Posted by Ed Kiser on January 12, 2006 at 18:22:31 from 152.163.100.6 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Re: Ages of main protagonists. posted by Robert Hill on January 12, 2006 at 16:10:18:
From Chapter 1, SWALLOWDALE
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"Wild Cat Island in sight!" cried Roger, the ship's boy, who was keeping a look-out, wedged in before the mast, and finding that a year had made a lot of difference and that there was much less room for him in there with the anchor and ropes than there used to be the year before when he was only seven.
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With this quote above, it appears quite definitely that SD happens in the next year after SA. The tale of PD was supposedly made up during the Winter between these two adventures.
There is still the problem of SA having the date of '29 and SD showing '31 as being a contradiction to the quoted paragraph. The 1931 date is shown in two places in SD: one in the note added to the cairn at the top of the mountain where in Chapter 27 they included that date,
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"Aug. 11. 1931. We climbed Kanchenjunga."
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and another, in a footnote in Chapter 7 concerning the publication of the "MIXED MOSS" as:
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* MIXED MOSS. By a Rolling Stone. Pub. 1930, 8th edition 1931
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The date of SA comes from the "peace treaty" resulting from the parley when the Amazons finally met the Swallows on WCI.
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"I, Captain John of the ship Swallow, and I, Captain Nancy of the ship Amazon, do hereby make a treaty of offence and defence on behalf of our ships and our ships' companies. Signed and sealed at this place of Wild Cat Island in the month of August 1929."
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This apparent discrepancy has been discussed before on the TARBOARD, and will no doubt come up again. I offer here the pertinant references that seem to be in contradition.
A few years ago on the TARBOARD was a discussion about the ages of these several sets of characters. I copied and saved a compilation offered by one of the board contributors, but unfortunately, in the process, I failed to retain the author who submitted this summary. I wish I could give proper credit to who ever it was that put this together, but unfortunately, I don't have that information. If the author recognizes this, feel free to jump in and lay claim to same. I include that document here as being related to this disucssion. It is noted that this unknown author also made the assumption that SD was done one year later than SA, as if that treaty in SA should have had 1930 instead of 1929 as shown in the quote above. Wish I could credit the author properly, as it shows considerable research and study to have come up with his results.
In the following table, the first set of ages are based on the time of the "Swallows and Amazons", not of when these characters first appeared in their respective stories, so some are a bit older when we first "meet" them.
Here is his age summary:
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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 now 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 as 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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!
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Interesting compilation - which I knew who to credit with this effort.
Ed Kiser, South Florida