Posted by Tom Napier on December 30, 2010 at 05:05:16 user Didymus.
I recently read Coot Club for the third time (the first time was nearly sixty years ago) and something struck me.
In Chap 22 the wandering twins finally meet up with the Ds and Tom Dudgeon. There is a gabble of conversation that ends with someone saying, " Oh, three million cheers!" Whence came this quintessential Nancyism?
The Ds don't exhibit such hyperbolic enthusiasm. Tom, Port and Starboard have never met Nancy. Was "Three million cheers" a common expression at the time or did Ransome, in cloning Nancy and Peggy albeit without Nancy's attitude, make one of the twins a bit too true to the original?