Posted by Allan Lang on June 01, 2000 at 02:02:45 from 203.87.64.25:
I can't work out whether to post this as a follow-up to:
message 4960 From: John Wilson, subject: World War One: Bob Blackett, Tommy Jolys ?
or
message 4961 From: Prue Eckett, subject: Nancy's age in SA
So I'm starting a new thread (And while I'm not on the subject, why does my Message board thread layout not up-date?)
First, there is no way of rationalizing the given 1929 date of Swallows & Amazons and the 1931 date of Swallowdale which is set only one year after S&A.
I am assuming that the SD date is a misprint and the S&A date is correct, as a 1930 date for S&A doesn't seem to fit for the footnot in SD which gives the publication details of Mixed Moss (1st printing 1930, 8th printing 1931).
And for the purpose of working out the earliest date Peggy could be born, it's better to use the 1929 date as canon.
The only one of the children's birthday we can be reasoinably precise about is Brigit. In SD, one day after the climbimg of Kachenjunga (on August 11), Mrs Walker states Brigit's birthday will be "in a few days".
And as we know it's her third birthday, and assuming an actual 1930 date for SD, she was most likely born on either August 15,16, or 17 of 1927.
One other fact is that none of the other children seem to have birthdays during any of the times covered by the books. This rules out the months of August, September (SA,SD,PP,WDMTGTS,SW), mid-January to mid-February (WH), and for the D's: Easter of 1931.
In S&A, Roger is seven. This would place his birthday in early 1922.
From Winter Holiday, Dick considers Roger to be quite a bit younger than he himself: "But that youngest one probably goes to bed pretty early." (Although that's not conclusive, from all the books, particuarly Picts & Martyrs, both Dick and Dorothea have a fairly elastic attitude concerning what bedtime should apply to themselves.)
Ignoring this quibble, I assume that Dick is at least a year older the Roger and place his birthday in Late Autumn-Early Winter of 1920.
Dorothea, probably a year earlier in late Autumn-early Winter of 1919.
Peggy, (Dorothea considers in WH: "She did not think Peggy could be very much older than she was herself") mid-1919.
Which probably rules Peggy out as a posthumous war baby.
Susan, whose birthday is on New Year's Day, 1 January 1919.
Going back to Brigit, her birthday in S&A was on day 6 of the Island camp, and they had come to the lake a fortnight before they sailed to the island. So they came to the lake in late July, and John says "It's a good thimg I had a birthday just before we came here."
Assuming this means not more than four weeks, John was born in July, and given Susan's definite birthday of New Years day, John must have been born in July 1917.
Nancy and Titty are left as a exercise for the reader.