on his return to Harwich and he simply dropped that into the book as a memorable incident.

As for the radar masts at Bawdsey: AR only moved to Suffolk in 1936, so he may not have realised the masts didn't exist in 1932. Again I'd suggest he saw them on his return and put them in as an object of interest for the return passage to England.
posted via 194.164.38.65 user Geraint_Lewis.

First, the anorakery:

The "imaginary year" is fixed as 1936 by the visit of the "Pommern" to Ipswich (I think it is the only year when she called there - I have a note of her in Belfast as well as Hull and London for other years) and it cannot be earlier because of the Bawdsey "radio" (actually radar) masts.

I am not worried that the photograph is dated to May 1936 because I suspect that date is too early and may be a mistake. The "Pommern", a noted fast sailer for a big barque, took around three and a half months to get from Australia to Falmouth, on average, and she could not possibly sail before the Australian grain harvest was in, (and, in the case of her cargo, bagged and transported to the loading port and loaded). She was typically in port in late June and July, and it would take time to discharge 3,000 odd tons of wheat in hundredweight sacks by hand.

Second, we know AR was a square rig anorak because of

(a) Captain Sehmel's reference to the "Demooply", which Ransome correctly idenifies as the "Thermopylae", in "Racundra's First Cruise"

(b) Roger pretending to be the "Cutty Sark" in SA - the "Cutty Sark" had just been bought by Captain Dowman and was in Falmouth, not preserved at Greenwich, at that time.

(C) Peter Duck's yarn in PD, which is very detailed and full of technical terms.

So AR. sailing on the Orwell in Nancy Blackett and overlooking the river from his house could not possibly have missed the "Pommern".

Third, none of this matters in the slightest!
posted via 195.93.21.72 user ACB.

So your square rig anorakery and my radar anorakery seem to say 1936. Certainly no earlier. Which makes the rest of of the normally estimated time scales kind of wonky, when you think that SD nails itself firmly to August 11th, 1931.

That is, provided we are being truly anoraky.

Hmmmm. Good fun. But does it matter? I repeat; I don't think that AR gave a jot. After all, the '30s were full of tensions of which I'm sure the naval Walkers would have been aware, yet apart from their father being called to the Admiralty before his Shotley posting, the world outside the children's activities hardly impinges at all. There is the moment at the cairn in SD when they find the tin with Bob Blackett's signature ('He was father' in a queer voice) and I remember that we've discussed the significance of that here- did he die after the war of 'flu, or in the war itself? But AR leaves us no clues and seems not to have cared about the context. If he didn't care about it, should we?
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Yup. She was a regular caller. Which makes it fairly hard to nail down the date of WDMTGTS. As the other piece of internal evidence places it after 1936, it still stretches the timescale of the stories.

And thank you (both) for the pictures.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

[ Image ]

posted via 195.93.21.72 user ACB.

Peter I will spare you a few yards of square rigger anorakery (mind you, Ransome was a square rigger anorak himself...) and summarise - the POMMERN like the other ships in the Gustav Erikson fleet, the very last fleet of square rigged, cargo carrying, sailing ships, was in the grain trade from Australia to Britain, calling at Falmouth for orders on reaching soundings in the Channel in order to learn which port to make, and there is a photograph of her in Ipswich docks in May 1936.

So there's your answer.

I am very confident that Ransome himself saw her there and in the Orwell.

[ Image ]

posted via 195.93.21.72 user ACB.

Regular run? 1932/33/34/35/36? Choose one?

Or were there no regular runs in those days?
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

(The ship herself is preserved at Mariehamm in the Aland Islands)
posted via 217.33.157.34 user ACB.

To get back to Ransome, his fictional boats' names are mostly straightforward, though Tom Dudgeon's punt Dreadnought may be a bit ironic since the most famous naval Dreadnought was the first true steam battleship. Jim Brading's dinghy Imp is obviously a smaller Goblin but we aren't told why his yacht was called Goblin.

Scarab comes from the D's father's archaeological interests in Egypt.

Jim Woodall's wherry Sir Garnet is named for Sir Garnet Wolseley, a Victorian general renowned for his efficiency and successful campaigns.

• Details of the Cape Cod Frosty -World's smallest racing dinghy

Yes, that makes sense too. After all, a number on a sail is a sometime thing.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I simply can't agree- I think this is an over-projection with hindsight. Which is what I meant when I said that I thought the review was in part a joke, a satire on excessive critical analysis. Of course it's a perfectly tenable view. I just disagree with it.

