Posted by Art Mulder on 9/20/99 from willow.irus.rri.on.ca:
Just finished reading Swallowdale again for the umpteenth time.
I just love the way I keep finding other thinkbits as I reread
the books.
Towards the beginning of the book, when Capt.Flint shows where he
carved "Ben Gunn" in Peter Duck's cave in Swallowdale, he mentions
that he carved it "More than thirty years ago."
Then at the top of Kanchenjunga when they find the tin box
under the cairn from Bob Blacket, and Jim Turner and Molly Turner
we see the date as "1901", which is _exactly_ thirty years ago.
I found the two of these put my imagination spinning.
Usually I like to imagine what other sorts of adventures the
swallows, amazons, and D's might have had if A.R. had written
a few more books. This time though, I find myself wondering what
the story might have been like if he tried backing up 30-32 years
to write a bit about Jim and Molly's childhood adventures. How
did he discover Swallowdale? Did he camp there also? How did
they manage to climb "the Matterhorn"?
The mention of Bob Blackett, and the childhood of the Turners, also
makes me think again about the discussion as to whether Beckfoot
was the Turner home or the Blackett home. To which I would then
add, "well, whoever's it was, where did the _others_ live?" I
mean, there just don't appear to be that many homesteads near
to Beckfoot, and I would assume that they would have had to have
been nearby for them to be acquainted. Would there have been
summer-visitors like the Walkers 30 years prior? I suppose that there
could be other houses not too far from Beckfoot which just weren't
mentioned or thought important enough to put in the maps.
Actually that makes even more sense, since where did Slater Bob
live? His workings didn't appear to be that far from the amazon
river either.
Well I see I'm rambling on, time to stop. Hope this has been
of some interest to people.