Posted by Simon on July 12, 2004 at 19:27:20 from 203.12.97.104 user Simon.
In Reply to: Life choices & the influence of S&A posted by Bob on June 20, 2004 at 14:24:50:
WDMTGTS did it for me. Read it at age 10, 63 years ago. Bought my own boat a couple of years ago - dunno why I waited so long - called it Helbolina, because my wife's Helen. Sail it on Pittwater and Broken Bay, and sometimes nose it out into the blue Pacific, where the big rollers come in all the way from Hawaii, like long ranges of slate blue hills. Not as big as Goblin. Just 20', with a 9 horse one lung diesel, and running to a main and headsail.. (no staysail, but then...) Little galley, head, sleeps us and the odd grandchild.
Different world, wasn't it? Do you wonder about them? Set in 1936 I think. No worries about gender roles: Susan cooks and mothers them, John takes after his Dad, Titty has feelings and bad heads, and Roger mucks about. Affections are carefully restrained. Commander Walker came via Berlin (Berlin: 1936!) did he see anything to worry him? And they all go away to school. Shrewsbury? Ellesmere? Where. Hope it wasn't like mine.
What happened to them all? Did Walker survive the War? Maybe not. Went down off Malaya? John captained an armed trawler, later a destroyer, sunk off Dunkirk, survived. Died aged 80 in 2000, left a clutch of grandchildren. Titty never married, still alive and writing letters from her cottage in the grounds of Beckfoot. Roger accompanied his Mother and Bridget back to her parents property near Longreach in Queensland, after the war, later married a nice girl, moved to Tasmania and worked as a marine engineer.
Or maybe not. But I'm going sailing this weekend, with the ghosts of a family I seem to know.
(And wasn't AR Trotsky's secretary, or something? Now there's a thought!)