Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on September 25, 2007 at 15:32:54 from 82.27.18.91 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Re: Existential Swallow sightings posted by Eric Abraham on September 25, 2007 at 13:17:02:
if the Amazons saw the Swallow with adults and sometimes children, it would have made no impression - just another boat among many,
This just isn't how people with boats behave (or behaved in the days before mass produced plastic). The Amazons would have at once recognised Swallow from a couple of miles or more away. They would then have commented critically that somebody else was sailing her, just as Titty and Roger in PP see instantly that Amazon wasn't being sailed to the normal standard of excellence. It certainly would have made a very strong impression.
(I personally can recognise from a long way away most English steam launches, or many of the boats regularly sailed on the Orwell where I keep my own boat)
And certainly it would have been a major talking point - if no more - among the S A and Ds if the Jacksons had indeed sold Swallow
I agree with the points that Peter H makes - except that I think it unlikely that a farmer's sons would have moved away from the home farm in those days. I rather feel that that is part of a bigger picture in the books of hardly any young men in their 30s on farms run by elderly couples - we are potentially back to some disastrous event suffered by the local Regiment during the War.