For me the main characteristic that Nancy displays in PM is a more developed form of her behaviour in previous books, not necessarily more mature; focused on operational questions, goal oriented, and unconventional. Her role as a hostess is an example of that. She enjoys being the hostess, but her decorations are skull and crossbones and Scarab flags, and her hostess skills are profoundly conventional, themselves a parody- and she and her guests are perfectly aware of that. And then she climbs down the rose trellis...

As for a description of a country under occupation, I really think that's dragged in by the short and curlies. I don't see AR thinking in those terms at all. His wellsprings were personal; the lakes, his imaginary ideal childhood, children in a state of innocence; he famously never managed to relate to his absent daughter except as a small child, even when she had grown up, and he fell out with the Altounians when they grew out of his control. I don't think he cared much about the occupation of countries, beyond the equivalent he'd seen when the Bolsheviks changed Russian society- or tried to, as it seems to have reverted fairly rapidly to a robber baron authoritarian state. To an extent that was an occupation, but I don't think he was writing about that at all in PM.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

posted via 90.195.49.231 user AndyG.

Nancy does seem to look forward to, and enjoy, playing the part of hostess, arranging the guests bedrooms, choosing the meals with Cook and so on.

The Picts are viewed by the natives with a mixture of tacit support and fear of the consequences of discovery.

The GA is indeed an invader. Nancy chooses to collaborate with the invader whilst organising a secret resistance. As a study of a population under occupation, this book is not bad at all!

Nancy does not pretend to be a pirate; this is a much more grown up Nancy than the Peter Pan-ish Nancy of "Secret Water", where one may sense that John has moved on and she has not.

Many grown ups were indeed abroad when the book appeared. There were lots of children missing a parent and with the other parent unaccustomedly at work for long hours. Like the Ds, many of the first readers of The Picts and The Martyrs were thrown more on their own resources

It all makes sense to me.
posted via 217.33.157.34 user ACB.

Re: a busy summer, tt must be quite a while after PP because of the changes that have happened with the mine.
posted via 90.220.78.72 user Duncan.

Yes. But reading that review, I didn't think it was very plausible. In fact, as I said, I thought it was a bit of a joke, a satire on reviews and quite a good one.

But I'm no reviewer, nor do I have any formal grounding in psychology or literature, and I approach AR's books plonkingly according to whether or not I enjoy them and AR himself as a working author who needed to make a living, and did so very well indeed, both in the quality of the books and in the results for him. Hard to beat that.

But that review stirred up some discussion. All to the good.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

This review does exactly that; the writer makes a very plausible case for something that I had not considered.

posted via 195.93.21.103 user ACB.

[ Image ]

posted via 99.226.100.99 user Adam.

Thanks. Makes sense. But is it done to to name dinghies? Like, you keep the number on the sail but write 'Fighting Temeraire' on the transom.

Asked in a pure spirit of enquiry.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Do the numbers relate specifically to each boat, so they need to be incorporated into the name?

You see, I really know nothing about this stuff.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Drat. Of course I meant PM.

Too many abbreviations...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Andy
posted via 90.195.49.231 user AndyG.

Being 1932? But for a real bit of train spotting, do remember that WD, as told, can't have been before 1936 because of the reference, as they return from Flushing, to sighting the 'radio masts at Bawdsey', which were early Radar masts which were erected at Bawdsey Manor; the first ones were erected around '36. Of course it means nothing- just that AR did a recce, and we know he sailed from Harwich to Vlissingen and back to check things out. By then the radar masts were there, so he jammed them into the book.

This is all huge fun, geekery unbounded, but I have to say that trying to nail down the detailed chronology makes it all seem more unlikely, the deeper you go. AR tied it all together in a notional way, but it doesn't seem that he exactly had a chronological chart on the wall. In fact it doesn't seem that he ever thought that his rattling yarns would be subjected to this kind of analysis.

Now I don't know enough to tell, but I'll bet he got the sailing right. Because he really cared about that.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

But that made no sense as after GA they were waiting for the Swallows to arrive.
Oh well in GN Nancy did not seem very motherly either.

posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

Tabitha had dark hair, by the way. (I am glad someone has found out Dorothea's true colour.)
posted via 212.84.124.38 user Magnus.

Well done- I'd never noticed that, but I've just looked it up and the Ds are with Tom, meeting the D&Gs.

I live and learn. That's good.

