posted via 47.134.240.81 user Jon.
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I hope it is OK to self-publicise a sale in this way. I don't wish to abuse the Tarboard service, but I know this could be of interest.
Please visit the link for a list of books I am selling from England (UK).
Nicer still if it had been acknowledged....
David
California
posted via 66.218.48.106 user DavidMaxwell.
David
California
posted via 66.218.48.106 user DavidMaxwell.
The actual layout may not be quite like the map shown but could have all the buldings made as possible destinations.
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
Someone is having a great time imagining what could be built after PP.
posted via 92.8.103.107 user MartinH.
However, I believe that the pamphlet "An open letter to America" was re-set and published under different names. Hammond's Bibliography tells us that it was also printed as:
"On Behalf of Russia"
"The Soviet Government of Russia"
"Radek and Ransome on Russia: Being Arthur Ransome's 'Open letter to America' with a New Preface by Karl Radek"
"The Truth about Russia" (in 1919) (a title which someone else made up in an unauthorised edition)
posted via 101.166.31.187 user clamont.
He had a collection of pamphlets, posters etc seized byth Bolsheviks – and destroyed, which upset him more than their seizure.
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
The image n Lakecam is larger so you would need to reduce it.
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
Error: invalid origin, requestor, or authenticationThe Tarboard Image Upload page link did show my user name.
posted via 76.151.21.100 user Jon.
David Maxwell
California
posted via 66.218.48.106 user DavidMaxwell.
David Maxwell
California
posted via 66.218.48.106 user DavidMaxwell.
ATR i a repository, not a very interactive site. So you are probably right that trying to find academic collaborators through ATR would be difficult.
We do try and check for broken links etc. but not very diligently I am afraid. If you find one let us know.
We don't use material which the copyright can be traced without the author's permission and attribution and we usually provide links to material rather than duplicating it. We do have electronic copies of material that is hard to find elsewhere such as some of Ransome's very early works and with the permission of the Literary Executors.
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
I was thinking I'd like to make a couple of contributions, but I was intending to familiarize myself a bit better with it first. So your post is a rather timely prompt!
I am considering getting a bit more serious about my Ransome research (maybe publish something in one of the journals for Children's Literature), and just started to compile my own "Ransome Index" (a bit like the one Ted Alexander in TARS has been compiling for years) this morning. It's to remind myself of where to find things I don't use so often such as Tarboard, ATR, and individuals like Ted. Sophie Neville has been compiling a list of books making reference to Swallows and Amazons on her blog, I think. And Arthur Herbertson seems to have a large collection of Ransome artefacts. Oh, I should add the fan fiction site.
I am keen to find or help create a resource for more literary-inclined people to write articles that might reach people like librarians, primary school teachers, counsellors, particularly while they are studying at university and need to do academic research. I tried to start a "Dr Ransome's" page in my brief stint "signalling from Oz" as editor of Mixed Moss during the Covid pandemic. The idea was to list recent articles published and also any research people were planning to do with a possibility of collaborating on a project, but I could hardly find anyone to promote. I don't think TARS is really into that sort of thing. ATR may not be either!
I now have about 100 (mainly non-TARS) articles/books in my Endnote reference library that you could add to the indexes page. Ideally, I'd want to do an annotated bibliography, but that will take a bit longer.
I don't have a lot of time to spend on this just now, but just letting you know I do use your website and might be able to help out in a small way a bit later in the year.
posted via 101.166.31.187 user clamont.
This website is intended as research tool for those interested in discovering more about the works and life of Arthur Ransome, and the sources and influences relevant to his work. In particular, the goal is to provide a permanent home for Ransome-related materials, especially for non-ephemeral works such as the literary pages, essays, articles, and the like. All Things Ransome also provides links to other Arthur Ransome resources available on the world wide web.
So how is it doing?
Does anyone here use it as part of any research they undertake into Ransome related subjects?
Have you browsed the site to see what is there?
How can we make more people aware of the site and the material to be found there?
TarBoard is old technology having been in operation mostly unchanged in appearance since it was first started by Ian Edmondson-Noble back in 1996. You do have to check in to see what responses if any have been made to a post, However, it is possible to view all the posts in a tread and follow the discussion from start to finish.
Recently other fora, such as several Facebook groups, have come to the fore and have sucked away some of the discussions. Also many of the longer term members are not so active, either because they have said everything they can think of or for other reasons.
One long term literary email list I am a member of has also experienced this and responded by basically allowing members to post about pretty well anything as long as it doesn't cause discord. It is very successful at self policing and while much smaller than it was in its heyday is still quite active.
As for Catherine's comment about the state of her chin, I suspect she is correct that most of the current rare posters are male but beards are not mandatory. I don't think that the potential for a female perspective would inhibit discussion and our language does not usually need moderating despite the fact we can't tell who is dropping in unseen and unheard.
My concern is that fewer people seem to be dropping in and fewer still are making comments. That is probably why even an interesting topic nowadays does not get (m)any responses.
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
David Maxwell
California
posted via 66.218.48.106 user DavidMaxwell.
"According to Roger Wardale, Ransome knew Corson at school, and he
and his two sons were avid readers of Ransome’s books. Hugh Brogan mentions that Captain Corson had a cutter called Wild Cat and a tender called Titmouse, and sailed with Ransome during the period leading up to the Second World War. We Didn’t Mean to go to Sea was published in 1937 and Secret Water in 1939. It is easy to see Captain Corson’s command of HMS Ganges 1937-39 being an inspiration for Ted Walker’s appointment to the same place and position."
posted via 101.166.31.187 user clamont.
David Maxwell - California
posted via 66.218.48.106 user DavidMaxwell.
PayPal proposes to hang on to it for five days before we get it, though....
posted via 119.18.1.27 user mikefield.
This year we are again asking you to generously donate a few pounds, dollars, or any other currency to keep the bank accounts topped up so we can keep All Things Ransome and TarBoard going.
Once more we are using PayPal this allows you to pay over the internet through your PayPal account or by credit card through PayPal. There are no additional fees to you, the site is secure and we will not keep any records of your details to maintain your privacy. To make a payment, please use this Appeal link which can also be found on the All Things Ransome site and the main page of TarBoard.
Contributions to the All Things Ransome Association in furtherance of its goals are welcome; please note however that the Association is not tax-exempt or a charitable organization in any jurisdiction.
Re Captains, Arthur Ransome has some military (British Army) friends but no naval (Royal Navy) friends?
:Major Busk - had yacht Lapwing at Pin Mill
:Colonel Hudson at Low Ludderburn - with the signalling system used in SW.
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
A the end of the holiday (SA31) Nancy says “we shan’t be at school for ever. We’ll be grown up, and then we’ll live here (i.e. on the island) all the year round”. John replies “I shall be going to sea some day, and so will Roger. ;But we’ll always come here on leave”. I recal;l a omment somewhere saying that John seems to have a more mature/realistic attitude. But in fact John like Nancy assumes that as adults the Swallows and Amazons will all return and live on Wild Cat Island! Earlier when Titty says we will come again “Every year. For ever and ever” Mrs Dixon says “we all think that when we’re young”.
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
David
Califor ia
posted via 66.218.48.106 user DavidMaxwell.
If you read his history, he is an interesting chap, would give G Owden a run for his money.
posted via 47.211.210.141 user Mcneacail.
“The trouble is,” said Captain Flint, “that in these days everything belongs to someone, even the North Pole.”
David
California
posted via 66.218.48.106 user DavidMaxwell.
Map of National Trust holdings
So the answer would appear (at the time of SA, SD, and WH) to be #3. Most of the land owned by the NT and on the Western shores of either Windermere or Coniston Water appears to have been acquired post-1935, so was presumably privately-owned during the time of PP. Much of the possible land of PP is not owned by the NT even now. Lake District National Park was only created in 1951, and the National Park actually owns less than 4% of the total park area.
posted via 76.151.21.100 user Jon.
1. The Dixons as having the nearest farm? Probably not as I expect most of the farmers were tenants.
2. The Turners/Blacketts? Nancy and Peggy seem to have made free use of the island and no evidence is given of other users. I wonder if in previous generations the Turners had owned a certain amount of land that was subsequently sold off to pay the debts of a previous black sheep. I feel, with no evidence, that the Blacketts were not as well off as the Turners, hence Aunt Maria's attitude.
3. Another land owner? Possibly, but who? Someone like Colonel Jolys who is part of the local "gentry".
4. The National Trust? An outsider here as this was still early days of the Trust and they might well have objected to youngsters using their property.
Before the Swallows camped on the island in SA I assume Mrs Walker cleared it with the owner. Was she in touch with Mrs Blackett? The postal service was much more efficient then and it was probably better than a 24 hour service around the lake. So arrangements could have been made without Nancy and Peggy knowing.
posted via 92.8.99.141 user MartinH.
I used to post a lot when Ed was here, but I really lost heart when I lost Ed.
It is worth keeping if you can raise the funds, if not it is worth a brief Eulogy, here rests a good friend, the Somme took the friend's life, but at least it was a good day to die.
I have been thinking about who would play CF in a real movie and I must say Rufus Sewell with a shaved head must be a front runner, but the best movie to make my be WDMTGTOS.
I was watching the Inspector Allwyn shows, much more English than some of the modern stuff, with the Broads sailing in the pilot it was a joy to watch.
posted via 47.211.210.141 user Mcneacail.
David
California
posted via 66.218.48.153 user DavidMaxwell.
As a place where we can discuss "Beckfoot plumbing" or the original reference books which provided the models for the books referenced in S&A, I'd say it's still potentially worth keeping around. How much does it cost to maintain the site on a yearly basis (domain hosting, DNS, security certs, and the like?), and what kind of time commitment does it need?
I'm certainly willing to kick in for the maintenance costs, and can bring my web/xNIX experience to help with the admin side if needed, to keep the site going.
posted via 76.151.21.100 user Jon.
Peter Hyland has given his point of view and I am not unsympathetic to it myself. While I am aware that there are a number of people who do not like posting on Facebook groups, it doesn't appear that they are posting here instead.
Has TarBoard served its purpose? Is it worth maintaining and paying for it?
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
The question made me think of Nancy's swollen face in WH. Then I realised that AR describes that with a phrase that's similar in sound but different in meaning: "pumpkin face".
posted via 2.26.176.177 user eclrh.
"Is the phrase used anywhere else by AR?
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
You can reach me directly at infoATanodynesoftwareDOTcom
Thanks in advance.
posted via 204.237.88.191 user RogerB.
This appears to have been caused by a our ISP and they fixed it as soon as they were notified.
Let the discussions continue.
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
Sometimes it was years later that I understood that people did not use those terms in the USA or Australia.
posted via 47.211.210.141 user Mcneacail.
'Marvellous the way you manage to get out of washing up,' Gordon remarked. 'Your pudding face really belies you.'
'My pudding face is merely a mask to hide the brilliance of the mind behind it,' Ian informed him. 'If I didn't hide it in some way it would make my big brother jealous.' He bolted before Gordon could act...
Does anyone recall the use of this insult from their own life experience, rather than in print?
posted via 94.4.25.82 user Magnus.
cheers
Bill
posted via 115.189.82.59 user BillD.
From WD Chapter 9: He was stooping now to loose the furling rope of the jib.
The jib suddenly unrolled and began to flap.
From WD Chapter 20: The pilot was signalling to furl the jib. He had let the sheets fly, and the jib was flapping idly like a flag. John stooped, risking a blow from dancing blocks, and took hold of the furling rope. What had Jim done? Simply pulled? John pulled as hard as he could, and the sail rolled up, with the blocks danced no more.
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
Then he stooped, and pulled on something at his feet, and they saw the jib roll up on itself like a window blind. He stood up again, looking from boat to boat and then down at the four of them in the dinghy.
---------------------------------------------------
AR was very good at describing the equipment and sailing, he never mentions a roller reefer in SA or in the Racunda Cruises that I have read. Now if Ed was around he could do a search. I miss him a lot, the weekend is not the same.
posted via 47.211.210.141 user Mcneacail.
Nancy Blackett is a sailing yacht, not a museum exhibit and so safety and convenience are prized.
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
Dead right, John. :)
I also noticed a few anachronisms in the Lullaby clip I posted below -- some braided lines, a nylon turning block on the mast, delrin sheaves in the mainsheet blocks; terylene sails; and it looks like all the three-strand line is synthetic as well....
posted via 193.119.55.235 user mikefield.
As well as sailing they showed quite a bit of quanting on (the non-tropical) Kendal and Meadow Dykes; they shot the Potter Heigham bridges twice; and they moored to a mud-weight overnight on Horsey Mere. (I find it odd that the word 'Kendal' for some reason has morphed into 'Candle' these days.)
There's some excellent footage of the pennant staff and how it's rigged and set; of how slack the lee shrouds are and how they become taut as she goes about; a crowsfoot on the lower end of the quant (which I hadn't known about); the canvas-sided pop-top for the cabin; the counterweight on the mast; and a lot of other details that are mentioned in the books.
From the video's blub -- "I am on the Norfolk Broads in East Anglia sailing Lullaby, a vintage 1930s wooden sailing cruiser with my friend Bob. We have two days to explore part of the river Thurne and into Horsey Mere under sail, spending the night at anchor on the water as the birds call and the mist rolls in. We hired this magnificent boat from Hunters Yard in Ludham. It was built by the Hunter family in 1932 and is available to hire. It sleeps four people in two separate cabins beneath the pop-top cabin roof and has a basic galley kitchen complete with period crockery, and a toilet on board. To travel the Broads by sail is a delight - no noisy diesel engine, just the sound of the wind, the reeds rustling and the birds singing as you silently pass by."
Forty-odd minutes of leisurely enjoyment.
No matter how far you go past the black stump - Aussies are about the same, although you can tell a newbie in Tennant Creek, by how he/she opens his/her beer and if he/her has to be sober to take an engine out of a truck.
Catherine, before your time there was Ed Kiser, he and I had a great time discussing all the nuances of water supply system, moon angles, Beckfoot layout, and the Swallow. I miss his wit, unlike Malcolm Fraser it is not a blank book. Good Aussie joke.
There were a lot of negative comments about plumbing, but Ed and I had fun.
posted via 47.211.210.141 user Mcneacail.
The three young ladies sailing the boat in the movie are good sailors.
posted via 47.211.210.141 user Mcneacail.
posted via 47.211.210.141 user Mcneacail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywqpsyaenIs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdZErR1-ZdI
posted via 94.11.52.52 user Magnus.
[ Image ]
posted via 193.119.55.235 user mikefield.
Here's another short one --
posted via 193.119.55.235 user mikefield.
Ignore the start of the video - the girls do get the sails up eventually. Good footage of Wroxham.
He does a nice "hymn of praise" to an artist's model in "Bohemia in London", and I think I can use Dot and Titty as female sleuths, and Nancy and her pirate sister, Missee Lee, for female "criminals". (Any excuse to write about Ransome!)
Would be interested in borrowing, buying, copying or just knowing more about the book, or was there only one copy made?
posted via 101.191.199.53 user clamont.
It is incredibly funny, a little hard to follow with all the characters, but she has a very inventive mind, I know we are not supposed to use very, but the sentence needs it.
If you have a 90 year old father, buy him the book, if he doesn't laugh, just check he is still alive. He will likely refuse to allow your mother to read the book, reading the last page will tell you why.
She should try her hand at a Ransome, she tells a good story.
John
posted via 47.211.214.59 user Mcneacail.
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
Yes, no secret about it -- Scrubbers' Cove is about ten miles NNE of Stornoway (on Lewis), at 58°19'01"N, 6°13'54"W.
Here's a location map, and I've uploaded a PDF showing a detailed map, an air photo, and a map of the hinterland lochans at the link.
Cheers, Mike
[ Image ]
posted via 193.119.55.235 user mikefield.
And yes, All Things Ransome is very interesting, worth periodic revisits for new bits too...
posted via 115.189.85.118 user BillD.
Thanks for the link - clever idea. I see a number of favourite places are currently 5. Heavy midges places are the only times I've bee asked to smoke (when I did in my youth). We've also resorted to a barely going primus in the doorway of a small tent, surprisingly effective.
Could do with something similar for the NZ sandfly.
