Posted by Lionel Hill on March 29, 2001 at 13:43:58 from 203.34.252.210:
I read Aubrey de Selincourt's series of 8 children's books written around 1941-1947 or so before I came to AR in the Sandgate public library, Australia. A bit out of alphabetic order! I am gradually collecting information about him. He is certainly easier than AR in that he wrote several books about his family, pets and homes in southern and eastern England and leaves a clearer trail than the coy AR. A New Zealand TAR of the non-electronic generation, Trevor Richards,has written to me using his very faded typewriter ribbon (a true conservationist), supplying wonderful background on A de S. He was born ten years after AR and began his childrens series about 10 years after AR although his settings are pre WWII. The impetus for his books seems to have been a forced cessation of sailing during WWII, retirement from teaching and social changes after the war. After serving at Gallipoli in WWI he joined the Royal Flying Corps and was shot down in France by a German air ace, Werner Voss. He was imprisoned but we don't know if he met those other children's authors Captain W.E. Johns and George E. Rochester in prison. There have been previous threads on A de S on TarBoard but I would like to hear from those interested in him because I hope to compile a profile of him and his books. They provide an interesting contrast to AR in a similar genre.
His second, I think, childrens book, Three Green Bottles, 1941 contains the lines
"Robin and Anthony, who had been exploring the ship during the first greetings, came climbing down the fo'c'sle hatch to join them.
'She's jolly nice,' said Anthony.
'Do you mean Anne?' said the Bosun. Anne snorted.
'No,' said Anthony with a cheerful grin; 'the boat.''
Can't imagine AR ever writing those lines.
The children of A de S actually grow from one summer holiday to the next and aren't always interested in the same things they were last summer.