Posted by Tim Johns on April 23, 1999 at 11:20:23:
In Reply to: Re: Englishness...relevance? posted by Peter Hyland on April 23, 1999 at 09:40:34:
For the record, AR was a lover of English folk music, a love which permeates
the S&A series - eg the Sea Chanties he learned from John Masefield, the fox-hunting
ballads sung by Roger and old Mr. Swainson in Swallowdale, (I'm still on the track
of those), or the ballad in which (as Titty tells Susan in S&A) the man blows his whistle
'both loud and shrill' (apparently a reference to a garbled ballad collected by Ransome
himself from an artist's model in Chelsea - see Bohemia in London 1907, pp. 94-5).
Not much that is precious there I think: or does Andy have his own definition
of preciousness?