Posted by Peter Hyland on August 08, 2001 at 17:00:53 from 213.122.189.148:
In Reply to: Re: Kanchenjunga Commemorative Climb posted by Prue Eckett on August 07, 2001 at 02:28:33:
Yes, it is all supposition, but for what it’s worth here’s mine, ready to be shot at:
The ‘Matterhorn’ party of 1901 were all children. Molly and Jim Turner had ‘escaped from the great-aunt’ to make the ascent. They were all somewhere between 8 and 12, Bob Blackett being the eldest, as he ‘rescued them’, according to Nancy. One of the males took up the brass box, which sounds like a tobacco tin. It would have been given to one of the boys in Jubilee year or slightly later when the tobacco had been smoked (possibly by Bob Blackett’s father). The Diamond Jubilee tins would have ceased to be made by 1901, but would have been kept and prized by a boy. The idea of leaving the ‘Matterhorn’ note inside it is typical of children in pre- or early teens – it would have been considered uncool (or whatever the word was then) by 16+ year olds, who, then as now, would have been cynical about it all. It would not have occurred to adults, and if it did they would probably have left a coin of greater value than a farthing which is very much what children would have found in their pocket (like Roger’s halfpenny 30 years later). The note was written in ‘black pencil’ which had ‘scored deeply’, no doubt by Molly or Bob, and their daughter Nancy also ‘wrote firmly’.
Therefore there would have been no ‘proposal’ by Bob to Molly at the summit. That would have come about 10 years later. I have known many married persons who knew their spouses in childhood. The Blacketts married in about 1911. If AR had wanted to hint of a summit-top proposal, he would have dated the note ‘Aug 2nd 1911’ instead of 1901. A wedding in 1911 leaves less of a gap until Nancy and Peggy were born (c. 1919-21), although it still needs explaining. Foreign travel, perhaps, then the 1914-18 war, and some sort of domestic dislocation?
It is always presumed that Bob Blackett died during the 1920s, but there could have been a divorce. Divorce was not common then, but it did happen (AR was a divorced person himself). It might explain why Nancy was so reluctant to say anything about her father, and why none of the Swallows asked her (children ALWAYS ask about such things – ‘what happened to your father?’ – maybe they had had it drummed into them by the best of all natives that they MUSTN’T ASK). However, earlier in the story, Uncle Jim was heard saying ‘Bob would have liked them [the Amazons] as they are’. The ‘would have’ does give a feeling of Bob being no longer alive, but he may simply have disappeared abroad. On the whole, I think the ‘death’ theory is more convincing. (AR’s own father died when he was 13)
It is interesting that Jim Turner was the only one to use an initial, and signed ‘J. Turner’, instead of ‘Jim’. Does this indicate that he is younger than the others? At least in his case we can get a fix on his age. In PP, Jim reminiscences about Slater Bob: ‘Why I heard that story when I was a boy. Thirty years ago it was the South African war . . .’ The Boer War ended in 1902. PP takes place in 1932. Therefore Jim was a ‘boy’ in 1902.
Finally, Christina Hardyment suggests (‘AR & Capn Flint’s Trunk’ p 77) that the Blacketts ‘had a family tradition of getting to the top of it [the Old Man] as young as possible’.
I rest my case.