Posted by Duncan on August 08, 2003 at 10:35:37 from 195.93.32.8 user Duncan.
In Reply to: Intrusions of Real Life posted by Peter Ceresole on August 07, 2003 at 15:46:34:
Interestingly (and this is something else I might want to try and forge an article about at some point in time, so I don't want to go into too much detail here) - the vast majority of the SA books have a 'social history' episode in them. I guess they mostly refer to aspects of social history that were imprinted on AR's present, but there is a definite air of the past about them. The charcoal burners in SA, the old people at farm and the hound trail in SD, reminiscenses about the great freeze in WH, the night on the barge in CC, the eeling trip in BS, Slater Bob's mine, etc, etc. Any intrusions of the less appealing aspects of real life tend to make their way into the stories through the past. Still nothing too unpalatable of course, these are children's stories after all: but we have references to young men going to war in Pigeon Post (even though it's a different war), we have a picture of pre-tourism Norfolk which has good and bad in it, shall we say. I'm not saying there are references to the Depression and to mass unemployment, etc - I don't think there are (and indeed neither the Lakes nor the Broads suffered especially at that time, although parts of Cumbria and North Lancashire were badly hit).
Anyway, as I say, I think there's quite a lot to be said about the social history motifs in the books, but if I say it all here that'll be another article I never write!
Duncan