The Ransome connection implies that the location of Scrubbers' Cove is known. If this is in the public domain, non copyright, and safe to publish without imperilling Great Northern Divers or other wildlife: I'd love to know.
cheers
posted via 115.189.85.118 user BillD.
And the Ransome connection? Well, Scrubbers' Cove appears to be Mostly Midge Free for the next five days so there shouldn't be too much trouble getting Sea Bear scrubbed if we go soon....
Readers who haven't met Ed might be interested to learn that the name of our All Things Ransome website derives directly from a phrase he frequently used when posting on TarBoard. And if that's a site you don't yet know, you should definitely visit it....
posted via 115.189.80.116 user BillD.
Bill, please do not post links to material unless you are sure it is in the public domain, not only where you live but also elsewhere in the world. Some sites indicate that their material is available for free use but TARS is not one of them.
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
"SPITZBERGEN" (= Wild Cat Island), "ALASKA" and "CROSS GREENLAND". She is about to say (as Peggy knows) that Greenland is the country up on the fells above the tarn. High Greenland and Wild Cat Island are named on the endpaper map. They go to Spitzbergen (WH-13).
But where is Alaska? Possibly "THE GULCH" (PP; not Golden Gulch!) if Alaska was associated with the Klondyke Gold Rush?
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
Malnourished and covered in insect bites, four Indigenous children were rescued alive from the Colombian Amazon on Friday afternoon, 40 days after the plane they were travelling in crashed into the jungle.
In a remarkable feat of resilience, the children survived heavy storms in one of the most inhospitable parts of the country, home to predatory animals and armed groups.
“They’ve given us an example of total survival that will go down in history,” said Colombian president Gustavo Petro, calling it “A joy for the whole country!”
Yes, I'd noticed the 'tramping'. In the UK at least for the last 50 years it's usually called walking, fell-walking, possibly hiking.
It may have been chosen for the rhyme with camping. It doesn't seem to be a generational thing - although there's lots of NZ (and American and Aussie) terms that were current in the UK at the time when emigrants left, all I can find seems to say it's basically an NZ term.
posted via 115.189.84.62 user BillD.
He settled down with some fine stuff, thin string, to finish off the ragged reef points with neat splices, cutting the frayed ends away with his knife.You'd probably find information on both splicing and whipping lines in any book that hasd one or the other.
Clever really, in a way she points to the very real humans who like AR and why they are different in a way.
So far I have read the abstract.
She is very good, but her philosophy is hidden deeply. She is Nancy and Dot grown up and real.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
The writers have written stories which have things happening the way things happened then. Customs and attitudes may have changed but we're talking about then.
Is it the accuracy of the writers?
If it is the different attitudes, then and now, the stories don't need to even be mentioned as it is how real people were then and now.
One does think, it could be a surprise to a modern kid how things have changed between then and now and were things really like that.
Things were really like that, I know, things were like that and only changing slowly when I was a kid.
Going to a farm with a billy for milk. Yes, done that. Attitudes of adults to children and children to children, yes, just like that too.
So what is the "topic"?
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
The US make it more expensive with coursework.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
"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.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
The thesis refers to "sacred" campfires as distinct from Susan’s cooking campfires (pages 54,57) but no mention of the Corrobee or Eel Dance in SW.
Another term of interest is "tramping" as I thought it more of a New Zealand term – do you have tramping clubs in England?
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
You could use a back-splice to tidy the ends, but a whipping is quicker, neater and doesn't shorten the rope, or make it harder to tie a reef point than a back-splice would do.
On the other hand, a back-splice is arguably neater and more permanent. But back-splicing all the reef points would take quite a while...
posted via 115.189.80.42 user BillD.
You could use a back-splice to tidy the ends, but a whipping is quicker, neater and doesn't shorten the rope, or make it harder to tie a reef point than a back-splice would do.
On the other hand, a back-splice is arguably neater and more permanent. But back-splicing all the reef points would take quite a while...
posted via 115.189.80.42 user BillD.
David
California
posted via 66.218.48.153 user DavidMaxwell.
Once you've got past the 'catching lobsters' phase (as Dot put it), it seems to me that it's that return stroke that many otherwise-proficient rowers often don't master -- but that makes them look really professional when they do.
posted via 193.119.55.235 user mikefield.
[ Image ]
posted via 193.119.55.235 user mikefield.
I haven't fully read this, but dipping in to it found it very interesting, both in it's discussion of aspects AR and the SA canon, but also looking at other similar writers, some of them new to me.
Has this thesis been discussed before? If not, worth a look. e.g. Mates Not Captains: Sailing Girls; Undermining Captain Nancy Blackett; The Embryo Nelson: John Walker; The Rebellion of Roger Walker
Interestingly Sheeky talks about a gradual move in the SA books from Imperial exploration (a chapter on mapmaking) and colonisation (John Walker) to scientific discovery (Dick), but makes no mention of AR's Bolshevik & Russian sympathies. Surely she must have known of them? Was AR an Imperialist?
Interesting - why did he try this? Do you think this was something AR had done as a child? Or is this an unconscious comment on the dual reality of being pirates and explorers in a world they had to be practical in?
Encapsulated in one of my favourite lines, Nancy saying p107 "we'd have given you broadside for broadside until on of us sank, even if it made us late for lunch".
And perhaps in "Swallowdale" there is a third reality, the antique one that Aunt Maria tries to impose (and the Turners and Blacketts try to live up to in their behaviour?
Anyway, has anyone come across this looking through your legs elsewhere? The only thing Google brings up is whether so doing allows you to see the true size on the full moon on the horizon...
posted via 115.189.132.96 user BillD.
When 'Captain John visits Captain Flint' his frame of mind seems to be both reflected and set or settled by his rowing style, aiming for 'navy stroke' or 'navy style' p155. This may just be the 'smart jerk as he lifted his ears from the water' andtiming as regular as a clock, or is there more to it?
I can't find a description of 'navy stroke' via Google. Can anyone shed light on it?
posted via 115.189.132.96 user BillD.
[ Image ]
posted via 115.64.37.29 user mikefield.
Until the May Day post goes up
After that, you missed it. Sorry!
posted via 73.180.187.222 user Jon.
I was pretty sure saying Ian without the last name, everyone on the board knew it as an example, and I did not give the last name.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Example - Ian who started the original tarboard etc..
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Calling original subscribers to purchasing Swallow from the 1974 film
We are aware that some of the original subscribers to purchasing Swallow are no longer in contact with SailRansome and receiving the newsletter.
Now that TARS are carrying on from SailRansome I would like to continue the newsletter to update you on the progress of your investment, and so am updating the list of subscribers with ones who have slipped through the net. Let me know your email or other contact details on webmaster@arthur-ransome.org
Diana Wright, lead on the S&A project
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
Naturally I quizzed him about moorhens, as they all have the white feather, but he claimed there were nearby moorhens which he could compare to, and they had a different kind of white streak.
Has anyone else seen 'Number 7' or their descendants? Am I missing something? Is this marking more common than I was led to believe?
posted via 94.11.52.52 user Magnus.
I had a great week, it snowed for two days in Coventry, I stayed in a fake Gypsy Caravan in the Heart of England, darn cold shower on the first morning.
Two days in Chesire and a day in Chester. Cold in Chester, snowing and raining and the streets were really weird with the raised walkway areas, had lunch at Duttons, really nice.
Day site seeing in London and a flight home.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I think you would find in the unlikely chance that some one offered say 1 million pounds for the Swallow, you would be hard pressed to prove in court that the original contributors were not owners.
I certainly felt like an owner when I paid the money.
It is an interesting legal question that could be posed in a law exam, however, the contributing group were interested in being part of the program and saving something that was important to them.
I certainly enjoyed all of my visits with Rob and the boat, as his kind wife said to my wife, old men sitting around drinking tea and talking boats or words that effect.
As long as it can be sailed by people that is the main thing, it is the fun in the books that is important.
Warm regards
John
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
No "sale" (for £20,000 or £1) has yet taken place
TARS are not intending to ever restrict access to the dinghies to TARS members only
The original ethos of the project will carry on, and the difference to fans will be irrelevant, regardless of the behind-the-scenes admin
Original donors are not losing any rights, as they did not 'own' the boat, or part of it - they can continue to sail it
posted via 213.205.194.102 user Magnus.
I shared your concern about non TARS members being allowed to sail the boats. I am glad that TARS seem to be open to non-members sailing as I consider that the boats could be a significant outreach to non-members and the general public to communicate something about Ransome which I hope would be good for everyone.
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
As no suitable home could be found for them in the Lake District, they will be based in Norfolk where a receptive shipyard has been found to undertake the repair and maintenance.
Now everyone who wondered at the TV adaptions of Coot Club and The Big Six being subtitled Swallows and Amazons Forever will admire the prescience of the producers.
posted via 99.241.92.87 user Adam.
The Trust has a detailed article on Mike and his association with the boat.
If I do what Dick does I get yelled at to pay attention, whereas Dot understands.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
But I thinking yesterday I decided the Mother was right and PM is by far my favourite book along closely with WH.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Shepherds Bridge lane at the eastern end on yewdale creek.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
This is the closest I could find. But I note that while the arch in Ransome's drawing is set on vertical stone walls that isn't the case here.
Why don't you drop Tony a line and see what he says? His email address is at the bottom of his homepage, LakelandCam. I've no doubt he'd be delighted to help if he possibly can.
[ Image ]
posted via 118.211.52.210 user mikefield.
A couple of Ransome's islands were mentioned among the three dozen listed, but really I thought the Ransome connection seemed to be pretty tenuous.
It's fair to say that seven of the eight quoted reader-reviewers gave the book five stars while one gave it only two -- and that person thought there was too much Ransome and not enough Lake District in it!
So you pay your money and take your choice. But you may not be surprised to hear that I myself have chosen to keep my funds where they are....
posted via 118.211.52.210 user mikefield.
Full details at the link.
[ Image ]
posted via 118.211.52.210 user mikefield.
-- Dave
posted via 47.208.68.76 user dthewlis.
I wanted to recreate the illustration in a photograph next time I am visiting Cumbria. I saw a few suitably-sized bridges on my last visit, but they were either on private land, or had significant features that would ruin the photo.
Just a bit of fun!
posted via 86.178.201.98 user Magnus.
The author visits every island in the Lake District, and tries to camp on as many as possible. he goes off topic often, but usually in an interesting fashion, and peppers his account with S&A facts.
Has anyone else tried it?
Oh, and Happy Hogmanay!
posted via 73.180.187.222 user Jon.
While I'm at it - two nitpicking points:
The most recent posting before Paul's was on 12 December by John Nichols. Remember that TarBoard dates are month first.
On 'another forum' you had a go at those of us who 'whinge' about the seaplane incident at the close of the 2016 S&A film. I whinge about it - not because there was a seaplane - I am well aware that seaplanes can and did 'land' and take off from Windermere - I grumble about what they did with it in the film - a physical impossibility because of the burst of kinetic energy applied to a thin rope. (I dare say John can give us some data on that.)
posted via 62.6.133.2 user Peter_H.
Do you still have your boat?
John
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Not necessarily. My son. :-)
posted via 121.45.190.37 user mikefield.
I have been watching Silent Witness on TV, has it really run for 26 seasons, why is it so popular in England. Amanda Burton would make a good Nancy.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Cannot see the Dixon's or the geese.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I have been reading Buchan - Power House, a nice little read.
I was let onto the Facebook page, they are active.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I was asked to answer some questions about the boat, because for some reason people believe I know a bit about wooden boats having built several and I know a lot about accelerometers. The gunboat has a cannon on the front deck and that is the first question, should they remove it, 8 minutes with an accelerometer and I said no. The building is shaking like crazy the cannon is so heavy it stops the boat shaking in sympathy, a dead weight damper, a bit like a bell in a church, both are dangerous in wrong hands, engineering material do not like shaking, like you should never shake a baby.
I tried to join the facebook group but no reply.
The new Enola Holmes is really good, watch it with your grandchildren.
The end is perfect.
John
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
The SI is very dynamic and that has turned into an interesting question.
it is just science like PP.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
So why are the accelerometers there, rather than somewhere closer to bedrock (although I don't think NMAH footings reach to bedrock)?
posted via 73.180.187.222 user Jon.
Inside her are a set of accelerometers, running on Intel NUC's and the NUCs are named Flint, Swallow, Amazon, Beckfoot, Dudgeon (LOL I ran out of names in my mind when I was naming them) Scarab, SeaBear, Teasal, Viper(that was a hard choice) and Wizard.
I had to explain to the SI human bean where the names came from.
We will watch her with interest.
JMN
The Guardian has a note asking for subscriptions, they say - we stayed in Russia in early Communist days and everyone else left. You mean AR stayed risked his life, found a wife and you paid him a pittance so he could escape his first wife. Did I miss anything?
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
1. What was the argument about with Ernest?
2. Why would Squashy Hat walk from near Coniston to the house, it is a long way?
3. Short two hour walk in the rain is not a short walk.
4. Titty and Trojan mentioned a lot.
In second half the editors added the week days, Sunday etc, made it better to read.
I must be anon in the subscriber list.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Similarly, John did indeed haul in his 'mainmast' in my 1st ed of 'Swallowdale', where the yard was also referred to as the gaff. Both these nuisances had also been corrected in my 1993 Red Fox edition of that book.
posted via 118.211.52.61 user mikefield.
I note that in my on-line copy of (the 1931 ed of) S&A the yard is consistently referred to as a gaff when they're first rigging Swallow for her maiden sail. I now see why it was an easy mistake for Ransome to have made.
(Broadly, a sail's upper spar is a yard if it crosses the mast and a gaff if its forward end is fixed to the mast. The Swallow we're familiar with definitely had a yard.)
posted via 118.211.52.61 user mikefield.
AR noting 'little nuisances' he wants corrected in resetting of Swallowdale / SA. Love the little comments about his typewriter and builders...!
Thought might be of interest,
cheers
rob
posted via 86.132.244.129 user robscot.
I still remember with great joy, sailing Rob's Mirror dinghy on the lake, the best sailing experience ever.
My first gradndaughter has arrived, so I am looking to see what year I can get her up the mountain, I reckon five is not to young.
Any thoughts?
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It has been a long time since the last newsletter about 'Swallow', and the reasons for that are detailed below, as we update you on the past, the present and the future...
--- The Past ---
The original appeal to buy 'Swallow' and make her available to get fans sailing started in 2010, and sadly we were not able to celebrate our ten year anniversary with gusto and happiness due to three medical reasons: a pandemic, the physical health of one of our committee members, and the mental health of the other.
Both of the personal situations had been building up for some time, affecting the activity and energy that we all wish 'Swallow' had received. Nevertheless, there was a high profile appearance on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow programme, and some sailing the year after.
I am pleased to say that both of us (Rob and Magnus) are in reasonable health now, and out of danger.
--- The Present ---
Those living in the south of England may be interested to hear that 'Swallow' is on display at the Southampton Boat Show from today until 25th September. Sophie Neville, who played Titty in the film, will be speaking on the Foredeck Stage there too, on certain days. See www.southamptonboatshow.com/foredeck-stage-2022/
There are no further events planned for 2022 due to repair work needed.
--- The Future ---
Swallow has a small leak in the bows, and sorely needs general upkeep to the varnish. It is time certain safety equipment (and road trailer hubs) were replaced, as things degrade over ten years. Our bank account can just about cope with the simple replacements, but affording a boatbuilder is beyond us at present.
We hope that contacts at the Boat Show will prove fortuitous in that area, but would appeal to any readers who have ideas or feel able to help us chase down a cheaper offer of assistance - please get in touch!
You can of course support with gifts via www.sailransome.org/making-a-donation but we appreciate that most families are feeling the pinch right now, and that many of you have donated generously in the past, so we are focussing on finding a kind-hearted boat builder most of all.
There is a hint of a rumour that it might be possible to add 'Amazon' to our fleet one day - yes, the boat used in the same 1974 film! We hope to announce the outcome of this next year.
Thank you for your support,
Magnus Smith and Rob Boden
Somewhere buried deep in the bowels of British UK reseaerch is a paper on blood testing of parents and English children. 10% of the fathers could not be the biological father. There is no reason that there is not some small possiblity that you are descended from said priest, I bet you are related to him somehow, a long way back. We all walked out of Africa, thank god our great(1000) generations did not run into the UK immigration system, or we would all be French.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
There's a similar situation 30 miles away in Melton Mowbray, with a Swallowdale Road surrounded by other bird roads, and a Swallowdale Primary School.
