Posted by Jock on May 24, 2006 at 15:41:58 from 86.139.174.55 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Horseless Carriage? (was Frank's Horse and Copyright posted by PeterH on May 24, 2006 at 13:03:12:
the carriage could have been kept at Beckfoot, but this would surely have been uneconomic and a literal 'waste of space'.
I guess that in the days before ancient items of transport became priceless relics it could have just been one more item in the Beckfoot transport inventory. After all the full list reads:
Ransome's Beckfoot was once a very posh place: stables, croquet lawns, tennis court, grand piano. Perhaps 'they' (I use put the word in quotes to indicate that the ownership and management of Beckfoot is a matter of conjecture.) hadn't got round to selling it at the point of SD, and that it was ignominiously replaced by Rattletrap by the time of PP.
In spite of the horrors of WWII and nearly 50 years of 'communism' (I use put the word in quotes to indicate that the management of Eastern Europe, and AR's views thereupon, is an interesting topic in its own right.) some Polish farmers are only now getting round to selling their carriages.