Somehow I still think of her hair being brown, though. 60 years of habit to unlearn.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

She had a powerful incentive- protecting the only person to whom she actually displays motherly feelings, her own mother. She puts on a good hostess act for the Ds when they arrive, but the book explicitly covers that. She's being very 'Nancy' like, strictly operational, driven and efficient in her own terms. The rose trellis shows that under it all, the old pirate is alive and well.

No; the revelation about Nancy is her similarity and fellow feeling for the GA. How much she has inherited from her. Again, explicitly explored in the scene where Maria Turner lands 'at bay' on the Beckfoot lawn. But it's not the taming of Nancy, rather the unveiling of the GA's wild side. However, Nancy becomes aware of their kinship. To that extent you could say she's growing up.

But Nancy isn't reformed. She just does what she must to achieve her main objective, which is to protect her mother.

AR handles all this very subtly, and it hangs together beautifully. But it's clear that in PM his own main interest lies with the Ds, and especially Dorothea. In all the books that feature the Ds, I think that's true. The Lakeland books are clearly written (never forget he primarily needed the books to sell) in part as therapy for himself- as a return to the principal happiness of his youth. We know from his letters etc that he keenly felt the loss of Tabitha, as a result of his divorce. Maybe Dorothea was his idealised daughter? Anyway, all this speculation is just that; a theory that it's entertaining to discuss here. PP's a rattling good book, and remains my favourite.

Reading that first review, I can't help thinking that it might partly be a joke.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Nancy certainly displayed her sensible side, not that the Doctor, Postnman, and Timothy would agree.

I always liked the story especially skinning the rabbit,certainly something most would feel squeamish about.
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

Nancy says at one point, that if it wasn't for the trouble her mother would get in, she and Peggy would abscond as well, and leave the GA at Beckfoot "to stew".

I thought one criticism often levelled at AR was that his characters DIDN'T get older! (Which has never bothered me in the slightest, I hasten to add.)
posted via 212.84.124.38 user Magnus.

+1
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

This is the kind of baloney IMHO that some critics, full of themselves and their own ideologies, perpetuate on the suffering world without ever trying to determine the relevance of their prejudices to the actuality of the text or the context.

posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R1N8V1HJCV1VC5/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

in which it says:

"One of the very great things about Ransome's series of Swallows and Amazons books is the subtle way in which the characters grow older. Beneath the surface of this story is the clear indication that Nancy - public school educated and wise to the world - is growing out of being a pirate and is beginning to prefer playing the part of a young wife and mother. Her silent disillusion with the fantasy world she has created in the previous books becomes a poignant element in this novel. "

I was wondering if anyone else had detected Nancy's "silent disillusion" - or what the reviewer meant by that statement?

• Review of PM

I can't find anything in the book to say when Racundra was named. But given that apparently it's not a name or a word that arises elsewhere, and that 'Ra' is pretty irresistibly related to 'Ransome', it's a very attractive theory. The objection that Evgenia and he weren't yet married, so the final 'ra' is wrong, may be related to the fact that if they weren't married, he still was- to somebody else- and in those days these things counted. After all, when I read it as a child I was rather thrown by the rather twee references to 'the Cook'. But I agree that 'Carl-und' does feel like a bit of a stretch. However, 'Racundra' is a much sharper name than 'Raundra', had they left him out.

Anyway, boats are often opportunistically named, aren't they? Discussion, brainwave, name. This is a genuine question; I've never named one.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Meanwhile, I suspect they'll be lots more questions from me about Racundra: I've scanned and scaled up the plans from Racundra's Third Cruise, and I'm starting a 1/8th scale model of the ship. More news on this over the next few weeks.

Andy

posted via 90.195.49.231 user AndyG.

I agree- and I never thought about it as meaning anything else, even though I'd never looked up the 'authentic' meaning. In the context, that's the only meaning it could have, anyway. I think it was just a splendid, descriptive phrase and AR enjoyed getting it in.

When I was jolly young, I thought it meant actually jumping off the packet as it passed the pierhead, and having taken cross-channel packets since I was five I had a few doubts about that, but then I got older and realised about the flexibility of language...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

We see the same situation in PP- Roger plays Indian, but everyone else is serious about mining for gold. Ironically, Roger, while playing, is the one to actually find the 'gold.' So much for seriousness.
posted via 134.71.192.214 user PamAdams.

I just finished rereading PP and found myself wondering- is Slater Bob still up there, telling children about the man who found a gold mine right before he had to leave for Iraq or Afghanistan?