And of course, there used to be a Great Northern Railway!
posted via 2.31.237.72 user eclrh.
Eventually I tracked down a small community in Nova Scotia also named Quinan and on inquiry found that it had been named after a beloved Catholic priest who had served the area for many years. I think I can safely say that I am not descended from him.
I wonder if some exiled Nova Scotian town planner named the street for that small village.
posted via 99.240.137.238 user Adam.
All of the people who picked names, would take a reference to something in their life and then substitute the Awabakal word. Humans use what is comfortable. AR is a comfortable childhood memory and you are now closer to him in your mind.
Street has two e's and one R.
Once I a hurry for a theoretical job, I needed a street name and used my oldest daughter Eliza's name. Broke all my rules in one.
Local Government engineer wrote and asked the background to the name, I had to do research and reply it was the name of the first Vice Chancellor's wife for the local University. Not my proudest moment.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
This is in Westbury, Wiltshire.
posted via 92.16.54.163 user MartinH.
That was a few years ago when it was a new estate, but I see it's been pretty-well fully developed now.
[ Image ]
posted via 194.193.38.116 user mikefield.
In Walton on the Naze (Secret Water country) there is a development with Arthur Ransome Way and some other Ransome themed names.
Where are you locatedÉ
posted via 99.240.137.238 user Adam.
Are there other places with a similar naming scheme?
posted via 92.16.54.163 user MartinH.
(I don't know how I missed this earlier....)
[ Image ]
posted via 194.193.38.116 user mikefield.
A double-sided open wire griller would toast at least four slices of bread at once on an open fire.
The talk of museum pieces reminds me of Agatha Christie's remark: "The advantage of being married to an archaeologist is that the older you get, the more interesting he finds you."
posted via 2.31.237.72 user eclrh.
If he meant it is a museum piece in the sense of being outdated and no longer performing its former function, I would draw attention to Mavis/Amazon and perhaps to a lesser extent even Nancy Blackett. Both examples of out dated technology, one of which is still operating but needs a lot of care and attention to conserve it and the other is literally a museum piece. TarBoard is old technology but with a ittle care and attention it does continue to perform its function for those who prefer to avoid the flashier Hullabaloos of Facebook!
posted via 99.240.137.238 user Adam.
TarBoard is older technology but has the advantage of being simple. You can see at a glance all the posting titles and distinguish those which you haven't read. (On Facebook postings seem to disappear after a few days.) The separation of the threads means that you know exactly where to post.
I don't see why the two forums can't co-exist without sniping such as 'museum piece'. I recommend Peter Willis to read an excellent article in the latest Mixed Moss (the TARS journal) pp 52-53 in which Dave Thewlis summarises the history and aims of both All Things Ransome and TarBoard.
posted via 86.154.125.150 user Peter_H.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
I do not read the Times, merely the Guardian, being a labour voter my whole life as was my grandfather.
Sometimes half the fun is searching for something, so is walking a circle four miles a day for your heart.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I love the Guardian.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Just a few bug bears of being a traffic engineer in part.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
61 years ago, to be exact!
I have a dim memory of crossing the transporter bridge as a small child. I was disappointed when we didn't get wound up to the top.
I hadn't heard of the Stanley Holloway piece and had to Google it. I see it features the same Albert of Albert and the Lion fame.
posted via 2.31.237.72 user eclrh.
The number of lifting bridges is smaller but there are several, including both bascule bridges which pivot (like Tower Bridge, London) and a few vertical lift bridges.
There are one or two transporter bridges left though the the major one at Middlesbrough has been closed for a while and is in dodgy structural condition.
There are two boat lifts - the Falkirk Wheel in central Scotland and the Anderton Lift in Cheshire.
I don't know how to put more than one link in a post but some of you may wish to search for some of these.
posted via 2.31.237.72 user eclrh.
I rather fancy that.
posted via 217.96.138.41 user Jock.
...white bread and white rice; I thought the objection to them was that they were not poisonous in themselves, but that removing the rice husks (say) removed goodness
Both are the case. Making white rice, white sugar or white flour removes the goodness, then a bleaching agent is used which makes such foods carcinogenic.
posted via 217.96.138.41 user Jock.
In England we have a quite well known lifting bridge in London which I've rowed under, and a less well known one in Coot Club country on the site of a big railway swing bridge. This one I've had lifted for me a couple of times (causing impressive tailbacks on the major road) which crosses here.
Is a famous bridge in the Netherlands, it raises, which is interesting. Has anyone seen it in person?
I found it in a search on Holland and AR?
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Was this ever solved?
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I was looking on the old book lists, published 27, 29, and 33 so it was popular, AR could have used 27 or 29 or 33, your conjecture of 27 would be a large point the barrister would raise to frazzle you.
Barristers are not nice people.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
As has been explained to me recently, aka last night, these lead to high blood sugar and weight gain, this leads to high A1C over the long term, which leads to Type 2 diabetes and blindness, without care.
Moderation is the key as was forcefully rammed home last night by a doctor and doing the most important thing, walking or exercise. SAD did a lot of walking, and food was expensive at that time, which is why in Australia most families had a veggie patch, it saved you a lot of money.
We are to spoilt and it is killing us.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
My reasoning can be seen in the link below.
Found after long searches during lockdown :-)
It even has the Tennyson and Longfellow poetry.
posted via 80.189.40.88 user Matt.
Yes, quite a few decades ago when I was at school. I've probably had to replace the element in one of those back in the 1960s when I started work. It was more usual to have to replace pop-up toaster elements in Morphy Richards toasters. I would have done a few hundred of those.
"Years ago one could buy a toaster for going on Primus or Camping Gaz type stoves. The one we had did up to four slices at a time."
Mine is probably still out with the rest of the camping equipment. Slightly bulky so I wouldn't usually have carried it on my sea kayaks.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
"Marmite ice cream" sounds like (chocolate) Mars Bars deep fried in batter!
Re "long term poisons" like white bread and white rice; I thought the objection to them was that they were not poisonous in themselves, but that removing the rice husks (say) removed goodness e.g. vitamins in the rice husks?
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
But how practical would it be to toast four or six slices of toast on an open camp fire, even a large ''Nancy'' size one! I think it would take too long, with four or six people crowded around an open fire! PS: while modern pop-up toasters do both sides at once,
I recall older electric toasters that had two flaps hinged at the bottom in which the slice of bread was reversed to do the other side (obverse?)
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
Mrs Walker allows her toast to go cold at Alma Cottage while she inquires about Jim Brading's character and sailing skills in WD. Later on she allows the toast to go cold while asking after the Goblin following the overnight blow.
Toast is served along with bacon at the breakfast at Alma Cottage in Secret Water.
Mr Farnon has toast for breakfast in Coot Club.
Dr Dudgeon offers Dorothea some toast with marmalade or honey in The Big Six.
Missee Lee's Camblidge breakfast has fried toast with ham and eggs and later toast with Oxford marmalade.
posted via 99.240.137.238 user Adam.
I always thought this meaning, not the sausages.
The white stuff is very easy for your stomach to break down and it raises your blood sugar quickly, leading to diabetes. Some people live to 93 through genetics, most die in their 60's and 70s due to poor genetics. It is a game of Russian roulette, as you do not pick your parents.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I think there's a breakfast scene at Alma Cottage at the start of Secret Water, which I would need to check as the most likely place for any toast reference, but my copy is not to hand.
Bread and marmalade is mentioned a couple of times, whereas I have never had marmalade except on toast.
At one point (possibly in PM) there is a reference to (Dorothea emulating) Susan's alleged method of buttering the end of a loaf before cutting a slice off, but somewhere else in the series Susan does it the other way.
posted via 2.31.237.58 user eclrh.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
Apparently, they are roughly equivalent to long-term poisons for your body.
Life can be boring. Although PP last night was a good read.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Toast is common when camping in Australia as a boy scout, hold it on a stick near the fire.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I was reading an English novel set on Aldernay. It talks about fried bread, what is fried bread?
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
On Lakeland cam today.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I wonder why he dropped Nancy and pegs brother Tom?
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
--- LOL --- No journey is wasted if you are having fun. Think of Roger in Pigeon Post.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
When travelling one can never solve the mysteries of why one takes a particular route. I took my daughter from Houston to New Orleans last week, straight run about 7 hours. We came home the long way through Vicksburg just to show her the country. Her opinion, Dad next trip let us do Paris. Vicksburg has a huge National Park for a major Civil War battle, she thought it was boring and I got lost, it is so big.
In Vicksburg they hand dug caves as Morris Shelters, and that reminds me of that great book, Post D.
As we drove across Louisiana I reminded my daughter that it was about 56 years since the death of AR - I told her about hearing it on the ABC news in Australia. Early June '66 from memory and she said "Who?"
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Once you do decide to go to Hereford, your obvious route to Cumbria is Leominster, Shrewsbury and Chester. The funny shape of the Welsh border has a bulge there, and it may be Ransome never stopped the car in Wales at all, but crossed in and out just because the straight road cut across the curved border.
What is odd is that he would divert 6 miles off the main road to Llangollen though. He's travelling due north, and would have to go due west to get there, and then back east along the very same road, before resuming north to Chester. If he needed food or petrol, Wrexham is a much bigger town only 8 miles from the point of needing to make the decision.
(John Nichols, is this enough of a strangely-specific mystery/research project for you?)
posted via 213.122.89.146 user Magnus.
Yesterday's word was not a real word, retro.
I wonder what AR would have made of the modern world.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
If you start to look at the Welsh language you'll find many more longer words that qualify! Which brings us to: did Arthur Ransome ever go to Wales? Does any character in his books mention Wales? It is a pretty green place full of hills that I'm sure he would have loved.
But I only recall England, Scotland/Hebrides and the Isle of Man being mentioned. The Scilly Isles are referenced in a song lyric.
Nothing of Wales? Ireland? Jersey?
posted via 86.133.242.148 user Magnus.
Apparently this was caused by an IP address repeatedly downloading pages. This does not appear to be a hack and as far as we can tell no access to the server or file tampering occurred, it just used up the normal amount of "download availability" so that genuine users could not get access. Our service provider has increased the bandwidth available and normal service seems to have reumed. The offending IP address has been added to our blocked list.
posted via 99.240.129.236 user Adam.
posted via 47.134.240.81 user Jon.
There are many examples.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
The letter 'Y' is always called the 'Greek I'.
(The pronunciations of each, phonetically, are 'ee-latina' and 'ee-griayga'.)
The classic example in English of 'Y' being used as a vowel is in the word 'syzygy'. It has none of the recognised vowels A, E, I O, or U, but uses 'Y' as a vowel no less than three times.
posted via 121.45.163.61 user mikefield.
As a point you cannot read the OED from cover to cover without accepting there are 29 real letters in the alphabet, you cannot make sense of English unless you accept that Y is a vowel some of the time.
Shewn is just one example of the evolution.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I have submitted a few AR words to the OED.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
William Chester Minor (also known as W. C. Minor; 22 June 1834 – 26 March 1920), was an American army surgeon, psychiatric-hospital patient, and lexicographical researcher.
After serving in the Union Army during the American Civil War, Minor moved to England. Affected by delusions, he shot a man who he believed had broken into his room, and was consequently committed from 1872 to 1910 to a secure British psychiatric hospital.
While incarcerated, Minor became an important contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary. He was one of the project's most effective volunteers, reading through his large personal library of antiquarian books and compiling quotations that illustrated how particular words were used.
posted via 110.174.224.69 user clamont.
It'#s possible he was found not guilty after that, I'm not sure. A good story in there somewhere....
posted via 86.133.242.148 user Magnus.
This ranks as one of the great feats of literature.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
All Season Tickets must be shewn.
I think I'd rather have had 20 pots of Oxford marmalade.
Showy was word, but shown is not in the 2V OED, I would have expected it.
Off Ransome, but sort of interesting, would Dick have played Wordle or Dot?
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
The crofter is a poor representation of the Scots.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
AND I'VE SWUM AROUND THE ISLAND!!!!!
Just need to find a sunny day to climb the Old Man, before I am forced to return home (booo!).
posted via 31.50.84.213 user Magnus.
My desire to video the approach to the secret harbour - perhaps even underwater - is along these lines. So your suggestions could be for photos or videos.
I quite fancy re-creating an illustration from the books too. Have they all been done already?
posted via 86.133.242.148 user Magnus.
I watched the 39 Steps last night - it is free on some channel, Madeleine Carroll is so beautiful, she was the highest paid female actor at the time.
Hitchcock should have left the police and the search for the 39 steps in rather than the Mr Memory.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I dumped my wife and daughter in the lake near there and I still hear about it.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Quite a challenge to come up with something in the same league. After due consideration came up with the following.
1) Find Arthur's rock near the Miners' Bridge.
2) Scramble down the precipice.
3) Wade across Church Beck to the foot of the waterfall.
4) Find the hidden entrance to the trial adit.
5) Explore the same.
Coniston Copper Mines: A Field Guide... by Eric Holland is a useful reference.
Usual disclaimer applies. The above is posted for entertainment purposes only, and does not constitute an invitation to carry out the activities described. Anyone doing so, does so entirely at their own risk.
As an alternative, I hear that tea and scones at Brantwood is highly recommended.
posted via 83.29.47.79 user Jock.
So I'm currently in training to make sure I can swim the required distance, in cold water, to get around Peel Island. There are lots of photos of the secret harbour, but I want to take some underwater ones.
What else can I do that isn't part of a standard pilgrimage?
posted via 86.151.245.104 user Magnus.
Not only in London, I think the same applied in most British cities and large towns at that time. My great grandparents lived in Bristol, and, according to my grandmother, if my great grandfather was going to be late home from work and he had reasonable notice he would send a postcard.
posted via 81.178.167.64 user MartinH.
Yes and yes.
The Man Who Never Was was a 1956 film about Operation Mincemeat in WW2, in which a corpse dressed in the uniform of a British officer, carrying bogus plans, was used to decieve the Germans and Italians into believing that the Allies would attack Greece rather than Sicily. There is recently released film on the same subject, entitled Operation Mincemeat.
posted via 2.31.237.60 user eclrh.
Is there not a movie about a man who never was? Is there not a current remake?
Luckily most humans are Susan's and not Black Jake's.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
They were pretty clearly the wrong side of the channel piles, weren't they? -- although, as I know from my own experience in one of those things on the Broads, some plastic fantastics have appalling helm control as well as enormous windage.
I'm glad they saved poor old William....
posted via 121.45.172.104 user mikefield.
2. Yeserday I needed a Susan to organize my boat outing. I made a mess of the organization, forgot all the important things.
3. Blasted oars do not come with fittings, damn manufacturers to Cormorant Island in the middle of winter in Shorts.
4. For the sort of money for a 1st edition Ransome, it would be relatively easy to make one.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Ransome was here yesterday & to-day trying to inveigle me into the country with him. I was adamant. Wilfred’s going however next week-end, so we shall be alone - which is first-rate. W. H. Davies also was here.
The second paragraph of his letter: People identified in notes as:
Arthur Ransome (1884-1967), journalist and prolific writer, particularly of children’s books.
Wilfred Wilson Gibson (1878-1962) , Georgian poet and regular contributor to Rhythm.
W. H. Davies (1871-1940) Georgian poet, who contributed to Rhythm and The Blue Review.
Mentioned in the previous letter was:
Lascelles Abercrombie (1881-1938), poet, dramatist and critic who contributed in 1913 to Rhythm and The Blue Review. Swallowdale was originally dedicated to his daughter Elizabeth.
So Murry saw KM at breakfast then wrote to her to apologise for being a beast at breakfast. And she got the letter later that day!
''The letters of John Middleton Murry to Katherine Mansfield''; ed. C.A. Hankin (1983, Hutchinson, NZ & Constable, UK):
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
Interestingly while putting together the collection it has been eye opening to what 'collectors' deem relevant eg. 'clipping' the pricing. Another insight was to how some for sale are 'first editions' but clearly not due to the impression date.
