Posted by Duncan on September 13, 2013 at 04:03:17 user Duncan.
In Reply to: Re: Water and Empire: Examination Paper posted by Ed Kiser on September 12, 2013 at 07:51:25:
I don't like the idea that there's no reality in the children's hiding from the Natives; that it's just play, and really they only get anywhere with permission. It's interesting in many ways, because I don't get the impression Mrs Tyson owned the wood above her farmhouse, but had some say in whether somebody could camp there. I don't really buy the idea that it all belongs to the Blacketts, though I've heard it suggested before. The Great Aunt conducts herself as though everybody is her social inferior, but we are quietly encouraged to feel that she is rather ridiculous in behaving in such a manner. People are scared by her (and by Nancy!) because of their commanding presence and manner rather than by their actual positions of power, or at least that's how I see it. Clearly the Blackett family is well off, and owns the Beckfoot coppice and promontory, not just the house and the garden. Perhaps they own the river mouth and some of the lake bed too, but that's for another time!! But Beckfoot would appear to be Mrs Blackett's house, not the Great Aunt's house (nor Captain Flint's house for that matter). So quite how it all works out is left to our imaginations, as we get the impression that Molly and Jim lived at Beckfoot with the Great Aunt, so it wasn't Bob Blackett's property but passed down the Turner line.
If Beckfoot were based on Belle Grange on Windermere (enormous "if" of course!) then the family there owned the Belle Grange coppice, a significant part of the woodland and at least one of the islands (Belle Isle). But of course we know the Blackett's didn't own Long Island because there's some reference to the house and owners in SA...
(PS my one possible AR link to Belle Grange so far is that AR knew the family who then owned the house via his aunt in Windermere; they visited them on Belle Isle and I think there was some archery involved - the family was distantly related to Fletcher Christian, bizarrely).