Plus, I admired again AR's wonderful way of handling the mine cave-in. Nothing is said, but John's white face and order to keep Susan out, tells us just how scary this must have been.

posted via 134.71.192.214 user PamAdams.

A tear came to my eye a few weeks later, when we saw a heron on the canal, and one of my daughters said to me, "We must be near the coast of China!"

Ok it wasn't a cormorant, but - good girl!
posted via 212.84.126.173 user Magnus.

In the 1940s I believe Racundra (renamed back again) was moored at Chelsea and used by John Markham Baldock, businessman and industrial archaeologist.
posted via 212.84.126.173 user Magnus.

Wasn't 'Racundra' a composite of several names, of which of course 'Ra' was his own? I forget what the other names were.

But that would make the name directly related to specific people. He might have felt that somebody else using it would be improper.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

"PIERHEAD JUMP, an expression indicative of joining a ship at the last possible moment because of a sudden and unexpected appointment to her. Charles Powell, the central character of Joseph Conrad's novel "Chance" entered into a new world of experience with a totally unexpected pierhead jump into the ship "FERNDALE" "

So it appears that the pierhead jump that Commander Walker refers to was not off the Harwich packet, but into the "Goblin":

"Daddy's eyes ran quickly here and there over the rigging and then back to John and Titty and Roger. He did not show that he was surprised in any way. All he said was, "You must tell me about it some time. Lucky I saw you in time to make a pierhead jump the other way. A minute later I couldn't have done it. What do you propose to do now?" " (Chapter XX1, page 276, first edition (thank you, the Oxfam Shop!))

Armed with that information, the scene now makes better sense to me; there was a little time between Daddy's shout of "Ahoy there! JOHN!" and the packet getting under way, during which the packet gave one long blast on her syren, ("four to six seconds" according to the IRPCS) as indeed she should, before getting under way, and then began to shorten up. Say, three minutes, maybe four, in total. That would be just time enough for Daddy to "dodge through" the passengers on the deck and get ashore. He could then have hired a motor boat (for the sake of argument, it could have been the linesmen's boat that had been in attendance whilst the packet was casting off) and got up the inner harbour to the "Goblin" on her buoy.
posted via 195.93.21.72 user ACB.

I think WH is my favourite. Just such magic and fantastic story-telling. Then I struggle... PM, SD, PP and SA are all high up there because of my love for the Lakes. PM particularly triumphs from that perspective for me, and it's a great Nancy Blackett story (though I think her clashes with the adult world in the book may explain why Evgenia wasn't keen). But I love the Broads stories. Haha - and it might well be that SW and WDMTGTS are my favourites after all!!!

And GN is one of my favourites because of the birds. So I suppose I would conclude the PD and ML were my least favourites, not that I dislike either. This is why I should never participate in these threads as basically I love them all. I'm also growing more and more attached to what little we have of 'The River Comes First'.
posted via 90.216.94.17 user Duncan.

Oh yes, the night sail down channel is a wonderful sequence, one of his very best, but the 'fantasy' stories, which I quite enjoyed as a child, now seem to me to be too... Fantastic.

I love the grounding in real life that articulates the other books to reality- that feeling that real feet are really jumping on and off real dinghies, the real sound of real children running along wooden piers in Bowness, with the smell of the water, and the tar from the boat sheds.

I never really took to the Norfolk pair in the same way.

I can understand why you feel that way. The Norfolk books need reading with more care; they are more story led, less loving recreations of AR's own childhood feelings. There's a passage in PM before things have gone wrong, where Dorothea is settling down to sleep for the first night in Beckfoot, which lyrically evokes what I am sure were AR's own thoughts and feelings when as a child he used to arrive by the lake. My favourite passage in any of the books...

That sheer love of place is inevitably missing in the 'non-Lake' books, and I think it shows. Mind you, one of the finest sequences in any book is when, in the epilogue to BS, the owner of the Cachalot takes the D&Gs to the Roaring Donkey to witness the installation of the World's Whopper- and they are totally bemused by the whole thing. The old fisherman learns that they caught the pike and says 'Poor lads, so young and nothing left to live for'. As a child I simply didn't understand that remark; it was years before I got the point. But I still enjoyed the book.

I do like Great Northern? and prefer it to the Norfolk books and Missee Lee.