I even saw one actual first impression for sale with a chunky price tag due to coming with the dust jacket and large amount of accurate blurb, then buried at the bottom that the dust jacket in question was infact from a later edition...!
posted via 81.187.215.115 user robscot.
In mid-2020 there was a discussion on Tarboard and a listing of quite a number of typos and errors in the series. Was a database of the errors preserved permanently.?
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
JMN
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I posted on another thread about first impression first editions with original dust jackets etc - and mentioned some 'spares' that have cropped up during my quest for a full set. I am missing one book out of the set, no guesses needed on which :)
A range of first edition first impressions are available and where they have them, original dust covers. Others don’t have the dust jackets.
I am not a book seller / trader so not up to speed on condition standards but can supply pictures / video to help assess, likewise there is a copy of Hammond there as well.
Hopefully this can help someone towards the same goal as it is quite hard to get a collection together.
On the flip side if anyone has a unicorn S&A first impression with DJ and open to ‘fair’ but cheeky offers to a good home, or a decent condition Winter Holiday with DJ (mine has a rear tear) let me know !
Postage depends where they are going and by what method, UK based seller, ideally looking to do a 'set'.
To get in touch use the email address here
More detail below,
Cheers
Rob
Per book:
Coot Club 1934 November second impression with dust jacket, and has erratum slip.
Pigeon Post 1936 first impression with dust jacket.
We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea 1937 second impression with dust jacket.
Secret Water 1939 first impression with dust jacket
The Big Six 1940 first impression with dust jacket
Missee Lee 1941 first impression without jacket
Picts and the Martyrs 1943 first impression with dust jacket
Great Northern? 1947 second impression with dust jacket
Coot Club 1st impression no dust jacket, bit of a torn spine
Big Six 1st impression no dust jacket
Picts & Martyrs 1st impression no dust jacket
The Big Six 1940 first impression no dust jacket
posted via 86.155.211.17 user robscot.
posted via 217.96.144.38 user Jock.
I do not have the Hardyment book, but that photo is in another AR book.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Hammond p107 says there were 7,250 erratum slips created but he was unable to locate a first impression with one, just second printing.
I am lucky enough to have both a first impression and second impression here of CC - and *both* have that erratum insert.
(Also, what is the etiquette on sales here - as in my first impression quest I have a few dupes/spares that need a new home!)
posted via 86.155.211.17 user robscot.
Page 32 shows the tent's donkey ears in all their glory.
It rings a bell, and I do believe it was an Amazon publication. Those donkey ears are firmly stuck in my mind.
posted via 86.151.245.104 user Magnus.
Was it in an Amazon publication
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Now in my mind Ransome was standing up, and the photo was on the left side of the book... but I've found one of him sitting down and the photo is on the right side. The donkey ears are not clear at all!
See page 21 of 'Ransome at Home' by CE (Ted) Alexander - Amazon Publications.
Am I recalling the photo wrong, or is there a better one in another of the many biographical books?
posted via 86.151.245.104 user Magnus.
Thanks.
posted via 97.116.97.183 user jdege.
We used it for several decades; the only time we had any issues was in 1969 (a good 25 years after manufacture date) on Mt. Washington (NH, USA) in the snow when our sleeping pads weren't thick enough and the snow melt seeped through the floor. I'm pretty sure that new it wouldn't have been an issue.
posted via 98.218.106.76 user Jon.
Can anyone point me to an example of this sort of tent?
posted via 173.17.147.55 user jdege.
Can anyone point me to an example of this sort of tent?
posted via 172.58.190.154 user jdege.
AR’s autobiography or Brogan’s biography say I think that AR felt that after PP he thought he could rely on the series for a steady income (despite the first impression being only 2000). I suppose by that time the first two books SA & SD were being reprinted
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
In the case of some of the books, there were additional printings before publication - for details see the AR Bibliography by Wayne Hammond, from which the above figures are taken. Nevertheless the figures appear to show increased confidence by the publisher in the potential market for the books.
posted via 81.153.75.2 user Peter_H.
Does anyone have any detail on the print runs of the first impressions of each book?
Some nuggets around suggest S&A 1st run was 2000 copies but there appears little detail on the others.
Any info is welcome!
Thanks
Rob
(de-lurking, and first post to this wonderful resource)
posted via 86.155.211.17 user robscot.
I'm afraid I don't know either. Sorry for delay in replying - I have been following a discussion on the F*c*b**k AR Group. I posted a message there - about the 6th I have posted so far since it started, and every single one has met with no response. A friend tells me that I do not 'speak' the F*c*b**k language, and they can all see that. They may be right.
posted via 86.169.6.89 user Peter_H.
Re postwar war-related deaths, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) had cutoff dates for wardeaths of 31 Aug 1921 (WWI) and 31 December 1947 (WWII). The 1924 New Zealand Defence Department red book "The Great War Roll of Honour" has deaths up to 31 December 1923, and three or four ytears ago another five deaths were added for WWI, (including I think some suicides & possible PTSD).
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
The paper for 19 March has an obituary by Mike Sheaff of his 94-year-old aunt Mona Warren, who among other things was a solicitor. Mona's parents were Methodist missionaries.
"They had to leave their home in China in 1927 when the country was experiencing increasing violence. My mother, Mary [Mona's sister], remembered the journey, recounting that with their mother pregnant with Mona, their father hired a sampan, declining a naval boat proposed by the British consul, fearing this would make things worse. An encounter with 'bandits' at one point was resolved, although their luggage was lost."
So, an escape from China in 1927 by Chinese boat, and an encounter with bandits. Sounds remarkably like Missee Lee.
Pemmican was the children's name for corned beef in a tin, usually opened with a key as the tins were oblong rather than tound. It was a staple of British militay rations in WW1 and WW2, also called bully beef.
Corned beef often came from South America, particularly Argentina and Brazil. One of the best known brands, Fray Bentos, is named after a Brazilian ort from where it was shipped to the UK.
People died of their war wounds well after the war was over and also the 1918 epidemic, like the current Covid one, lasted at least two years from early 1918 to the spring of 1920.
Hyland? Hyland? The name sounds familiar, what was the article abpout?
I have found a potential source of duck egs from a farmshop near me. I will have to experiment but we have no dock leaves in Ontario I wonder if maple leafs will do?
posted via 97.108.12.165 user Adam.
I read it over 2 nights, it has been a while since I had read it.
It is a pity that in PM, we did not find out if Mary got married.
What is the real stuff they called pemmican?
I eat a lot of duck eggs, they are never greenish speckled, just plain white, I feel like I am missing something.
Read an interesting article by some bloke called Hyland.
Looking at the ages, Bob Blackett had to have died after 1919.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
He can run very long sentences and then switch to a series of short ones in the next paragraph. Each paragraph in the beginning is about one child's thoughts or one action.
He can make John comments as
Statement by John
paragraph on John
Statement by John
I was wondering why not run them together.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I started wordle with SABOT The A was correct and the T was just in the wrong place. Moved to PATCH (Swallowdale) and got the C but in the wrong place, so CAT##. I guessed er - correct and then thinking CAT - ER, wonder what that is - how you pronounce can make your brain thing
CA-TER.
Anyway amazing how you can put sailing into Worlde.
Apparently, as stated at the top of the page linked by Woll, it was Mavis's own idea.
posted via 2.26.218.146 user eclrh.
I know the purple of the heather is mentioned a few times. It really can turn an entire hillside purple with its tiny flowers.
posted via 86.151.245.104 user Magnus.
The boat reminds me both the Optimist and Gremlin classes, though unlike the better known Optimist it has a Bermudian sail rather than a sprit-sail.
posted via 88.107.165.79 user MartinH.
I read the books when I was nine, to me it has always been a soft pleasant name. The other meaning I learnt much later and I just ignore it.
Is anyone playing Wordle, I have found that a good starting word is SABOT, the little sail boat.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
I read this myself this morning, but Sophie has now reported on this in 'another place' and there is a link to the Times piece there (via the Nancy Blackett Trust site).
posted via 81.158.52.132 user Peter_H.
But Titty according to the OED dates from 1764 and is a diminutive for teat. And Tatty was introduced in 1792 from Hindu - meaning woven mat.
It is just one of those interesting things created by Ransome.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Anyway, as the war has waged on, the Guardian has covered it well. When the story of the coast guard group told the Russian navy to naff off, I got a T shirt made of the encounter, my 15 yr old daughter said it is not funny, but it would go down well at the yacht club, well not UK yacht clubs but Australian, what did Rob Boden's wife tell my wife, a bunch of white haired old men quaffing tea.
But I have noticed that the Ukrainians have adopted the phase to describe the Russians, at first it was bleeped out or written in **** etc, now I have noticed after 2 weeks of war, it is no longer bleeped on CNN for example, the war had reduced G Carlin's seven to six.
Interesting historical change in English language.
As an aside I watched R Carlyle as the British PM, I think vacant could be replaced by R Carlyle or H Grant and it would be a serious improvement. I would include C Firth as the Home Secretary and then there may be some human element to the office.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I have been following the war with a great deal of interest, mainly through CNN and the Guardian. Really the Guardian is a great source of news and interesting stories. (Aside, whom in the Guardian writes the sort of stuff AR wrote?)
The war is really sad, as it hits the children the worst. We are long past the time we need war to resolve issues.
Anyway in a moment of Roger humour, i.e. when John told Roger not to be cheeky, forget the book, I was thinking who would use a war to make money, well besides the fat industrialist so often seen in the ilk of the Punch magazine. So I thought Trump International Travel as I was driving along. Look at the initials.
Lately I have been doing Wordle, if you have not tried it, it is like French verbs for Titty, which led me to the observation Titty is 5 letters, but a lousy starting choice to many t's. Now I have my two volume OED next to my desk when I have four letters and I need to look at five letter words. So I looked up Titty to see if AR had any other meaning available beside the obvious. It does not, so I was wondering why AR used it. I love it as a name as I learned it at 9 and did not know the other meaning, so to me it is a a wonderful name for a wonderful fictious girl.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
June 3 1967, I remember hearing on the ABC that AR died, it is my earliest vivid memory beside my grandmother crying for JFK. We left for the states about 2 weeks later.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Guardian articles that now take direct aim at BJ and call him all sorts of names like Vacant, reminds me of AR and fishing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The joys of adult humour. Of course the one who reminds me of a married GA is Zoe Williams, I love to read her so I can dislike her.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I suspect it was one TARS member's project and was never spread out into the general membership so that it could grow and be accessible to others.
I did wonder what it was about but it just faded from sight.
Good luck in finding out more about it and perhaps reviving it.
posted via 99.240.129.236 user Adam.
The TARBID extracts published in the Mixed Moss articles are fascinating. I wonder if Alan Hakim (a veteran Tar like me) knows any more about this?
posted via 86.154.125.225 user Peter_H.
If this resource was uncovered in an electronic or printed form, I'd be happy to get involved automatically translating it into a modern format so that it's easier to access. (Such geeky things are what I do in my day job!)
posted via 86.151.245.104 user Magnus.
This is a major issue for modern school children.
AR is about the freedom of children to learn.
John Donne said it best.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I remember the Tracy Hepburn movie on installing a computer in an office, I loved that movie, actually I loved any movie they did.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
The way AR had Dot support Dick is such a great example of supporting a scientist.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
... and it should be note that the word "calculators" in your extract was used to describe the people who did the calculations, not the machines that we apply that word to these days.
posted via 193.119.57.108 user mikefield.
Neville Shute Norway in his autobiography "Slide Rule" describes using a Fuller slide rule to calculate the stress on girders for the R100 airship in 1926-27. Each rib had eight radial wires, with normally 4 or 5 in tension; so a guess would be made which were in tension. “The forces and bending moments in the members could then be calculated by the solution of a lengthly simultaneous equation containing up to seven unknown quantities; this work usually operated two calculators about a week using a Fuller slide rule and working in pairs to check for arithmetical mistake … it was usual to find a compression force in one or two of the radial wires; the whole process had to be repeated using a different selection of wires.
It produced a satisfaction almost amounting to a religious experience .... "after literally months of labour, having filled perhaps fifty foolscap sheets with closely pencilled figures ... the truth stood revealed."
He had been he was shocked to find that before building the earlier R38 airship the civil servants (at Cardington) concerned "had made no attempt to calculate the aerodynamic forces acting on the ship" but had just copied the size of girders in German airships. The R38 and the R101 both crashed, but the (private enterprise) R100 made a successful flight to Canada.
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
In engineering if you need more than 4 sig figures you are kidding yourself.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Where else would I keep it?
I think there is a slide rule lying around here somewhere, got to have something to draw straight lines with.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
I've kept my (1961 Chambers) 7-figure log tables because the book has quite a lot of navigation content too -- distance-off tables, sun's parallax, dip of the sea, and so on.
I've also kept three of my slide rules, all of which of course became museum pieces 50 years ago when electronic calculators came along -- my original single-sided one, a later double-sided one (both nominally 12" long,) and a 6" one that fitted handily in a shirt pocket. (I also had a 2" one as a tie-clip, but after first losing its cursor it then disappeared altogether itself.)
posted via 193.119.57.108 user mikefield.
The Prime, I have one of those and I think it is terrible, a bit like the nasty boy in Coot Club. And the new 10 s+ which is 44 USD.
The 300s is out of stock and I cannot find a prime for less than 244 USD.
I found the 35 S for sale.
So the range is slim.
Actually nice to hear from you.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
now they have only 2 scientific calculators
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Must have been the HP-41 Navigation Pac in plug-in ROM that sold the RN on the '41; it was pretty much a port of the HP-67 Navigation Solutions (which ISTR were available on mag cards).
posted via 98.218.106.76 user Jon.
I have a HP 10 in my desk, is it a good little calculator for fin stuff.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
This is like Dick speaking to Roger. Clearly Roger hears, blah, blah, blah and nods and Dick thinks he understands.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
My mother told me that she had read some of the stories, in their Polish translations before WWII.
posted via 217.96.131.88 user Jock.
When at College (High School), the last year, a couple of students had slide rules and were rubbished for having them. We all used log tables. As soon as I started an apprenticeship it was mandatory to have a slide rule. Some educational institutes were a bit backward.
About the last year of my apprenticeship I asked if mains powerpoints would be provided for electronic calculators? The question was redundant the next year with battery calculators coming on the market.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
From our technical expert, Woll:
It was because our server provider did some (prearranged) rearranging, and the DNS for the new server takes time to propagate across the world (so there was a mismatch between the server IP and the SSL security certificate info which caused a "This server may be fraudulent" type message in my browser).
posted via 99.240.129.236 user Adam.
The TI59 wasn't a rival to the HP-35; it came along much later, around the time of the HP-67 (HP's second-generation programmable after the HP-65, which NASA used on the Apollo missions. By the time the Shuttle came along they were using the HP-41 on board.
My father went with the TI calculators; even programmed one of them to do track and balance calculations on helicopter rotor heads. That's in the American Helicopter Museum collection now.
posted via 98.218.106.76 user Jon.
The financial people use the 10 all over the world. They also use Quantrix instead of EXCEL.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Does anyone know why the site went down yesterday - keep getting a 404 error.
My mother went to hong kong in 1985. She said do you want anything, I said a new HP calculator. I should have said a 12.
Mum came back with a 16C, this is the computer science calculator, it does not have sin, cos or tan.
I still use the 16c to remember my mother, I just taught myself the sin, cos and tan for 30, 60 and 45 and only used those angles.
A student once said, why do you only use those angles, I said to make it easy for the students. Students can be so gullible.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
posted via 98.218.106.76 user Jon.
Such was progress.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
When calculators did come out in the early 70s, I preferred the TI59 to its rival the HP35, partly because its notation seemed to me to be much more straightforward than the HP's 'reverse Polish', and partly because I had a special mains-powered cradle for it that give me a paper readout of every entry (very handy when balancing bank accounts).
I also had twenty or thirty 'computer programs' for it, saved on magnetic strip-cards about 3" x 1/2", that the calculator could read and compute from.
But then my 'engineering' turned into 'management', and apart from using the TI59 at tax time for some years I don't suppose I've used it in earnest since about 1980. I've still got it though, and it sill works. :)
Dick would undoubtedly have used an HP.
If the SAD's were alive today that would be a question they asked.
