Posted by Alex on June 06, 2023 at 01:53:49 user Alex.
In Reply to: Camping and Tramping, Swallows and Amazons: Interwar Children’s Fiction and the Search for England posted by Bill D NZ on May 31, 2023 at 07:49:20:
A lot of reading there in the thesis.
"Roland Chambers still felt it fitting to describe Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons as ‘An Edwardian idyll of bun loaf and pemmican, of butter and marmalade sandwiches, of cotton tents and grog and tea at four, and children who say “ripping”’.
Looking at it, S&A, from my perspective, what else but cotton tents? And "butter and marmalade sandwiches".
We, my brother and I (in New Zealand), read S&A and did some of the S&A things. We had a rowing dinghy that I rigged and taught myself to sail. We then had a sailing dinghy, sailed on the mudflats, tidal, or if the open sea, either simply spending the day out at sea or doing a crossing of an hour each way between ports.
I'm talking here of the late 1950s and it certainly wasn't "Edwardian".
So one of the things to look at is when was this thesis written? 2012.
Have attitudes changed as far as "children's safety" and all the attached attitudes? I think most would say Yes.
Attitudes of children to children? I don't know.
The attitudes of the S&A towards each other and the rest they meet is as it was "back then". It comes to the question, is it actually fiction? Yes, but only just.
There is mention of their father being in the service, navy. That the S&A are on holiday is a reason that they had access to the equipment. We had the equipment and could use it all year round and lived "out in the country" so didn't have the limitations of city (town) life. We were not at boarding school either.
So what is the purpose of this thesis?
Is it to criticise the writing and authenticity?
To simply catalogue those writers who were writing that style?
To write a long dissertation and hope to get qualifications for writing a long story?
For me, it looks like a lot of reading yet to see if I can find any of the answers. Maybe some here have some of those answers.
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