Latest TarBoard Messages

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.

But as far as I know there have been no discussions about letting the lights fall into disuse because we now have satellite navigation systems. I'd be horrified to think it might happen, for the same reason that I think anyone planning an over-the-horizon sea voyage would be crazy not to have on board (and know how to use) a good old-fashioned sextant. Electronics can fail. What do you rely on for accurate positioning when they have?
posted via 203.129.50.94 user mikefield.

• Lighthouses

Stuart has now added a second essay detailing some the of resources that are available for those who would like to build their own Swallow or Amazon. This is now available as Building a boat 'just like' the Swallow also on ATR. I would recommend the article to all who are contemplating following in Mary Anne builder John Nichols's footsteps. (My name appears as joint author at Stuart's insistence. In fact, my own contributions were quite minor.)
posted via 79.186.254.180 user Jock.

Claire

posted via 71.87.116.26 user Claire_Morgan.

And yet, IND... still collects interesting comments. The latest from Ben Hammott relates to his new book
about Colonel Fawcett, a possible Captain Flint prototype, who was lost looking for a fabled golden city
in the Amazon jungle.

• If Not Duffers - Ben Hammott comment


• Amazon Adventure website

I must confess to having a soft spot for the Walton Backwaters!

posted via 83.26.90.26 user Jock.

He has now opened the website Keep Turning Left to keep people informed of progress.

He has many photos and movie clips worth watching, including particularly some of Secret Water, and in this connection also containing some (not necessarily accurate, but not bad) background information about AR.

Mike

• Keep Turning Left

The winds have now abated and the dolphins have returned. She is sailing along in more pleasant conditions with a 10 knot breeze and a 3 metre swell.

• Jessica Rides Out Perfect Storm and Knockdowns

I don't know the lake well enough to identify the island, but it was certainly close enough to Belle Isle.

I guess in those distant days, although the cleanest water may have been at the northern end, the practical objective would have been to stay fairly well away from human effluent in towns (like Ambleside or Bowness). In those days, the population would have been pretty small, and being the other side of Belle Isle would have been far enough, yet close enough to reach in a short time.

Does that sound right?

And of course, the smaller the distance they had to go to shoot the sequence, the more economical it was for the filming.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Yup. Part of Michael Portillo's second career. As a politician I found him fairly detestable, but he was younger then and as a broadcaster he's fine- an intelligent chap whose father, one remembers, was a Spanish Republican. Heart in the right place then...

Didn't he meet several Dixons there? All except for the actual farmer, who was quite the opposite and rather good fun. But AR had obviously met quite a few of them too...

They had the obvious 'stunt' about Portillo's supposed belief that Kendal Mint cake was a cake, not a sweet, but apart from that I found it rather enjoyable.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I found it interesting that although they said the best lake water for making tea was obtained at the north end of the lake, where the most fresh water flows in, I think they stopped at Thompson's Holme in the middle to actually brew up. Roger Mallinson said this was the traditional place to stop and brew tea, and it is very close to the Lilies of the Valley islands where I understand AR would go ashore and brew up.

Nowadays, one of the Lily islands is defended by somewhat vicious swans, while the other has a mini Hidden Harbour. I often wonder if AR was reminded of the harbour on Peel island when he sailed on Windermere in the late 1920's.

I thought the passage in the TV programme on Kendal was a bit insipid. The reason that the market was being held on the same day as in Bradshaw's guide is because there is a royal market charter going back to 1189 which allows markets on Saturdays (and Wednesdays). So no surprise there! And who doesn't know that Kendal mintcake is not a cake but a sweet?

There are fleeting views of Strickland Junction aka Oxenholme, but no red hats at Windermere station to greet Michael Portillo.

Rob
posted via 88.106.88.66 user humyar.