Dick would use a HP, but Roger I am sure will follow his school rules, so what are the school rules in England.
If I remember Dick went to Shrewsbury according to our old notes. I had a look at the current graduating class at Shrewsbury, interesting.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I agree on the looking after elderly relatives. I do a lot of pure math and it is always enjoyable if you know what you are doing, looking after an elderly person is infinitely harder and requires patience. I can walk away from my desk, but I cannot walk away from life.
Good point
John
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
An equivalent amount was also left to The Arthur Ransome Trust, which was set up about 10 years ago with the aim of establishing an Arthur Ransome visitor centre in the Lake District.
I imagine the members of both trusts will be scratching their heads wondering how best to use these wonderful windfalls.
So it's really 'Three million cheers for Tony Parslow', bless him.
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posted via 193.119.57.108 user mikefield.
I certainly agree about women particularly single daughters being expected to look after abandoned or widowed mothers, having seen several examples. My mother was widowed, but told a sister-in-law (not us) that she did not want to impose on us four sons; she had looked after Dad’s parents until they went into a rest home.
And I read a story about one of the Bletchley girls (young women!) who finally got a medal for working at Bletchley Park the WWII codebreaking estblishment that her relatives thought that her work could not have been important, and expected her to resign and look after her widowed mother.
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
I think the Boer or South African War was not so small?
Is the Aunt Helen, C.F.C.A Plus 100. A1, to whom PM is dedicated, the same fictional Aunt Helen mentioned in SW, or a real aunt of AR? Or a real aunt who inspired the naming of the fictional one?
It would not be the only book in the series to be dedicated to a character. PD is dedicated to the mothers of the Ss and As.
posted via 91.110.123.94 user eclrh.
The GA recalls Col Jolys and the Tin Trunpet Incident of at least 50 years ago (PM) when she was presumably older; in her teens? (and Jolys was 4 or 5?).
Col Jolys is the "hero of many wars", presumably the little colonial wars of AR’s childhood. But he would have fought in WWI, as would Ted Walker? But WWI is only mentioned re the officer who finds gold and is then called up (PP), and Mrs Barrable’s brother Richard who served in the Navy.
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
I maybe didn't explain I'm in Oz, which often makes it difficult to view televised programs from the UK -- which is particularly the case with the BBC (even if I use a VPN).
But I certainly intend to follow this up with both the BFI and British Talking Pictures, and many thanks for directing me to them.
posted via 193.119.57.108 user mikefield.
I just found out from the Guardian, what else does one read, that there is a MP by the name of Charlotte Nichols
My daughter is Charlotte Nichols, she has climbed the old man and sailed in Rob's Mirror dinghy to Wildcat Island, I just wrote to the MP and asked for a picture for my daughter.
By teh sounds of the guardian article she is as loud as the average Nichols in Australia.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
It also well to remember that a lot of women died at the time of WW1 in childbirth, there is a paper somewhere that describes the statistics and compares it to a day in the trenches, there is not a significant difference.
And the Spanish flu killed a lot of people.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
Beastly is used by many of the children at one time or another I think. Either about an adult or about one of the others who has done something they didn't like.
posted via 99.240.129.236 user Adam.
Susan says "it would be rather beastly to leave them (the D’s) out of things" (WH4)
John says (as) "all of us being so beastly young" (to be in charge of the Goblin) (WD19)
Another expression is "open-mouthed" eg: "Dick and Dorothea watched, open-mouthed" (as John sets up the signal system (WH5)
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
There was a shortage of eligible young men after the carnage of WWI, so the GA being a spinster would be quite probable.
posted via 79.76.41.58 user Mike_Jones.
The GA bought Jim and Molly up; while their father Bob Blackett could have died in WWI (but too soon to be the father of Nancy and Peggy?), perhaps both their parents died in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918?
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
I had something like 15 GA's, it is a random act of chance whether they are nice or downright mean. My favourite was great and her sister was a complete beast.
Does Nancy not call someone a beast? or beastly?
Interestingly my 14 yr old daughter does not like swearing, so I use the words from AR and she does not get offended.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I thought I'd bring that discussion over to Tarboard with a new angle: why was the GA such a grumpy cow, determined to ruin every part of a child's holidays? (I phrase this as my 10 year old self felt, when reading the books!)
As you do when you are 10, you ask your mum. I seem to recall she said most maiden aunts were grumpy (at least in fiction) as they had never married. Perhaps they did not understand children.
However, this was the 1930s, and an unmarried woman would have her own money - a shocking concept! Perhaps she was determined not to be saddled with a man who would control her life? Maybe she didn't want to be "given the housekeeping money" each week.
But does AR ever mention Maria was never married? She could have a husband who in Harrogate? A husband in the Navy? She could be a widow?
Oh wait, we are told her surname is Turner, just like Uncle Jim, so that would be expected to change if she was married.
Perhaps she had a sweetheart who was killed in a war, and she couldn't bring herself to ever marry? But why hate children's freedom so much?!
Looking for parallels in my own family, I recall an aunt who had glandular fever aged 8, and had to spend a year in hospital (around the year 1950). She was on a ward with adults, talked to adults, and had basically turned adult by the time she went home. She went on to train as a nurse.
Or perhaps Maria was the eldest child, her mother died young, and Maria had to bring up her younger siblings whilst her father went to work? Something like that really matures you, with no choice, and you might keep this attitude of "I must ensure the family thrives in the correct way" for the rest of your life.
posted via 86.178.226.227 user Magnus.
One of the problems with Tarboard is that participants often don't know whether those with whom we are corresponding live in the same county, the same country or on the other side of the world; however, this could be of use to you. If you are not UK based you could get in touch with the BFI and ask if it is possible to have a copy of Macnab made and sent to you - no idea about costs.
The other way to see Hannay is by way of the British Talking Pictures TV channel which, as I said, showed it last summer. This is a fascinating channel, family run, and which shows lots of old mainly British films as well as some excellent Children's Film Foundation films with some very young people who later became quite well-known stars. Go on their website and see. The channel has recently launched a free on-line viewing service called TPTV Encore - all you have to do is register. If you can then you should be able to get Hanny. wherever you are.
As with the BFI and Macnab it's worth a try.
I have no link with Talking Pictures except that I enjoy what they show.
Hope this might be of help.
posted via 213.122.72.169 user Paul_Crisp.
I note that it's being billed as a 'little known film, buried in the BBC and British Film Institute archives.' I don't think the BBC know anything about it -- I've been to them about it and I've concluded that if they ever had it on tape then they taped over it. So apparently the BFI is the only place where it now exists. And like you, I can find no commercial link to it anywhere, in DVD or any other format.
There is indeed a one-minute teaser for it (you couldn't call it a trailer) at the link.
If anyone knows where or how I could get a copy of either 'John Macnab' or the 'Hannay' series mentioned by Paul I'd be absolutely delighted to hear of it. :)
It was shown at an event in England, recently. You can see a sample of John Macnab search for John MacNab film
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
I'm not sure what you mean by lights where there are no islands. The lighthouse map is using something like the data shown on the link below (the blue circles are navigation lights that include data for the flash - there are many more navigation lights near Auckland in openstreetmap that don't have flash info). The lights north-east of Auckland seem to be legitimate lighthouses/beacons.
I didn't dive all the way in but it looked like Cape Horn is there. The coast of Norway is a solid mass of light.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
:-)
posted via 194.193.42.21 user mikefield.
As for your seeing 'John Macnab' recently, all I can say is, "Half your luck". If you have any idea as to where a copy might still be obtained I'd be delighted to hear of it. My searches off-and-on over thirty-plus years have turned up absolutely nothing whatever.
posted via 194.193.42.21 user mikefield.
I loved the book, Janet Raden and Fish Benjy were the best.
posted via 47.218.46.189 user Mcneacail.
The "match in the burn" was the title sequence for the made for TV series "Hannay" starring Robert Powell made after his film of "The Thirty Nine Steps". There were two series made in 1988-89 and totalling about a dozen one hour episodes, and is available as a DVD. The Talking Pictures channel showed it last summer.
posted via 81.154.153.211 user Paul_Crisp.
Having now watched all available episodes (1b is missing), I can report that the physical condition of the film was execrable, but that the storyline followed the original book quite closely; and also that the primary characters -- in particular those of Dickson McCunn and Dougal Crombie -- were just about perfectly cast. Buchan fans will enjoy it despite its technical shortcomings.
_____________
Most regrettably, there seems to be no trace on YouTube or anywhere either of 'John Macnab' or of the 'match-in-the-burn' Buchan series I mentioned that I'd also like to see again.
_____________
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posted via 121.45.188.76 user mikefield.
Molly Blackett drives Rattletrap in PP, although in WH (WH9) Molly says that the doctor will drive Peggy and the others (except for Nancy!)around to the Jacksons and Dixons for quarantining, and later Molly arrives at Holly Howe in a hired car; no Rattletrap then! In PM (PM23,25) the GA gets Billy Lewthwaite to drive her in Rattletrap (Jim and Molly both drive her). Billy is used to driving with a yachting cap he used for chauferring, but he forgets his blue coat; he is obviously used to chauffering!
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
"And the way she dealt with Joly’s notion of taking his whole gang to see her off at the station. ... Did you hear her tell her man (Dick Elleray??) not to drive at more than ten miles an hour?" (PM 30)
When the GA is upstairs and about to leave, Colonel Jolys says to the sergeant that to save face the searchers should "Give her a cheer when she comes out". So there is "a burst of cheering, .... trumpets (!) coach calls and hunting calls. Every man who had a horn was blowing it as hard as he could" This will confirm the GA’s opinion to the D’s that "Tommy Jolys … was always a noisy and ill-behaved little boy" With a toy trumpet! (PM 28,29).
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
There is a great story by Ms Schopen about being terrified in a snow storm and driving in the Guardian.
It is worth the read as it reminded me a little of Winter Holiday.
She writes in a soft quirky manner.
posted via 47.211.197.206 user Mcneacail.
There is a You tube character named coco who could fit the answer, I had thought first of Coco Chanel, but I missed the 1921 at the top. I was wrong - apologies.
I had read the cruise book so knew the answer to that one, I loved the story in the book of tuning the compass, never seen that before.
posted via 47.211.197.206 user Mcneacail.
Group 1 Q1 is about Coco Chanel.
posted via 2.26.97.120 user eclrh.
I Q2 is a nice question about mother's health, the author is quite interesting in thought terms.
I Q3 - no idea even google does not help?
posted via 47.211.197.206 user Mcneacail.
I would not like to do this quiz in the 70's without a lot of help. It is really quirky.
posted via 47.211.197.206 user Mcneacail.
Section 2, Q. 1 Where: 1. was the ketch Racundra built?
Section 11, Q. 6 6. which unwelcome guest insisted on ‘baby-sitting’ for Ruth and Margaret during their mother’s Scandinavian cruise?
Section 16, Q. 9 9. where did the Callums first encounter Tom, the doctor’s son?
Each section has a theme which if you can determine it opens up the odds of getting other answers in the same section by focussing your thoughts.
I first came across this quiz back in the 1970s when my parents moved to the Isle of Man and a friend ho attended King William's College begged for help. Back then I was unable to answer a single question.
The process was that each pupil was given the test before Christmas and then was expected to research the questions over the holidays and they were retested in January. The improvement between the two scores was an indication of how diligent the pupil was.
posted via 97.108.12.165 user Adam.
The rest are impossible unless you are well read, way more well read than this poor man.
I spent 3 days o Breckenridge in an major snow storm, the white out was complete at 3300 m level. Like the picture in WH. One woman was hanging on to a sign post not to get blown down the mountain.
posted via 47.211.197.206 user Mcneacail.
I think that is a pretty fair summing up of S&A and it is good to see it in a national newspaper, although I think it is impossible to cram into one sentence the extended filigree of detail and excitement which Ransome put into his books.
posted via 86.147.244.54 user Peter_H.
I have most of the series in Cape hb ex the “Wellington Public Libraries Junior Department” including a first edition of GN “first published 1947”. But rebound by the library so missing the endpaper maps and dust jacket (and coming apart, so sold off1). But many have the original dust jacket protected by plastic, and the endpaper maps.
posted via 114.23.146.146 user hugo.
This year there seem to be two, one of which will be immediately answerable by any Tarboarder. Some may immediately know the answer to the other; others, like me, will need to look it up.
When I was a consulting engineer, if a client came in and said, I have a problem with this and these people oppose it, if it was mainly women I would say "let us find another way".
If pressed I would explain, you cannot win, they will always win in the long run and the PAIN is not worth the effort.
One of my clients had a PM who fought, finally the client rang and said - sort out the mess, I said not my problem, client said my problems of this size need your assistance sort out the mess.
Sorted out the mess with the women and the politicians, PM said what if the client does not like your fix. I looked at him and said - you have had 2 years to sort out this mess, I was sent in to fix it, it is fixed.
As I say in class, someone has to have the key, even if it is a 98 year old queen. As long as they are trusted all is well with the world.
posted via 47.211.197.206 user Mcneacail.
What is the city where this show - provides a view of two river junctions, a idal area and a large town.
posted via 47.211.197.206 user Mcneacail.
Mrs May writes that as a child she longed to be Nancy Blackett, but she couldn't swim and had never been in a boat. In reality she was more like Susan Walker, but she found Swallowdale captivating. I am glad that, rather than Swallows and Amazons, she chose Swallowdale because it is surely the better book. She sums it up by writing: "Swallowdale evinces adventure, resilience, pragmatism, inventiveness and, above all, friendship. I recommend it to all."
posted via 86.147.244.54 user Peter_H.
I miss his posts, although we are all allowed to pursue our own interests.
posted via 47.211.197.206 user Mcneacail.
They were:
Albert Hawkins,[2]
Arthur Neil,[3]
Francis Carlin,[4] and
Frederick Wensley.[5]
----------------------------------------------------------
I have known for a while it was the Big Four. So the big Five of MA predates AR, who used the big Five. He would not make that mistake.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
However, it could be worthwhile trying another good Canadian site for them, the Faded Page, which a quick search should find....
Reading Gutenberg's home page message gives a nice insight though into their views on the US' ever-extending copyright protection and how that country is trying to have its copyright laws apply in Canada (and elsewhere) through the so-called 'Free Trade Agreement'. It's a good rant, with valid points -- although regrettably I think it does their case a disservice to present them quite so rabidly.
"But who are the Big Six?” asked Pete.“It’s the Big Five really,” said Dorothea. “They
are the greatest detectives in the world. They sit in
their cubby-holes in Scotland Yard and solve one
mystery after another.”“But why Six?”
“There are only five of them and there are six of
us,” said Dorothea.
I did not look to see if Ransome's books are there, but this site has an absolute tirade against people who want to match Canada's copyright period to other countries.
is this going to cause problems for the current copyright owners.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Menzies in Australia certainly had us scared of the Red under the bed.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
I enjoyed the remake, there were some fine actors in the movie, and as usual Capt. Waggett was a nong. But he as supposed to be, CM wrote farce.
After reading all of the comment, I stumbled across the original in VIMEO and started to watch it last night.
There is a completely different feel to the two movies, as you would expect. Ealing studios has a style and no one is going to copy it, but the modern stayed fairly true to the story and the concept.
I enjoyed both, but I must say I enjoyed them and disliked them for different reasons. The earlier movie left out the priest, but I rather feel the CM liked to poke fun at the church in a subtle way.
mark kermode is entitled to his opinion, but one can see the progression to Local Hero and I will watch all three movies again. The sisters in the remake are more believable.
JMN
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Free downloads of all twelve books are available from the Faded Page website. (You'll have to do a simple search for this, as I'm not supposed to post the URL.) Note that in the US and elsewhere the books are still in copyright, and if this applies to you you'll need to consult your conscience before downloading.
What you don't need to do though is to pay anyone to download any of them....
posted via 61.69.149.136 user mikefield.
"My choice this week is a 1949 classic, a recent remake of which served only to remind us just how much we all preferred the original 'Whisky Galore.'"
I myself have seen both versions, and agree with his judgment. The new one is in colour instead of b&w, but other than that it didn't add anything to the original -- while at the same time it lost a lot of the original's charm.