I never really enjoyed GN, and ML is the only book I have lost; not on purpose, but I suspect it's significant. Tales of foreign parts aren't what I feel makes AR great- although PD is substantially not foreign but based on the Wild Cat, which is a mobile bit of Lakeland, and I think PD is the best of the 'invented' books. Of course in PP for example, a bit of romantic byplay in which CF recalls discussing copper with Timothy in the hills above Pernambuco helps wonderfully to establish atmosphere, but real life is on the fells above Windermere.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Yes. If you've ever been on one of those packets, they come out of the traps at a fair speed and any pier head is well out of jumping range...

But I suspect that this is commander Walker using an ironic phrase to cover his rapid action to get a gangway put back into place as the ship is about to sail, so he can jump ashore. From his Naval experience, if anybody had it, he'd have the personality and the authority to get it done.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

This also shows Dan Ford's reconstruction of a full-size drawing based on this snippet.

Rob
posted via 88.106.110.121 user humyar.

I still like Swallowdale, mostly for its descriptions of Lakeland life and the poignant moment at the summit when they find the old tin box.

WDMTGTS also has much to admire,and I enjoy the gradual completion of the Secret Water map.

I also like Peter Duck, the first I ever read, mostly for the sailing down Channel scenes at the start and back again at the finish.

S&A, WH, PM and PP are all very enjoyable but not quite up to Swallowdale in my opinion but I never really took to the Norfolk pair in the same way.

I do like Great Northern? and prefer it to the Norfolk books and Missee Lee. The latter is probably too Peter Duckish for me. A bit ironic when Peter Duck isn't even in it!
posted via 192.75.48.150 user Adam.

Now, I tend to like whichever book I read last, but "We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea" tends to come out ahead, with the exception of the pier head jump in Flushing. The Broads books and the two Peter Duck stories have improved with age.
posted via 195.93.21.10 user ACB.

WH has to be top of the list for me, and years ago when I met Hugh Brogan I was pleased to find it was his too.

Then it gets difficult. I'm afraid PM is way down the list, I think I have only read it all the way through once - and I did try again a couple of years ago when its praises were being sung here, and once again I gave up after a few chapters in.

The Broads books I know are disliked by some for their location and lack of S&As, but they are high on my list because as a child it is an area we took family holidays in a few times so they seem more real on subsequent readings.

WDMTGS, well, too contrived, too laboured, too unbelievable (I can hear the howls of anguish from some people as I type this!) even its location, close to where I now live, does not save it for me.

Bottom of the list has to be GN; it is almost as if AR was writing to fulfil his contract with Cape. I remember when I first read it, the anticipation was far better than the actual reading (it was the last of the cannon I read).

The fantasy books, PD and ML have their moments but I do wonder, as I know others do, if GN should be included in that group.

Just my opinions of course, we all take whatever pleasure we do from all of them.
posted via 95.146.180.126 user MTD.

It's well worth a read - not least for the "skipper nearly overboard" and "makeshift navigation lights" episodes that seem very WDMTGTS.

But why did Ransome request the name-change? By 1926, still in England, and sold once again, she'd reverted to the name Racundra.

Certainly the book gives copious hints as to what the boat was - her dimensions, her location, the Ancient Mariner: all are there, and all say "this is Racundra" throughout. Surely no-one knowing Racundra's First Cruise wouldn't have spotted this? Was Racundra's First Cruise still selling so well in 1926 that sales might have been damaged? Or is there - perhaps - a sense of sorrow that Ransome had had to sell his first "proper" boat and was unable to bring her "home"?
posted via 90.195.49.231 user AndyG.

No doubt about my favourites; first comes PM, then WH. Both like a warm bath, sheer pleasure every time I start into them. Both with passages I re-read on their own (for instance, Dorothea meeting Captain Flint for the first time on the Fram). I read them because I think that AR reached a peak of story telling and style in those books, and because there he fully exploits the characters of the Ds, who out of all his characters are my favourites. And that may well be because, like them, I am a city boy, and love it, and like Dick I studied science, enjoyed it (physics was my favourite subject at school) and feel it has enriched my life ever since. So I can identify with them best of all.

But objectively the most powerful book is WDMTGTS. It's quite superb, a description of raw courage and persistence that still rings true, and stylistically wonderfully handled. The contrasts between the scenes of mayhem at sea and the domestic comfort of Pin Mill, and (my favourite bit of business) Jim Brading coming to in the hospital and escaping into the blazing sunshine. So vivid, so well imagined. Even the happy ending is poetically handled, with John looking out at his father as he starts to sing shanties at the helm, getting louder as he lets himself go... Lovely.

There's also BS, especially the twins' passage on 'Sir Garnett'. 'Wasters!'

