Re: The Naze


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Posted by Peter Ceresole on September 08, 2003 at 16:43:36 from 80.177.22.49 user PeterC.

In Reply to: Re: The Naze posted by Charles on September 08, 2003 at 14:07:07:

if you track north you see that the island to the north is called Pewit Island. Wasn't there some reference to pewits in SW?

Yes, there's a Peewit Island, which is the only feature that kept its 'real' name in the book- apart from Harwich and Felixstowe and their environs of course, which were not really a central part of the story.

AR transformed most place names in the earlier books, but then he set them in an imaginary composite Lakeland. In the Broads stories he used accurate depictions of real places with their real names- which is one of the great pleasures of visiting there. Even with eyes wide open, it's easy to see Tom and the D&Gs in font of you, Dick on his knees on the towpath copying cycle tracks into his notebook...

In SW the renaming is absolutely explicit, and part of the story, but I was always (from the first time I looked at an ordinary OS map) surprised that he had used the ordinary name for that one island. Even without a boat, visiting Secret Water is a fascinating experience, with that mixture of houses and wild swamp and mud, and historical layers of rotting piers and paths and boats. I went there a few times many years ago, when our girls were small and had friends who lived near by. Maybe it's all been covered in housing estates by now; I do hope not. The modern map seems to indicate that the fairly remote location and the sodden ground have defeated even the English developers.


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