We know that the recent film version of S&A did add to the story -- adding extraneous elements in a attempt to 'spice it up for modern viewers' -- but I suspect if Mark Kermode were to review this modern remake of S&A he'd make just the same judgment that he made about 'Whisky Galore' -- that it serves only to remind us just how much we all preferred the original.
_ _ _ _ _
By the way, any one who hasn't yet seen this wonderful Hebridean romp should make a point of doing so. But do try to see the original version, not the ersatz one. There's a bonus for doing so too -- you see Compton Mackenzie himself playing the part of the master of the SS Cabinet Minister. (He's the character on the left in the very first clip of the movie shown in the review.)
I remember the BBC's doing a TV series on -- was it Dick Hannay, or others of Buchan's characters? Back in the 70s or 80s perhaps? I don't think it could have been thought to be all that popular, because it didn't seem to last for more than a few episodes. It always started with a short clip of Hannay-or-whoever standing in heathland, lighting a pipe, and flicking the match into a burn where you watched it float away. But at this distance in time I can't tell you anything much more about it, I'm afraid. Does it ring a bell?
posted via 61.69.149.136 user mikefield.
Fish Benjie would have fitted in perfectly in an AR world.
39 steps has some far fetched moments.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Thanks to the magic of YT a low-res copy of Hunting Tower is still available. Click on the link
I would have very much liked to have seen that 'Huntingtower' -- as I would very much like to again see 'John Macnab'. But apparently both are now lost in the mists of time. (And I daresay taped over by the scrimp-and-save BBC too...)
posted via 61.69.149.136 user mikefield.
Nooooo!
Buchan stories have proper dramatic arcs. They are page turners impossible to put down. Characters have backbone.
Children tackle villains who cower in terror. In the 2016 film, John cowers in terror and, after waving it about lamely,
hands the gun over to the baddies.
Once upon a time, the BBC made good children's films. In 1977, BBC Scotland made a Buchan series, "Hunting Tower",
which was shown as a children's afternoon show, then after public pressure it was shown on a Sunday afternoon, then
after more pressure shown in a prime time Thursday night adult slot.
A gang of armed communist invaders is first delayed by a shower of marbles fired by the young heroes from their catapults,
and then delayed by a volley of cricket balls. Can you imagine the BBC's H&S bods allowing any such antics today?
posted via 83.29.41.95 user Jock.
I hope this is correct.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
I think you have to look at the 2016 movie as a cross between Ransome and Buchan, then it is pretty good as a ripping yarn. But if you prefer the books, only in the WDMTGS and GN did AR write ripping yarns, I do not include ML or PD, both are farces.
I am of the opinion that WDMTGS would make a first class picture and if done by a Ron Howard or a Steven Speilberg with a acting team like Enola Holmes you would have a multimillion dollar hit.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
I was responding to the comment, ... "the book as a movie is pretty bland.". And I was indeed talking about the 1974 version. Bland it might or might not be, according to one's perceptions, but as I said that 1974 film certainly brought the book to life for me.
But that supposed 'blandness' of Ransome's text is presumably why the makers of the 2016 version tried to spice up their version of the story; and it appears, from the limited evidence, that for those who had not ever read the book that film worked okay.
On my part, once I'd heard about some of the details of the 'spicing up', I was quite clear that I didn't want to watch the 2016 version at all. And I haven't. But I'd be perfectly happy in going along with your description of it as "a ghastly mess".
posted via 61.69.149.136 user mikefield.
For example:
5.0 out of 5 stars
We did not read the novel
Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2019
I looked at the 1 star reviews to find that the movie only loosely follows the book. I understand their dismay as it has happened to us. However, we came from a blank slate with no anticipations. As parents, we found the movie extremely tolerable and enjoyable. The movie was without need for parental guidance, clean, and exciting. 5 stars for someone without specific expectations.
I couldn't find sales figures though.
posted via 97.108.12.165 user Adam.
The film did not feature in the Top 20 films for 2016 – the top one was a ‘Star Wars’ sequel which grossed $64 million. The S&A film did feature in the list of Top Independent UK films for 2016, at No. 12. The top film in this category was ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ (a TV spin-off) which grossed $16m. Also in this list was ‘Dad’s Army’ which grossed $8.6m. One might also note that another mainly children’s film, ‘The Jungle Book’, grossed $46m world-wide.
The most significant defect of the S&A film was that by all accounts it completely bombed in America. That is where all film-makers hope to recoup their investment. The British Film Institute awarded just under £1.5m to the 2016 S&A film – this was classed as a ‘BFI lottery award’. This must have been completely swallowed up. One can understand why there will not be a rush to make any type of sequel film.
posted via 86.189.234.145 user Peter_H.
The still you have enclosed is from the 1976 film which is pretty wonderful!
It's the 2016 BBC-produced film which is a ghastly mess!
posted via 217.96.132.167 user Jock.
And yet, the first time I saw the movie -- years after it had been produced and when I hadn't even known it existed -- seeing the book come to life before my eyes made them water...
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posted via 121.45.164.178 user mikefield.
The problem is everyone wants it to be the book and the book as a movie is pretty bland.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
The writeup in the NZ Listener says "Arthur Ransome’s 1930 novel about kids’ summer sailing adventures in the Lake District wasn’t particularly eventful, which hasn’t helped past screen adaptations. This one gets extra drama, inspired by the writer’s life as a MI6 agent during WWI". Rated 3 stars (out of 1 to 5).
posted via 202.154.133.206 user hugo.
Well done Ed, and classic Ed writing.
I miss your missives Ed.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
See also this in the New York Times, which may require you to register.
posted via 98.218.106.76 user Jon.
I have always assumed this was scrambled eggs, is my assumption correct?
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
it is also a bit hard to compare over decades, as the economy changes,
and the economy is really just a psychological trick.
Some one said to me that children today are different from the past and I strongly disagreed. I think the Susan's Roger's and the rest would be perfectly at home today.
Why do we always think the past is different?
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
"I've messed it again," he said. "I ought to have tried with the nitric and hydrochloric separately first."
Mind you, I'm sure I would have made the same mistake.
posted via 81.141.149.185 user Peter_H.
Adam is a "Mod". In fact the head honcho for TarBoard. But the TarBoard code is so old and venerable
that no one knows how it all works and only two people in the world dare play with it.
posted via 217.96.139.197 user Jock.
I name my computers after boats in the series, I was dealing with Imp and it turned into a lost computer that needed a large fix.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
I always enjoy the thought that in some Patrick O'Brian's books, the sailors boarding an enemy ship would climb aboard shouting "Surprise!".
posted via 99.240.131.45 user Adam.
She would be clearly faster than the Swallow and the Amazon's boat.
I as struck as I was typing this, does the Amazon's boat have a name, I could not remember it.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Nice however to know if she read it.
Has anyone seen the cost to occupy the Rose Castle Cottage and the wait?
There are some people with a lot of money.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
One of them was seeing my father's first car, a then-brand-new 1937 Wolseley, being driven on board the Princess Beatrix for the crossing.
posted via 220.245.223.52 user mikefield.
I have looked closely, but can see no sign of an agitated RN Officer.
Unfortunately we have not yet reached our hoped for annual target and while we now have enough funds to keep operating for the rest of the year, we would like to have a bit of reserve to allow for any unexpected expenses and reduce the need to continually come back to ask for more funds.
The links on our pages will remain active for now
So she was 20 years older. They both lived in different houses called 'Hill Top' in the Lake District. Both children's authors who loved nature.
Yet entirely possible they moved in totally different social circles and never met!
We would need to make a study of all Ransome's diary entries to see if he mentioned her name?
posted via 86.178.58.186 user Magnus.
it taught you everything about life, how to sail, how to be a jolly decent human, that great pains such as the GA could be tolerated and how to survive disasters.
Who is this woman?
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
"No one thought she [Enid Blyton] was a good writer: you went to Arthur Ransome for that. But God, wasn't Swallows and Amazons boring? It taught you nothing about life. No one ever burnt anyone's toast or stole their hairbrush . . ." (Camilla Long)
Hairbrush ?? I wonder if she's ever read SA?
posted via 109.153.16.3 user Peter_H.
Nice. :)
posted via 194.193.38.193 user mikefield.
There are two things I like to read AR and the Guardian. I read AR for pleasure and the Guardian for Zoe Williams et al. Bring back Ransome, his articles are at least not boringly middle class -- something.
We are all critics.
There is one mention of maid in Swallowdale.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Does anyone recognise the bridge?
posted via 5.80.162.190 user Paul_Crisp.
GND = Great Northern Diver better known in our part of the world as the Common Loon and featured on Canadian $1 coins.
posted via 99.240.131.45 user Adam.
OK so I am lost what is a GND?
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
This was the same lake where I was able to ghost up in my small home made sailing dinghy to within about 15 feet ofa GND which was feeding its young chicks with small fish it had caught.
posted via 99.240.131.45 user Adam.
You can make English make sense without the vowels. I had to use the I and I consider y a vowel.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
2. But who cares both are good pictures that convey the scary elements of the scene. The north sea is most dangerous from shipping.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
WDMTGTS was published in 1937, whereas the Griffiths illustration could have been drawn as early as 1927 (when he married and bought the boat 'Afrin') though may of course have been done years later.
AR had a 1932 edition of The Magic of the Swatchways (by Griffiths) in his library when he died. A sale catalog tells us this.
If you've read the book you may recall that Chapter XII tells of drifting out of Harwich in a fog, and getting to Flushing after a near miss with a big ship.
Lots of think about... and probably no concrete conclusions to be made!
posted via 86.147.163.89 user Magnus.
An annular eclipse is when the moon passes directly in front of the sun but is too far from the earth to cover the sun completely leaving a bright ring of the sun around the dark moon. I did see a full annular eclipse here in Toronto back in 1994 but I have never seen a total eclipse, though one is due near Toronto in 2024.
The sun was already partially eclipsed when it rose at 5.35 am and there was some cloud on the horizon so it was not until nearly 6.00 am that I finally could see the crescent sun. Although it was only a partial eclipse here it was a quite good one with the sun more than 80% covered at its maximum just after the sun rose. The rest of the partial eclipse lasted until about 6.35 am when the moon left the sun's disc completely.
I projected the sun's image on to some card with my hand held binoculars and was able to show the images to some other interested people who also got up early.
posted via 99.240.131.45 user Adam.
Fuss about feathers, Muriel Pavlow == really good actor.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
We see this in the excellent Sherlock movie with Basil and the three music boxes, the young lady buys the doll at auction and says we can get three times the value in the shop.
We studied this for a few years, 3 is the magic number if someone wants something slightly different or if there is a range.
The recent disastrous electricity buying in Texas demonstrates the issue of lack of controls, if you set up a market it helps to understand basic market theory.
Plus if I buy with a computer program and I do it well then the buy time on the computer to 1 second is the same as 1 second to 31 years for a human.
There is a 1950s movie set in Norfolk all sailing and the RAF, in a dispute, it has the Island of the Children as a location, it is on TUBI, I cannot find it again, they have lousy search -- does anyone know it.
Example is PP and Dick buying the blowpipe.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
We still need a few more dollars/pounds/Euros/yen/etc. to meet our annual needs for domain and hosting fees. If you are able, please consider following John's excellent example!
Terrible to have a child in hospital.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Also, like Magnus, writing details of race courses on the deck of my dinghy, but not where you were likely to rub it off accidentally as you move about!
posted via 88.107.167.219 user MartinH.
Chinagraph pencils had a waxy 'lead' in them, a bit like a crayon, that allowed you to write (although not indelibly) on glossy surfaces including glass.
I still have some chinagraphs around here somewhere, but I doubt whether I still have an indelible pencil -- they went out when ball-point pens came in.
In Coot Club or The Big Six, Professor Callum is said to use his red/blue exam-marking pencils to mark a catalog of Broads yachts.
Could either of these be 'chinagraph' pencils? I recall these were available in black, red and blue only. Instead of graphite they have a sort of wax that can write on plastic and metal, even in a wet boat, so I'd use them to write the race course details down on my dinghy decks (it cleaned off later with a rag).
Any other pencil references welcomed....
posted via 31.49.2.27 user Magnus.
"We have now finished the network migration. Unfortunately, we are unable to focus the camera remotely so we are awaiting
our IT team to visit and physically fix this. Please bear with us, we hope to have the camera back up and running as soon as
possible. "
posted via 217.96.128.127 user Jock.
"We have now finished the network migration. Unfortunately, we are unable to focus the camera remotely so we are awaiting
our IT team to visit and physically fix this. Please bear with us, we hope to have the camera back up and running as soon as
possible."
posted via 217.96.128.127 user Jock.
http://www.3rr.uk/3RRwebcam_images/webcam_images.html
On top of which there are also three views of Potter Heigham from Herbert Woods' roofs (including of that bridge) here --
https://www.herbertwoods.co.uk/norfolk-broads/webcam/
(Note that the third camera here pans and zooms regularly while you're watching.)
posted via 121.45.172.169 user mikefield.
A friend in England told me that they have a friend at GCHQ who visited and unplugged the Alexa for the stay.
I quietly said fishing in low murmur and just ignored the question about what it had to do with fishing.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Regards,
Woll
posted via 81.174.149.186 user Woll.
If you possibly can we would appreciate it very much if you could make a donation, no matter how small.
We are using PayPal as this allows you to pay over the internet through your PayPal account or by credit card through PayPal. There are no additional fees to you, the site is secure and we will not keep any records of your details to maintain your privacy. To make a payment, please use this Appeal link which can also be found on the All Things Ransome site and the main page of TarBoard.
All contributions to the All Things Ransome Association in furtherance of its goals are welcome; please note however that the Association is not tax-exempt nor a charitable organization in any jurisdiction.
In Peking he visited his Aunt Edith, who he had last seen in 1894 when with Aunt Jessie they went to China as missionaries. When he had said enviously to Aunt Edith how lucky she was to be going to China ''she replied, rather severely, that she was not going there for pleasure.'' Sounds like the Great-Aunt; writing in her letter to Molly about hearing by accident that they (Molly and Jim) had thought fit to make a voyage for purposes of pleasure …… leaving her great-nieces alone at Beckfoot!!
posted via 202.154.132.28 user hugo.
This year we are again asking you to generously donate a few pounds, dollars, or any other currency to keep the bank accounts topped up so we can keep All Things Ransome and TarBoard going.
Once more we are using PayPal this allows you to pay over the internet through your PayPal account or by credit card through PayPal. There are no additional fees to you, the site is secure and we will not keep any records of your details to maintain your privacy. To make a payment, please use this Appeal link which can also be found on the All Things Ransome site and the main page of TarBoard.
Contributions to the All Things Ransome Association in furtherance of its goals are welcome; please note however that the Association is not tax-exempt or a charitable organization in any jurisdiction.
2. It will not be NI as the system would have been set up when the British ruled directly and it would not be considered national
It will be a library in London but I do not know London - I am Aussie-- is there a British Library like the Australian National Library??
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
I don't think they're particularly difficult to guess.
Cambridge University Library
National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh
National Library of Wales or whatever the equivalent is called (I think their biggest building is in Aberyswyth but they presumably have a centre in Cardiff too)
National Library of Northern Ireland or whatever the equivalent is called (probably doesn't have National in its name as it might be politically sensitive)
posted via 2.26.176.164 user eclrh.
Yes, Ransome Centre Stage, see p.9 of the new May-April 2021 Signals. Regular subscribers will get a personal e-mail from me when publication is ready; other Tars will have to wait for the next Signals.
posted via 86.166.184.145 user awhakim.
I wish I could remember the name or the author. It was at the University of Newcastle Australia.
It has elements of WH as part in terms of the descriptions.
Loved that book.
JMN
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Reminded my of the summer of '77 in the Northern Territory I was working at a seismic station and housed in a mine camp.
Mann Trucks used to send new truck designs out to the mine to test in the bull dust of the NT. Really bad stuff.
So the truck arrives on a Friday and the German crew is due on the weekend.
Guys in the motorshop look at the new beautiful 6 wheel drive truck - say 40 feet long and beuatiful in sort of Luftwaffe gray.
A few beers later, they decide they should try it.
An hour later at the pub quietly drinking, I drank a lot in the NT, 4 guys wander in wet and muddy.
They order a beer, sit down, the guy I work with asks how did the truck go, they said they found a pit and had it bogged so you could no longer see the steering wheel.
