Posted by Jock on June 10, 2007 at 21:14:34 from 86.151.127.109 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Lock Keepers (was Folding Boat then swimming) posted by Peter Roche on June 10, 2007 at 20:08:43:
All AR related!
Well done Peter! [I was waiting for one of the Peters to query the AR connection.] The AR connection is there, but perhaps it's not blindingly obvious. Many of AR's stories involve the characters in building an imaginary world out of the real world components available to them. In fact, AR says somewhere that for a boy a tree is more valuable than a book. I didn't have a sailing dinghy or a lake in the north as a young child, but with a bicycle, parents that gave me a decent amount of 'freedom to roam', and an understanding lock-keeper I had a playground with everything that I could wish for. The lighters that had bumped alongside the big ships in London's Docks had some of the latter's magic rubbed off on them, while returning home at night along the desrted towpath my bicycle turned into a Castle Class locomotive and the towpath into the GWR mainline from Paddington to Bristol. Alas, the imagination of today's tethered youngsters is more likely to be formed by Big Brother.