Ransome and the Millennium


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Posted by Andy Morley on March 11, 1999 at 18:50:51:

I was at one of 'those' London parties last night where gentlemen minus their wives and ladies without their boyfriends play fragile mixed doubles of conversation, each side daring the other to see how far they will go. Then in the blink of one bottle emptying and another's arrival, I found myself deep in conversation with an earnest individual in a checked shirt and thick glasses who was explaining the virtues of a piece of equipment he was holding against the digestive biscuit he had brought with him to accompany his banana. Politely declining his offer to apply the apparently radioactive disc to my own plate of rather delicious smoked salmon, I was treated to an explanation of how it would 'neutralise' any genetically modified flour in the biscuit. In one slip of slightly drunken unwisdom, I mentioned the book on genetics that was in my overcoat pocket, and in a flash he was off, explaining the numerology of the 260 day Mayan calendar, how this related to the Great Pyramid at Gizeh and the way in which the pattern of the DNA double helix could be made to overlay the sequences of numbers involved.

We didn't actually discuss the Millennium although the obvious question of why the purely arbitrary fact that we have ten fingers to count on and that the next year happens to have three zeros in it was never far from my mind. I decided it was time to leave and when I announced my intention, my new-found friend kindly offered to accompany me. Although Worcestershire proved too far to tempt him, he nonetheless came with me on the tube all the way to Euston, and now, if anyone wants to pose me a question on Tomes, Glyphs and the significance of the number 76, I'll be very happy to oblige them.

In a sense, the question "does the Millennium matter" answers itself - if enough people think that it does, then it will do. There will be a dusting down of cultural ornaments, a re-appraisal of all those comforting childhood icons that we thought would always be with us. There will be a bustle, a noise, some cheering and some party poppers. As the door bangs shut on the attic and we look around our newly decorated house, there in the place of our familiar old friends will be new furniture, different ornaments and pictures that will make us gasp either "Ooooh..!!!" or "Oh Dear!".

Will Arthur Ransome make it throught the forthcoming cultural spring-cleaning, or will he be up there in the loft gathering dust..?

If this question does not leave us shrugging our shoulders and asking "so what?" then some forethought might be a good idea. I get the impression that in the wider world, interest is increasing slightly, though I have no scientific proof. Does anyone have any statistics on books sales, television mentions, newspaper references..? More importantly, does anyone have any fresh ideas on the vexed questions of what is Ransome's genre and his place in a wider cultural context, or are we still with the old chestnuts of "who were the 'real' Swallows/ Amazons/ Ds/ Coots?" and "where is the 'proper' Swallowdale?". The stuff below on authors who Ransome influenced is very interesting but needs some pulling together I feel. Martin Cregeen's recent suggestion that William Golding's Lord of The Flies has had a kind of perverse interaction with Ramsome's heritage is certainly thought-provoking. I look forward to the answers I get or don't get as the case may be - that will be the first inkling I will have as to whether my great grand children will have the least idea of what any of these names mean.



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