Germans come in the next morning, they take them out and say try again.
LOL -- I have seen cars parked on an area of distrubed bull dust and it rains and the car sinks - usually they do not disappear although I saw 6 inches of a vw after rain once.
JMN
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
The Australian ISBN Agency at THORPE-Bowker, is the only official source of ISBNs in Australia. With an ISBN you can manufacture your publication and sell it anywhere in the world. The Australian ISBN Agency can only assign ISBNs to publishers located in Australia. Publishers located in other countries must obtain their ISBNs from their local ISBN Agency.
The purpose of the ISBN is to establish and identify one title or one unique edition of a title from one specific publisher. An ISBN allows for more efficient marketing and cataloging of products by booksellers, libraries, universities, wholesalers, and distributors.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
It transpires that AR had known Ledger early on, and that if he had taken up an invitation to sail with Ledger when he'd been first introduced, he would have known about Pin Mill twenty years earlier than he did.
This is both an informative and humorous piece of writing, in which Ledger recounts his experiences during a summer spent aboard his cutter Blue Bird.
Here are a few samples --
There is a small folding cot, of ample size for a boy, but as I never carry that source of trouble and anxiety with me, it serves as sail-locker.He mentions a vessel called the Cachalot, which must surely be where AR got the name for the boat in 'The Big Six' from which the D&Gs caught The World's Whopper.Somerleyton swing bridge must be under a curse, and destined by evil spirits to inflict destruction and damnation on all who try to pass through.
Fouling a pier, but eventually passing through, after breaking every rule of good seamanship, I stopped to take breath and wipe the sweat of labour and the blush of shame from off my brow.... one evening a suspicious-looking man, or so he seemed in the dark, came alongside in a dinghy to borrow my saucepan – his own, he said, having sprung a leak. "It's a very good saucepan," I remarked, as I reluctantly handed it over, "the only one I've got, and I'm a poor man and..." "All right," he said, "you'll get it back," and disappeared in the night. Filled with misgivings, I sang out, "I forgot to say that I'm also an orphan."
Tearing down the New Cut below Reedham, we met a big wherry, in passing which very few inches separated us from quite a pretty smash. I remembered that hesitation of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, and of physical weakness in the old, and being neither the one nor the other, and as the least I can recover from my insurance is £7 10s., I went straight at it, as indeed, I went at all the bridges, with success, until we got to that bridge of sighs, Somerleyton.
Outside the churchyard near the gate are the village stocks and a whipping post, with three sizes of iron manacles graduated to fit all scoundrels.
I take number two's.
And then he introduces us to some Hullabaloos --
Though there were many small yachts on the Broads manned and lived in by amateurs, the four young men on board the wherry, attired in spotless flannels and sweaters, and heads adorned with knitted caps, were typical of many I saw afloat.
All of them in the prime of youth and strength, garbed as for the most strenuous athletic exertions, they smoked and lolled about on a garden seat on deck, doing absolutely nothing the live-long day. These Lotus-eaters allowed themselves to be sailed about (think of it!) by a skipper and his boy, never associating themselves with the navigation or with any work on board. And every evening, lying beside their nectar –Propt on beds of amaranth and moly,they listen to their blatant gramophone.
....(while warm airs lull them, blowing lowly)
With half-dropt eyelids......
Read it for yourself. You'll find hyperlinks to it and many other literary sources at the link. And if you don't enjoy it you can call me Gibber's Uncle...
- - - - -
Ledger was clearly an interesting and erudite character. He died in 1931, nine years before 'The Big Six' was published. We don't know much about him, but Oxford University provides two interesting sidelights on him here and again here.
About the time that Ted's extraordinary stint of managing the TARS Stall came to an end he made a visit to Oz, and we caught up outside Canberra for a meal. It was great to meet the chap who'd been handling my maps for the Stall so well and for so long. But I regret we've lost touch since then. So when you're speaking to him next please do pass on my best regards.
It doesn't matter now, but a late thought came to me that an archival copy should have been lodged with the British Library. But an inspection of my copy of the AP book The Twilight Years: Hill Top (for which I drew the endpapers) shows no ISBN information in the front matter; and this leads me to believe that its existence is not known of outside the world of TARS. Here in Oz I believe it would have been obliged to have been catalogued and an archival copy lodged with the National Library. Maybe the system works differently in the UK? In any case, if Amazon Publications does not keep its own archive of everything it produces I would say it's failing in its publishing duty...
posted via 115.64.175.174 user mikefield.
In Swallowdale, for the first time ever, I noticed a house maid mentioned the scene where the GA leaves.
The statement that the money from the book was jut pocket money also points to inherited wealth.
Even AR cannot help but slip in a few of the 19th century mores.
JMN
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&ref=bf_s2_a1_t1_1&qi=aw1Gg7gqu,LDk,epreV5i3I8b7c_1497963026_1:1:2&bq=author%3Dc%2Ee%2520alexander%26title%3Dransome%2520at%2520home%2520snug%2520berths%2520and%2520temporary%2520moorings
https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&ref=bf_s2_a1_t2_2&qi=aw1Gg7gqu,LDk,epreV5i3I8b7c_1497963026_1:1:3&bq=author%3Dce%2520alexander%26title%3Dransome%2520at%2520home
But doesn't Amazon Publications keep an archival volume of everything they publish? If not, let's hope you can find someone to lend you a copy.
posted via 115.64.175.174 user mikefield.
Absolutely agree. In 1969 (or thereabouts) a Broads yacht without a motor was the low-cost option.
There were also quite a few of them about. These days they are relatively scarce and you pay extra
for their antique value.
posted via 217.96.142.44 user Jock.
It looks like there aren't many great matches for your search
I have never seen this notice from google before
What is the book about?
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
I stayed in mainland China for a week at a 5 start hotel and it cost the same as a single night in Hong Kong.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
England is really expensive.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
In 1969, or thereabouts (just before the Percy Hunter Yard morphed into the Norfolk County Sailing Base) three us hired "Wood Rose", a 3-berth yacht, for a 2-week holiday, and covered most of the main waterways penetrating as far as Geldeston Lock.
Split across the three of us, the cost of a 2-week hire was quite affordable.
posted via 217.96.142.44 user Jock.
Approx. £7/w peak season for the 4-berth yachts; £5/w peak season for the 2-berth yachts.
"Margolotta" £14/w peak season.
The link below is to a special section of Sophie Neville's website. Veteran TarBoarders (are there any
non-veteran TarBoarders out there?) will need no reminding that Sophie not only played Titty in the
BBC's 1974 adaptation of 'Swallows and Amazons', but also played an important role in the making
of 'Coot Club'.
The second link is to that part of the Hunter's Yard website which features 'Lullaby' and her sisters.
"The Duke of Edinburgh gave a much-needed injection of the old Swallows and Amazons spirit into schools - which were too often excessively cautious, health-and-safety obsessed environments"
(Madeline Grant, Daily Telegraph)
posted via 86.172.158.31 user Peter_H.
But where is Alaska (the place of a gold rush)? How about High Topps, the site of Golden Gulch? (although "all that glitters is not gold"!). Winter Holiday covers expeditions to Spitzbergen and Greenland but not to Alaska. But with 28 days of quarantine not every day is covered in the book. Chapters 10 and 15 allude to this; referring to "the first three days" and that "the airing of the houseboat went on the next day and the day after that, and for many days …"
posted via 202.154.128.41 user hugo.
At Tyson's they had to pump, but AR leaves us in the dark about the method at Beckfoot.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
They are about 50% bigger and they are a bit smoother, but not quite up to Roger's description.
In the mornings, my daughter likes scrambled eggs, not buttered eggs. The conversation goes something like this:
Duck or chicken?
Chicken
White or brown?
Brown
Mushrooms?
No
Olive oil or butter?
Olive oil
The American rubbish or the Italian smooth
American
"Not much oil Dad"
ok,
Tabasco sauce?
Of course
End of story.
JMN
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Interestingly every single one of my four daughters takes at least an hoooooooooooooooour - Lady Tottenham to get ready every morning - on Saturday as I was waiting my thoughts turned to Susan
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
I tried it the other morning -- it is with out a doubt wonderful - deadly but wonderful.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
I think buttered eggs are scrambled eggs with no or little added milk. I prefer mine with a bit of milk and less butter and some ground pepper on toast with a bit of Marmite.
posted via 99.240.131.45 user Adam.
I was wondering if cannonballs are only mentioned at the campfire in PP.
When Susan talks about buttered eggs, I think it might be ::
Buttered eggs are done with a surfeit of real butter so that the eggs are coated in melted butter which gives them the creamy taste.
I prefer milk and olive oil.
I wonder?
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
All -- Ed hasn't been all that well recently. He's making out though, but not as active as he was. And I think he came to the conclusion that TarBoard postings had been rather drifting off track in recent times, so he's lost some interest in visiting here.
posted via 115.64.175.174 user mikefield.
I miss you mate and I think of you as my best friend for the last 20 years. Take it easy.
JMN
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Recent discussing of the use of the word, "MUN." Here is my summary us places it got used:
---------- PMCH13.TXT
mun drop ut in t'reet spot."
"You mun do it artful," he murmured. He looked away, as if
he's gone. You mun keep guddling and guddling till you've your
fingers round the middle of him. He'll lie quiet. But you mun
keep guddling. And you mun keep clear of his tail or he's off.
---------- PMCH14.TXT
"Have you got a bottle to take back? I mun be getting along.
---------- PMCH20.TXT
dal. I'll be going now. I mun tell my dad to look out for 'em and
---------- PMCH24.TXT
It's brought a gey lot down for me to clear. You mun gang out
---------- PPCH1.TXT
fly before your train goes on. This way. We mun look sharp
---------- PPCH17.TXT
"You mun tell me a better one nor that," said Mrs. Tyson.
---------- PPCH29.TXT
you mun lump it. Put it out, Miss Nancy. Put it out and no
---------- PPCH34.TXT
'twould have been the wood to burn first. But you mun
---------- PPCH8.TXT
them know if there's a fire? It owt catches here, we mun fight it
---------- WHCH13.TXT
"Jackson's lot mustn't think they're doing all," he said. "We mun
------------------------------------------------------------------
So there we are. :)
posted via 115.64.175.174 user mikefield.
I wrote to Ed last month John, but haven't heard anything back. This is pretty unlike him and I'm a bit worried, but I don't have any means of getting cross-bearings.
I'm making this a new thread in the hope he might see it and reply.
posted via 115.64.175.174 user mikefield.
Although has anyone heard from Ed Kiser lately I miss his humour.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
We still need the D's in this world. And Capt Flints.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
I reread Big Six last night, he made quite a good fist of a detective story -- Dot certainly came into her own on the mystery - although the Admiral not allowing her out to stand watch was a bit mean.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
I'm not much into fish myself anyway -- they're pretty average too, I reckon.
posted via 115.64.175.174 user mikefield.
When you shake the ketchup bottle
First none will come and then a lot 'll
posted via 99.240.131.45 user Adam.
(BTW this is a Tuesday post. You need 3 more . . .)
posted via 86.134.210.157 user Peter_H.
The board tends to have
Monday - 5 posts Tuesday 4 posts Wed 3 posts, Thursday to folling Friday - zero posts Saturday - 3 posts Sunday 7 posts - monday 3 posts - following week nothing.
5,4,3,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,3,7,3,0,0,0,0,0,0
Same thing happens with earthquakes and earthquake deaths.
I have been watching this since 2002 and it makes me chuckle.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
If you want a page or more about it -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_point_process
There are also a number of formulae given relating to this Process.
Any the wiser?
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
Good program --
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Fishing by hand in a lot of locations is illegal, I saw it recently on a netflix show - a young lady showed a guy how to catch dinner.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Losh
Scottish.
Categories »
= lord n. and int., used in certain exclamations.
------------------------------------------------------------
Only four references last one in 1901,
You see I have read AR so much mun and losh are quite part of my normal thoughts on words, how unfortunate we are so far back in time. maybe not this far == Proto Indo European Nancy runs on the earth
Nancy khthonì baínei
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
It is present although there are not a lot of examples in OED
it is on PP Page 1 7th paragraph.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
1. Buy an Alexa - great device
2. you can listen to BBC radio 4 instantly
3. Alexa will remind you of the time for the program
Alexa is just like a small mother without the mother mess.
A bit like PP and the mother in the morning of the first expedition
Must look up mun to see if it is OED.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Convenience from going to a telegraph office to now pulling a device out of your pocket, writing and sending it.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
This follows on directly from the 'Antiques Roadshow' clip on Swallow, quoted below. Both clips are on the Nancy Blackett Trust's website.
For more news about Nancy Blackett you can follow her activities by signing up free at the bottom of this page.
In a prolonged power outage, some of teh people in Texas lost power for the best part of a week and I know someone whose house burnt down -- the Kindle runs out of juice and the book does not.
In a pinch you could consider burning the book, some people burnt their furniture to stay war.
Of course some of us like john consider roger's like for engines a new fangled fad that will pass.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
"Finding a power cord for your Kindle in a blackout is an exercise in futility"
Or you can give the Kindle away and get a front-lit Kobo which you can read anywhere, anytime....
posted via 118.210.61.155 user mikefield.
So it was an agreed code, rather than semaphore as such, but very Ransomish nevertheless.
As well as the secret message techniques used by Ransome's characters, I wonder whether Ransome
himself sometimes speaks to us in code.
posted via 217.96.160.192 user Jock.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
There are many happy times I am reading an old book and the character in the book is bemoaning the cost of sending a telegram in the 1930s -- Compton M's Scottish Laird is a case in point in communicating with his son in India.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
A book is so much better.
Are there full read versions of AR somewhere blind children can find them?
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Just looking at the 1960s tattered blue book by penguin - I think brings back memories off all the times and places I have read a book.
Also with a torch fitted to your head you can reread AR in a blackout and pretend all is right with the world when 80 year old ladies like the GA are freezing to death in their back yards.
Plus GA raised mother and Capt. Flint - I always wondered what happened to their parents, maybe they were in India?
I wrote to the Head of Shrewsbury and got a nice letter in response. I will dig it out and post it - turns out he is an AR fan.
JMN
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
The paper S&A books I don't have came via the internet, some in ebook format. They are all (12) books now in PDF format as it is easy to convert and be readable on anything.
A page expanded to fill across a screen of a laptop can be read from some distance. Easy while eating lunch or some such.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
Me too, and with any sort of book.
First, it's a lot quicker -- your eye and brain can coordinate and operate together much more quickly than someone else's brain and mouth in combination with your ears and brain.
And second, it you want to go back to read over a particular passage, it's easy. No stop, rewind, locate the passage, play it, then find where you'd got to before you can go back and continue...
It's easier with ebooks too; not as simple as with hard copy, but a good deal easier than a tape or an audio-book or even a Youtube clip.
posted via 118.210.61.155 user mikefield.
Call me old fashioned but a nice bright yellow beast of yesteryear is still my favourite, I mean you are in and out of the water all the time.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
I had not seen Rob for a few years and like all of us he has grayed.
Still one of the nicest blokes I know, and his wife is great, she provided us tea and a meal in about 2004.
Swallow at 30000 pounds is nice.
I capsized Rob's Mirror about 300 metres from Wildcat, did I have an angry wife and child, went over backward when the steamer blocked the wind, stupid mistake. I insisted on landing on Wildcat with two wet drowned cold souls.
I still have a lovely shot of red sails on my wall.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
-----------------------------------------------------------
We had a show in Australia "A Country Practice" on TV that is similar in a way.
I would rather reread any AR book than listen -- personal preference - like chocolate and humour.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
Re telephones in homes I read (in “Churchill’s Generals” I think) that the Prime Minister’s country home Chequers under Neville Chamberlain had one telephone – in the kitchen! But Churchill had a battery of several telephones for his use, and used them!
The BPO installed some automatic exchanges from the 1910s in smaller towns served by one exchange, but the first automatic exchange in London was HOLburn on12 November 1927, soon followed by several others, see Wikipedia article “Director telephone system”. The manufacturer ATE developed the Director system so the city could be served by a mixture of manual and automatic exchanges for some years (decades?). So you could ask the operator for Holburn 3456 or dial the number, with the HOL dialled using the letters by each digit on the dial. The director translated the letters HOL (i.e. digits 405) into routing digits (like the register in the Western Electric-designed Panel system used by the Bell system (“Ma Bell”) in New York and other large American cities).
posted via 202.154.136.115 user hugo.