For those outside the UK, points of interest were water was still dipped from the northern part of the lake to make tea. This was made in a Windermere Kettle which was heated by steam from the boiler of the SL Shamrock. The owner of the Shamrock (quoted as being the last surviving steam launch on Windermere), Roger Mallinson, said the lake was infested by moorings and marinas nowadays which spoilt the beauty somewhat.
At the southern end of the lake sewage overflows during heavy rain were polluting the lake. Algae formed and when they died and went to the bed of the lake they rotted, depriving the fish of oxygen.
A visiblity test, carried out by the Environment Agency, a black and white quartered disc at the end of a line disappeared at 6 metres. Only other lakes visibility is 20/30 metres.
posted via 91.125.158.72 user OwenRoberts.

What would Missee Lee think?
posted via 90.195.49.231 user Andy.

When little Miss Li was sent to school in England, Latin was the first mountain that she had to climb, so she kept her Latin Grammar, with a few other books, at her father's grave, to remind her of her childhood. She did not need the Grammar, being very fluent in Laton, but it was a childhood friend. As an adult, occupying a very lonely position, she found that the Roman and Greek authors (she is also fluent in Greek, but the Swallows and Amazons and Jim Turner are not, much to her disappointment) had something in common with the Chinese classics, and were reliable companions. So Roger stumbles across the Grammar and gets his chance to shine.

There is a wonderful air of menace in the opening chapters, as the Swallows, particularly Susan, try to maintain a Home Counties order and try to shut out the very alien nature of the place where they find themselves. The "house" is a grave...
posted via 95.154.198.199 user ACB.

TEEN sailor Jessica Watson has navigated a safe passage through a graveyard of wrecks and lost sailors to conquer the Everest of sailing: Cape Horn.

The Sunshine Coast 16-year-old plotted her way overnight through some of the most treacherous waters in the world off the tip of South

"It's a grey mist and a bit of nothingness . . . not the best sightseeing weather. There is a faint outline of the Cape so it's almost mythical."

Now all she has to do is the analog of climbing down Everest - "How hard could it be?"

• Jessica Rounds Cape Horn!

I must say, it is a cracking good piece of plotting and, so far as one who was not there can tell, its descriptions are remarkably close to what China was like in the twenties and thirties.

Having paid a visit to Soong Ching-ling's house in Shanghai, one recognises exactly the sense of stepping out of China into Europe that the Swallows and Amazons experienced.
posted via 81.144.214.226 user ACB.

Actually it always did.
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

There is an interesting theory that the warming of the earth could cause freshwater from the melting ice cap to disrupt the Gulf stream causing the British Isles to experience a climate more like that of Hudson Bay which is at the same latitudes and that bay freezes over in the winter!

[ Image ]

posted via 99.226.100.99 user Adam.

posted via 95.146.179.94 user MTD.

Claire
posted via 71.87.116.26 user Claire_Morgan.

I think you will see from this picture by Ronald Searle from the Molesworth stories that the gerund is more of a predator than prey.

The link below shows other aspects of the Life of the Gerund

• The Private Life of the Gerund

[ Image ]

posted via 192.75.48.150 user Adam.

On the subject of a gerund, I haven't met one before, but it sounds like something which I would have expected to see being eaten by lions on the plains of Africa. A bit like an antelope.
David.
posted via 220.253.225.91 user David.

John

posted via 70.79.153.174 user John.

Dog's Home
Holly Howe
Igloo
Kanchenjunga
posted via 88.104.136.59 user humyar.

Here's a photo of Tarn Hows taken on Thursday. Difficult to ice skate on it with all the snow though.

Rob
posted via 88.104.136.59 user humyar.

Today's Lakeland cam has pictures that show Derwentwater (I think it is) not just frozen over, but being walked on.

More courage than I would have, to do that...

• Lakeland cam

We've all seen "Mistakes have been made" or that kind of baloney more times than we can count. Credit card companies and any corporate to personal relationship have been particularly guilty of the Divine Passive until recently, but it is getting better. I believe (in the U.S. at least) this is a result of federal regulations requiring such language to be comprehensible.