But the ones I read most often are PM and WH. Maybe at the venerable age of 70 I just value pure pleasure most. It's allowed...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I think it would be a huge stretch to imagine that it wasn't Dorothea- after all, she is the only person in any of the books to have pigtails. But are they blonde? I always imagined them to be some shade of brown, but I've probably missed a description somewhere.

Anyway, in my copy of PM, JC 1948, Ch XV, p.140, 'Launching the Scarab' it lists those present as being the Blacketts, the Ds and a boatbuilder. So full house... The picture on p.142, maybe used instead of the one we're discussing, is a layout diagram of Scarab.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Yes; found it. It's on page 100 of my copy, Frances Lincoln 2006.

Curiously, he seems to have drawn more of their faces in this picture. Not entirely successfully in every case. Maybe one of the reasons why he dropped the illustration?
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Yes, I think it was. But for some reason I can't find my copy... This is serious...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

The dark haired girl is Dorothea and Dick is standing beside Nancy and Peggy and a boatbuilder are on the right.

I have no idea why they put the coach horns upside down.
posted via 99.226.100.99 user Adam.

'No worries, mate -- she'll be apples!'
posted via 203.129.46.137 user mikefield.

Peggy tried to fill the gap by using Nancy's expressions. One of her expressions involved "Million

Cheers." But they were not always THREE MILLION.

"THREE MILLION CHEERS" Twelve occurances all together. SECRET WATER has a lot, but these are mostly

various ones quoting the message from Nancy, using the "dancing men semaphore," that had that expression.

In their discussion of that note, that saying was therefore repeated quite a few times.

"MISSEE LEE" - Nancy raised the ante here by shifting to more that THREE MILLION. There is one with THREE

THOUSAND MILLION CHEERS, and another with TEN THOUSAND MILLION CHEERS.

Then there is that time in COOT CLUB, when Nancy was not around at all, but her "cheers" were. Not sure

who said it. You might think that DICK had heard Nancy say that, remembering WINTER HOLIDAY, so perhaps he

is the one that used that expresson.

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
====================================================================

CCCH22.doc
----------
Everybody was talking at once. "But that's a Thames barge." "Not at Horning." "Jim Wooddall took us in

Sir Garnet." "But the championship races..." "The A.P. going off in a rush and Ginty packing." "Awful

when you weren't at Stokesby or Yarmouth." "Hullabaloos?" "Nosing into Fleet Dyke looking for you."

"Needn't be back for a week." "Yes. In a cupboard bunk." "Oh, three million cheers!"
-----
GNCH20.doc
----------
"That settles it," said Nancy. "He's after us and he doesn't want us to know it. Three million cheers!

Well done, the goggles! And my yelling your name must have helped. All we've got to do now is to keep him

going."
-----
MLCH15.doc
----------
"Three million cheers," cried Nancy, and, as the cage was lowered to the ground, some frantic handshaking

was done through the bars.
-----
MLCH18.doc
----------
"Three million cheers," said Nancy. "I and Peggy have never seen it."
-----
MLCH27.doc
----------
"Three thousand million cheers," exclaimed Nancy, not even minding being called a foolish child.

"Barbecued billygoats, I thought Captain Flint was right. Cat and mouse, you know."
-----
MLCH8.doc
----------
"Hi! Captain!" Nancy's voice came from somewhere close by. And then, "Barbecued billygoats! Jibbooms

and Bobstays. Ten thousand million cheers! Shiver my timbers! KEEP STILL, PEGGY! It's the Swallows.

Here."
-----
SWCH1.doc
----------
John pulled a pencil out of his pocket and scribbled a letter of the alphabet under each of the dancing

figures. "T.H.R.E.E... M.I.L.L.I.O.N... C.H.E.E.R.S... Three million cheers."
-----
"Three million cheers," said Titty. "What for? She must have done something and thinks we know all

about it."
-----
"Captured the houseboat I should think," said Roger. "Or drowned the Great Aunt. She wouldn't send

three million cheers about nothing at all."
-----
Nobody at Pin Mill felt like three million cheers. They felt about Nancy's message almost as Roger had

felt about the "pudding faces". It was not fair. Three million cheers, indeed. Who could be expected to

cheer about anything on a day when the best plan ever made had been wiped out by stonyhearted Lords of the

Admiralty.
-----
SWCH10.doc
----------
"Three million cheers!" said John.
-----
SWCH2.doc
----------
"Captain Nancy'd just love to be marooned," said Titty. "But I expect they're doing something too. Sure

to be. They'll probably write and tell us about it. She wouldn't have sent three million cheers unless

they were up to something pretty larky."
-----
SWCH9.doc
----------
"It's a message," said Titty. She took her finger away, and showed the letters. "It says, 'Three

million cheers'."
-----
====================================================

posted via 64.12.116.133 user Kisered.

