Posted by Robert Thompson on 12/06/99 from 212.229.58.245 via proxy finch-06.www-cache.demon.co.uk:
In Reply to: The Walker Family Home Address posted by Iain Hobbs on December 06, 1999 at 12:49:08:
O what a tangled web we weave! (or at least someone does).
a) there is no confusion
b) there is no authoritative location for where the Swallows live. Thank goodness, let's leave it at that.
The Euston reference is from The Picts and the Martyrs and refers to Dorothea (Chapter 2, paragraph 1). The same paragraph mentions the Ds not "having to waste the first fortnight of the holidays sweltering in London".
I think that's that one untangled, it just needs a careful look at the books!
I do have a theory about the GA, however, which contends that she did not live permanently in Harrogate: shock horror! (I mean about the theory, not the use of the colon.) Ladies of the GA's vintage would undoubtedly have spent some time at Harrogate "taking the waters". Harrogate is a Spa town once very popular for the healing qualities of the water. (one can still sample the spa water - it tastes foul). Ransome's own great-aunts Mary and Susan did stay there in the 1890s (Autobiography chapter 4) and AR was taken to visit them "when they were taking the waters" - in other words, they did not normally live there.
As the GA seems to have lived away from the Lakes for some years it does seem strange that if she lived as close as Harrogate (perhaps two hours in a fast Rattletrap) she had not already descended on Beckfoot in the holidays. I may be wrong, but perhaps the GA was only in Harrogate for a few summer months. (Harrogate in winter is bleak to say the least!) I think she could have lived further south, but there's no proof!