I strongly recommend Less than Words Can Say. Brilliant collection of essays from the man who published "The Underground Grammarian" for many years. I am particularly fond of this one observation:

"English may let you say something like that, but it doesn't let you mean anything by it."

Dave
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

• Lakeland Cam

• Ferry with ice

There is an implied subject, "someone", as in "Someone must water the flowers." Turning the sentence around gives you the subject.
posted via 24.22.116.28 user Elizabeth.

I notice on Lakeland Cam today that there is a photograph of a certain Eskimo settlement in the snow, and also of ice forming across Coniston.

Presumably the weather pattern in Winter Holiday must have been something rather akin to what we're seeing at the moment (even the timing of it). Any amateur meteorologists out there? Are the lakes going to freeze, or will it start warming up now?
posted via 90.220.78.84 user Duncan.

Well of course it's that too; after all, it's British. But that wasn't what I meant.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Andy

posted via 90.200.120.69 user Andy.

Steamboat Project News

Claire

posted via 71.87.116.26 user Claire_Morgan.

Yes, but I found the most useful guide was from reading (in class) 'The Wind in the Willows'.

Now there's a book.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
posted via 75.111.59.123 user dthewlis.

As a child of the sixties, my "hip" teachers naturally deemed it old-fashioned to teach me English grammar at all, and, to some extent, spelling. It was only while doing my A-levels that I realised I had enough time to squeeze in another O-level, and I chose Latin - as I didn't have a language, and wanted to study Archaeology at University.

So I now know what nouns and verbs are, and have some idea of tenses. While I don't remember much of my Latin, I can also amaze the young of today by generally guessing what words in Romance languages mean. ;-)

Andy
posted via 90.200.120.69 user Andy.

Reverting to the original subject, in Chap 12 of GN Captain Flint comments, "It's so light at night up here." In Chap 13 the Sea Bear sets off from the buoy in port with the 3 am ebb tide and reaches the headland just as the sun is rising. Enough time elapses for some of the crew to get some sleep.
In Chap 8 the opposite course, even tacking, appears to take very little time at all. The crew take tea (At 4 pm?) near the headland and arrive in port before the shops close. (At 6 pm?)
If we could tie down the time of sunrise we could fix the time of year.

posted via 68.238.252.63 user Didymus.

On the subject of Cambridge matriculation requirements, my father went up to read Natural Sciences (specifically zoology) in 1921 and to his lasting amusement he had to sit a compulsory paper on Paley's Evidences for "Little Go", as the entrance exam was then known; this tickled him because he was applying to Darwin's old college, whither he went, as in due course did I.
posted via 195.93.21.72 user ACB.

Indeed. I took my 'O' levels in the '50s, and although my aim was do do engineering, I still sat the Latin exam. And passed, with 41% and 42% (40% was the pass mark).

Yike.

posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.

I found a googled reference to Oxford and Cambridge dropping the Latin requirement in "the early 1960s".
posted via 192.75.48.150 user Adam.

John
posted via 70.79.153.174 user John.

Johannes
posted via 70.79.153.174 user John.

'To go back to what we were discussing,' said King quickly, 'do youpretend that your modern system of inculcating unrelated facts about chlorine, for instance, all of which may be proved fallacies by the time the boys grow up, can have any real bearing on education--even the low type of it that examiners expect?'

'I maintain nothing. But is it any worse than your Chinese reiteration of uncomprehended syllables in a dead tongue?'

'Dead, forsooth!' King fairly danced. 'The only living tongue on earth!Chinese! On my word, Hartopp!'

'And at the end of seven years--how often have I said it?' Hartopp went on,--'seven years of two hundred and twenty days of six hours each, your victims go away with nothing, absolutely nothing, except, perhaps, if they've been very attentive, a dozen--no, I'll grant you twenty--one score of totally unrelated Latin tags which any child of twelve could have absorbed in two terms.'
posted via 134.71.192.214 user PamAdams.