These young people sure did get along well with each other. They surely missed quite a few chances to have a great snowball fight. And for that matter, they never built a SNOWMAN either.

Oh well. I'll settle for them sailing their sledges.

And Nancy seemed in some other books to be the one to want to have a "War."

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
posted via 64.12.117.67 user Kisered.

• Lankland Cam 11-12 February 2010

We all thought it was very good.

I'd recommend seeing it if you get the chance. Of course, being in the Eastern Angles neck of the woods, we tend to see their touring productions each year, so we are used to their "style", which normally revolves around an East Anglian theme be it the Cromer lifeboat, the discovery of the Sutton Hoo treasure, etc., with the stage management and acting very much in the "modern British manner", setting out to challenge you to suspend your disbelief with a minimum of props and "business", so a clip cannot really do it justice.
posted via 92.48.99.29 user ACB.

It looked from the clip as though it mightn't be too bad a play, which I confess rather surprised me. Has anybody seen it? (And if so, were you as horrified at the way they botched the words of Spanish Ladies?

• Stage presentation.

* To clarify the entry, the first YouTube clip shows parts of the 1974 Claude Whatham film, not of the 1963 TV series.

* In the second YouTube clip, where Claire Kendall-Price is shown taking people on one of her S&A walking tours, there are inserted a couple of sepia movie clips. Do you (or does anyone) know whether these clips are indeed from the TV series (which I've never seen); or were they perhaps "faked up" for the documentary?

* When following the link to what the boats would have looked like, it was nice to be immediately presented with a photo of my own boat, pulled up outside my back gate on Western Port.

posted via 203.129.46.137 user mikefield.

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379/post/1190052519.html
posted via 98.26.126.245 user allym.

Again blending threads, while the Book Title "Swallows and Amazons" could not be trademarked, the term itself could be (and has been), much I suspect as "Lord of the Rings" or "Star Wars" have been. I agree with Rob about the intent behind the act.
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

Again blending threads, while the Book Title "Swallows and Amazons" could not be trademarked, the term itself could be (and has been), much I suspect as "Lord of the Rings" or "Star Wars" have been. I agree with Rob about the intent behind the act.
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

If you don't do either of those two things, then someone else can challenge the registration and show that it is not in fact a trademark which would leave it open for someone else to registerand use or else for a free for all.
posted via 192.75.48.150 user Adam.

Interestingly, apparently about 20,000 copies of SA are sold each year, which means if most are sold in the UK that at least 1 in 35 people will own a copy which I think is a lot. Mind you, they could be 85 when they buy it. There are also loads of copies in circulation, and sold secondhand, plus several people may read each copy, so overall readership must be much higher.

Unfortunately, only about 20,000 copies of the remaining 11 books in total are sold each year, so the task is to get people to read these too.

But talking of SpongeBob, how is Catriona? Or is it you who watches this?
posted via 88.106.110.116 user humyar.

No, there is no point in trademarking titles!
posted via 92.1.133.199 user MichaelFarringdon.

Trademarking the phrase "Swallows and Amazons" could prove to be tricky. The literary works are still in copyright so the content of the books is controllable, but the Literary Executors have not enforced S&A as a trademark, probably since they don't trade goods or services. Also as many other businesses do use the phrase, it would be hard for any one company to register it for exclusive use in a country or jurisdiction (EU for example) unless it paid off all the people currently using it in that country so they wouldn't object. Once it was trademarked, then the owner could go after everyone who used it (or even something close enough to potentially mislead customers, hence, to use a topical Canadian example, the International Olympic Committee's zealousness in protecting the trademark "Olympics" and the five rings. If everyone was allowed to use them then no one would sponsor the Games.
posted via 99.226.100.99 user Adam.

Would trademarking the S&W bring in as much revenue from small places compared to the sale of books from people who hear about S&W by word of mouth?

There is an indie book seller in Indiana that i visit about twice a year. Each time I go in he has a greater selection of S&W books, so they must sell at least well enough to keep them stocked. he has about 2000 childrens titles, last time six were S&W. Freaking kilometres from a lake.

JMN
posted via 165.91.196.112 user Mcneacail.

