Posted by Peter Ceresole on February 26, 2010 at 14:03:55 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: PM review on Amazon posted by Jon on February 26, 2010 at 13:15:02:
I think where you got lost was that PP, BS, WD and SW all took place in the same very busy summer.
Being 1932? But for a real bit of train spotting, do remember that WD, as told, can't have been before 1936 because of the reference, as they return from Flushing, to sighting the 'radio masts at Bawdsey', which were early Radar masts which were erected at Bawdsey Manor; the first ones were erected around '36. Of course it means nothing- just that AR did a recce, and we know he sailed from Harwich to Vlissingen and back to check things out. By then the radar masts were there, so he jammed them into the book.
This is all huge fun, geekery unbounded, but I have to say that trying to nail down the detailed chronology makes it all seem more unlikely, the deeper you go. AR tied it all together in a notional way, but it doesn't seem that he exactly had a chronological chart on the wall. In fact it doesn't seem that he ever thought that his rattling yarns would be subjected to this kind of analysis.
Now I don't know enough to tell, but I'll bet he got the sailing right. Because he really cared about that.