Posted by Iain Hobbs on 11/16/99 from 194.82.168.3:
According to information supplied by the Crossley family and backed up by secondary information from local libraries and Museums. The Crossleys kept a Sailing Dinghy in the Boathouse on the lake shore, as depicted by AR in Sa and SD. Evgenia Ransome even confirms the decoration of the boathouse with a Skull and Cross-bones. What I want to know is, does anybody know what happened to the Sailing Dinghy. It is very probably the original of Amazon and would have predated the Altounyans getting Swallow and Mavis. It belonged to the original owner of Huyton Hill and was used to teach his children to Sail. It may well have continued in use right up to Sir Kenneth Crossley (The Original of Captain Flint, and the actual owner of Esperance). The account of Sir Kenneths daughters Ruth and Catherine using the Sailing Dinghy during their summer holidays, on Lake Windermere came from an account of local knowledge by the former secretary of Huyton Hill Prep School. She told me that the late Headmaster of the School was aware of the AR connection and in fact she asked me for anything on this matter that I could find out. Indeed my research has been verified by Huyton Hill and the WSM as appropriate. According to one source, on one occasion Ruth and Catherine even mamaged to sink the Houseboa! Not even Nancy managed to do that.