So the short answer is -- who knows?
posted via 203.129.46.137 user mikefield.

If you search "Swallows and Amazons" in Google you get approx. 100,000 hits. Of course, many are people selling books or DVDs, but there are a multitude of other uses: there's a tour company in Brasil, a bookshop in Belfast, etc, etc. There are several references to 'a Swallows and Amazons summer' and a 'Swallows and Amazons holiday' (many guesthouses in the Lakes promise such a thing!) Is it really possible that the phrase 'Swallows and Amazons' can be a trademark when it has become such a part of our culture?

Furthermore, if other books were similarly protected, would we ever have been able to learn what books the Swallows took with them to the island? Titty might have taken a 'well-known work of fiction relating to desert-island life', etc.

Does it relate to other titles, characters and locations, does anyone know? Presumably nobody is entering dangerous territory if they were to enquire whether the diver they are seeing is a Great Northern? It is perhaps safer to refer to one's Christmas Holiday or Winter Vacation... I never knew as a child the potentially stormy waters me and my brother and friends may have been entering when we trekked to 'Swallowdale' or 'Amazon Creek', or waded out to 'Swallow Island'...

I'm sure there are rational reasons for making the title a trademark, which somebody will explain! This post is intended primarily for gentle comic effect!
posted via 94.0.171.34 user Duncan.

Oh, there's a market for them all right, but it's not one worth a huge amount of money (compared to TV) and, crucially, BBC radio in Britain is paid for by the TV licence fee; there is no separate radio licence.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

All of the above, I think.

The copyright question is very important. When I was making the things, broadband and the intarweb weren't yet a reality, but buying in footage was hedged about with detailed conditions; there was a different price- a very large difference, sometimes outright prohibition, depending on the number of transmissions, the ability to resell etc. I'm sure that applies to the ability to make it available on line. It's also true for artists' contracts; those of the actors in the old SA clips will certainly have included clauses about the number of transmissions, and where those would be. Those clauses will still be valid. New contracts will have different conditions, but buying out the old contracts to change the terms is extremely expensive...

But there was a large public fuss made about people who hadn't paid the license fee being able to get good quality access effectively for free- quite different from seeing it in a programme broadcast abroad, as at that time it will have been paid for by the foreign rebroadcaster. But that argument was expressed in supremely mean minded terms. Or at least, I thought so at the time.

And of course, the BBC do sell a lot of their material abroad. They don't want to sabotage that trade; they badly need the revenue.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

One assumes the Radio shows do not have these problems as there is no
market for them, as particularly in the US there is not any radio station
like BBC Radio 4, plus they have the World service.
So thank goodness we are able to hear BBC radio on iPlayer
posted via 72.185.229.210 user TARSUS.

Andy

posted via 90.195.49.231 user AndyG.

Ah, but we local yokels paid for it. You fellows in gahd's own horse country (you do have horses in KY, don't you?) have not, so mean minded people here (with whom I do not agree at all) decided it would be unfair if you were able to see it for free on the intarweb.

Technology complicates what was once simple... But it is such fun...
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Ed Kiser, Kentucky
posted via 205.188.116.69 user Kisered.

If you look for it in the 'A-Z' list via the top right of the iPlayer home page' it offers 'The British Family' and 'series catchup'. Click on 'Show more' and you'll be offered all four programmes.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

It makes me wonder if they have all the programme or indeed the series. And the quality does look better than the snippet I've previously seen.

Rob
posted via 88.106.100.93 user humyar.

As for the arguments put forward, if this was a sociological forum I would have plenty to say - but lets stick with AR for the moment.
posted via 95.146.180.73 user MTD.

The type face seems quite a bit lighter and the illustrations are generally very much clearer than in our current Cape printings, where, for instance, the name of the Noord Hinder Light Vessel is quite illegible. Also, the illustrations are in the right place in the text.
posted via 92.48.99.29 user ACB.

But they also talked extensively about the fears that parents had for the safety of their children- at a time when they are as safe statistically as at any time before. Again, intelligently discussed; no absolute statements; subtleties, or at least difficulties, sensibly acknowledged.

But what was the contrast? Of course, the setting out for the island in 'Swallows and Amazons' from the TV series. It was all rather like that long thread in 'Tarboard' not so long ago.

Good stuff.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Radio 3 are broadcasting Amazonia on Sunday 7th February at 8pm, a drama about Arthur's time in Russia. There's a short extract on the production company's website.

Andy
posted via 90.195.49.231 user AndyG.