While episodes frequently did (still often do?) end on a cliff hanger, I believe the original
purpose was to encourage farmers to adopt modern methods so as to increase productivity.
"The Archers" was piloted in 1950, food rationing in the UK was finally abolished in 1954!
posted via 217.96.160.192 user Jock.
It's only 3m 20s long, but it's still quite a big file and I'll probably remove it before long; so view and/or download it reasonably quickly if you want to see it....
Re telephones in homes I read (in "Churchill’s Generals" I think) that the Prime Minister’s country home Chequers under Neville Chamberlain had one telephone – in the kitchen! But Churchill had a battery of several telephones for his use, and used them!
The No 6 Dry cell or Ignition cell ( two used in old and usually manual exchange Local Battery phones) is pictured in the Wikipedia article "List of battery sizes" under obsolete batteries.
posted via 202.154.136.115 user hugo.
Yes, OK a joke, sort of, but true. We once had 6" of snow down south, not much above sea level, on Boxing Day and that's near mid summer.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
The file is 158MB. If the Swallow bit was cropped out I suspect under 10MB and could be emailed to any who wanted it
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
Another thing I noticed in the book was the old-fashioned spelling "to-day" for today!
posted via 109.154.137.3 user PeterW.
posted via 86.175.1.232 user Paul_Crisp.
Radio is available for overseas people, presumably there is little market for radio programs overseas, though the CBC does broadcast a few BBC programmes during its overnight coverage for insomniacs.
posted via 99.240.131.45 user Adam.
Your computer has an IP address whch can be traced to the town that you live in or somewhere pretty close to it. Blocking or allowing any country is easy as many authoritarian governments do.
posted via 99.240.131.45 user Adam.
What we furrneres can see
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
The 'Swallow' from the 1974 film was featured on 'Antiques Roadshow' last night, and my colleague Rob Boden was able to tell the presenter how we crowdfunded the money to buy the boat ten years ago, and have been able to keep her sailing for fans to enjoy.
I got a name check and my phone lit up with friends who had seen it mentioned. Great fun!
This happens several times a month during the winter, we are used to it and the city is equipped for snow clearing.
And this was the first day for children to go back to school in Toronto after six weeks of having on line learning. The schools weren't closed for the weather.
posted via 99.240.131.45 user Adam.
Ed is it wintery at your place?
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
PM ch. 16 (Cape p. 159):
Dick rowed on doing his best to keep the oars from squeaking. They passed the boathouse. It was still daylight out of doors but, as the house came into sight, they saw the glimmer of a lamp or candles in the drawing-room. Someone was playing the piano.
posted via 91.110.124.34 user eclrh.
it was always colder 40 years ago -- ie WH and the stage and 4 across the ice.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
However it's unlikely to be for long. We've had a longish cold spell, with record overnight lows a day or two ago, but it's forecast to be much warmer from Sunday.
As I was driving my daughter to school this morning, I was thinking back on PM and the moon program I am sure you had, Do you still have the moon program - it would be fun to play with it again?
I was also thinking about the ships bells program I had many years ago from the internet - now there are a score of them for your phone. I should download one.
posted via 47.218.34.149 user Mcneacail.
posted via 91.110.124.34 user eclrh.
posted via 47.208.72.200 user dthewlis.
A new comedy starts on BBC2 TV tonight at 10.00pm called 'Motherland'.
In a positive preview in The Sunday Times Culture magazine Victoria Segal says of the main character who wants to bring up her children as she was
"That means being yelled at in a speeding car before being dumped on their grandmother's doorstep, just like they do in Swallows and Amazons."
It also made me think that there are no mention of any grandparents in the books, just aunts and uncles.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Except that the GA is grandparent's generation and did she not raise Molly and Cptn Flint which suggests Parent's death - not 100% certain
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
The small blue hardbacked book is entitled Oscar Wilde A Critical Study by Arthur Ransome - Methuen & Co. Ltd. 36 Essex Street, W.C. London
Inside it says First Published in 1912
Underneath that it says First published at 1s. net in 1913
So perhaps this is the second edition.
posted via 2.28.29.92 user rencar.
Mum is just starting a written inventory now, which I hope to be able to share at some point.
As an example/flavour of what has come to light already:
1913 - Oscar Wilde Methuen - Hardback - Great Condition
1927 - Racundra's First Cruise - Travellers Library - Hardback - Great Condition
1934 - Winter Holiday - Arthur Ransome - Lippincott on spine - US Edition - Hardback - Great Condition
1997 - The Swallow and The Amazons by Arthur Ransome - Privately Published transcription of an early draft of S&A held at Abbot Hall under the aegis of the Arthur Ransome Society - Paperback - Great Condition
I think once we have a complete list, we can look at all the various suggestions of sources for further information.
Thanks
Brett
posted via 2.28.29.92 user rencar.
In terms of recognising the books with the most resale value, I am inclined to say that you should focus on:
* The 12 S&A books - quick check if they are first edition with dustcovers
* First edition of 'Oscar Wilde'
* Any hardback copy of 'Rod and Line'
* Any hardback in 'The Worlds Story-Tellers' series
* Small kids book 'The Little People of the Wood'
* Anything listed between 1904 to 1915 at the link below
These are the titles I see most infrequently for sale, or (in the case of the 12 S&A books) for sale at high prices.
He and I are both responsible for 'Swallow' but she needs some small repairs, and we both spent much of 2019 and 2020 unable to contribute time to the project for personal reasons. Covid has stopped us being able to bring in volunteers to help.
Once the pandemic dies down in England, we will be able to get people out sailing again.
posted via 86.133.242.182 user Magnus.
I echo what Adam and John have said. It would be easier to comment on Mike's Ransome memorabilia if you could provide an inventory of the items you refer to. I know it could be a tough job curating a collection like I imagine Mike's might have been, but I don't honestly think there's any viable alternative. As John implies, edition numbers, publication dates, and general conditions of books, for instance, can be of great importance in determining their possible value.
Fell free to email me if there's anything further you think I might be able to help with.
posted via 61.68.41.186 user mikefield.
While not wanting to send anyone off to the "competition" there is a Facebook group call "The Arthur Ransome Group" which is quite active and may also be able to offer advice.
posted via 99.240.131.45 user Adam.
I remember with fondness reading a lot of your father's posts on this forum.
I would be surprised if anyone on this forum objected to commenting about AR's things, I am not sure these people are learned in prices, but they can tell you that Beckfoot did not have a water supply connection to the local town and that Nancy and Peggy could both play the piano, but we do not know if the others could or not?
More likely they can point you to someone who actually knows about this stuff, but a first edition AR book is going to be worth something.
Warm regards and I miss your old man - he was a good bloke.
JMN
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
As long standing members will know, Mike had a great interest in all things AR.
Myself and Mum (his Wife) have just got round to starting to look at the huge collection of Arthur Ransome items he had in his study. His collection was built over many years, and I suspect he posted here about much of it.
I wondered if members maybe able to provide us with some assistance in understanding all the Arthur Ransome items, books, literature and other things that he had. We're particularly concerned that some items maybe of real value and interest and we'll end up giving them away!
If this goes against any forum rules, then my apologies.
posted via 2.28.29.92 user rencar.
Even better, as forum posts are generally archived, you can refer back to previous answers given to common issues to do with your project. It could grow to become an FAQ or Wikipedia style resource for your team or even your whole organization.
-----------------------------------------------------
A forum is a place for like minded people to make a social friend that acts as a mental support, what I am doing is ok.
So Peter and Jon talking about old times is good social work almost as good as a beer round a fire. This is the fire.
I was trying to explain this to another forum group and they said it as tosh.
LOL - in sticking together to prove the point they demonstrated the point ad nauseum
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
Someone who should know better, on the Facebook 'Arthur Ransome Group', recently referred to TarBoard as a kind of "Stone Age Facebook". Well as regards social media I'll confess to being a complete Neanderthal.
posted via 81.141.149.214 user Peter_H.
I cannot remember the last year I saw Rob, but he had Swallow at the time.
I met his wife Joyce and she is really nice. She described Tarboarders as old grayhaired tea drinking men.
About as nice as my 13 year old daughter describing a boy today as a nerd. Kiss of death.
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
Rob wrote an article for the Nancy Blackett Newsletter at the end of 2018, which was the last I heard of him. I emailed him a news item I thought might interest him a few months ago, but got a "no more emails please" message, apparently on his behalf, from an unknown-to-me female with a different surname. So -- mystery.
[ Image ]
posted via 61.68.41.186 user mikefield.
I have not heard from Rob since he stopped doing Outlaw - does anybody know where he is and where is the Swallow now?
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
But as a result of that repair work's now having been done, it's regrettably no longer the Dog's Home...
[ Image ]
posted via 123.243.68.87 user mikefield.
I am glad someone did it up - it was looking sad in 2004.
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
Dogs Home
posted via 81.141.149.214 user Peter_H.
There is a new AI patent that looks to create AI people from their writings, one day we may able to speak to a computer that thinks a little like AR.
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
Robert owned the lovely little clinker dinghy Hirondelle (pretty-well a dead ringer for Amazon) that he was keeping in Swallow's old boathouse at Holly Howe when I saw her in 2009.
My brother and I owned and sailed a plywood properly built dinghy.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
I still have a couple of surplus VJ booms in my workshop.
posted via 220.240.6.181 user mikefield.
It was a spectacular capsize. A lot more spectacular than running into a rock (Swallowdale).
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
They were fun - like the mud splats but better, they sunk one day.
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
Of course lightness leads to unsafe conditions in high winds.
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
posted via 202.154.129.19 user hugo.
Worthy of AR.
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
posted via 217.96.152.187 user Jock.
I am not sure if anyone has ever seen the movie Ice cold in Alex, but Sylvia Syms who plays the nurse reminds me of a Susan as a young 24. She is absolutely brilliant and about the right age at the time. it is worth watching.
There is also a book called "The Hello Girls" by Cobbs, who talks about the development of phones in WW1 and the girls who operated the phones behind the front lines. These girls are the mothers of the children in the 30's who formed the base for SA.
I can assure you I would be very loath to remain in a burning building to keep the phone lines going as an attack occurred as these young ladies did.
It really only proves that human courage does not change as we see with the nurses and COVID.
A lady I met whose father died of COVID, she was a nurse and got to see him before they unhooked him from the ventilator - small hospital - said he was black from the top of the legs down. It is not a nice way to die.
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
Re lighting, the references in PM all seem to refer to candles or kerosene (paraffin) lamps. So no electric light; either reticulated or from a local house power supply in a powerhouse by the house (low voltage DC from batteries charged by an engine generator set during peak hours in the evening?)
The references to Captain Flint telephoning to Colonel Jolys when he "violently joggled the bracket' (PP33) indicate a manual exchange with the telephones powered down the line by the exchange battery (normally 24 volt in New Zealand, though automatic exchanges were 50 volt). Here previously only smaller country manual exchanges with LB or Local Battery telephones had two 1½ volt dry cells - a "No 6 cell" the size of a milk bottle (see link with picture, if it works). You would call the operator with one long ring and a shutter would drop down on the board. The Beckfoot telephone would be on a pair of open wires on poles back to the exchange, which would supply DC to the phone. PS: the phone rings in the hall (PM1; one phone and no extensions?) And party lines were frequently code ringing, though in the early 1950s we were on an automatic line (Wellington 48-960) with selective ringing (ringing our phone only) to the three or four parties on the line. The NZ postwar exchanges from Britain normally had a few two-party lines with selective ringing (by ringing on either leg of the line to earth)
posted via 202.154.130.187 user hugo.
posted via 217.96.153.156 user Jock.
Interestingly if you watch the new G Clooney movie on Netflix you get some idea of the terror for the D's at the end of WH. it is chilling and scary.
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
makes me think of Dick in PP - if your theory does not match the experiments - then the theory is likely wrong.
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
Let us hope for a healthy and prosperous New Year so that we will soon be able to gather safely in person and resume those many activities that we have had to put on hold for the last ten months.
posted via 99.240.131.45 user Adam.
We do eat various bugs weevils etc. anyway here in NZ - there is an allowable number of insect fragments in flour/pulses etc. on the basis that you can't keep them all out of the storage...
I've tried witchety grub in the Aussie outback - tastes good. I did have it cooked. There's an annual Wild Food Festival here in NZ but I've not been brave enough to try huhu grubs etc.
One of the delights I find with the Ds is the way they are so keen to learn and to be proper explorers, Picts, Coots etc. that they out-Swallow, out-Amazon and out-Coot the others, to amusing and sometimes almost to absurd lengths. None of the others tried to clean and cook a rabbit (as Nancy says), though they do fish OK.
Interesting that so much of the Europe and the East's staple food is relatively recent (spuds, pastas, maize etc. - Nepal seemed to grow a lot of maize and potatoes, maize is a staple in Africa etc.). And some of today's luxuries used to be peasant food - salmon, oysters, herrings...
Some meat foods that I like (and think I have almost a moral duty to eat, on the basis that if we are killing animals for food we should eat all parts if we can) are now getting very hard to find in shops (even in our butcher): liver kidneys, heart.
Making Cowslip balls - I had dark suspicions about this but carefully avoided finding out. AR gave fair warning, and there are some things I prefer not to know. ;)
if you had been born 1000 years ago - you might have eaten worms to avoid the terrible starvation - we have become to soft, like Dot in PM and the rabbit.
Is there an ethical issue in having someone else despatch your animal food, ie Dick and Dot. Do we think Dick might have been a Richard?
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
Okay with flowers....
posted via 115.64.115.122 user mikefield.
Paul, my literary equivalent is 'reading expands to more than fill the time available', leading to a lifetime of sleep deprivation.
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
Yes, Parkinson made a lot of astute comment on bureaucracy and bureaucrats (and bureaucretins), much of it satirical but with that biting kernel of truth that good satire has. Although an army officer and amateur naval historian, he was primarily an academic, functioning chiefly in academic and literary circles.
Having written a biography of Edward Pellew (Horatio Hornblower's mentor in C S Forester's historical naval novels) he also himself tried his hand at writing novels in the same genre -- albeit without Forester's degree of success. One book he did write though in this vein was another naval biography, this time of Horatio Hornblower himself. He drew on all the biographical details that Forester had invented for his hero, and produced a perfectly lucid, perfectly coherent, and perfectly believable biography. It's hard to tell, reading it, that Hornblower was not actually a real naval officer, just as Pellew was, whose life you were only now reading about properly.
(If I've whetted anyone's appetite with this, keep an eye out for the 'Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower' by C Northcote Parkinson.)
This process has been, and is being, used to delay significant action on smoking, lead in petrol, herbicides and insecticides, COVID, and - most dangerously - climate change.
It is the Twenty-eighth Impression, 1968. Printed in Great Britain by Cox and Wyman Ltd, London, Packenham and Reading (nothing about where bound). I suppose this error might relate only to one batch though, or even to only one or two individual copies?
An ex-library copy, but it has not been rebound (as have my copies of CC and BS) as it still has the original coloured endpaper maps inside the covers (and a plastic-enclosed dust jacket).
posted via 202.154.128.57 user hugo.
One of those searches, like the actual location (if any) of the North Pole, which will probably be available to consume spare time forever.
posted via 47.208.72.200 user dthewlis.
So give me your best shots and we will have a multitude of Swallowdales for people to explore and make their own minds up about.
posted via 99.240.130.92 user Adam.
Some AR locations (e.g. Beckfoot) are very elusive, others (e.g. Flint Island) move about. I suspect Adam's map will never be completely finished leaving worthy challenges for future explorers.
posted via 217.96.151.25 user Jock.
I've just been enjoying reading Roger Wardale's In search of Swallows and Amazons and re-reading Captain Flint's Trunk. Useful location?? maps and discussions in both.
cheers
Bill
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
It was particularly pleasing to find that you'd identified Scrubbers Bay -- that was always one that puzzled me (as still does Swallowdale).
Would Nancy Blackett's present berth at Woolverstone be outside your design parameters for the map?
Certainly Witch's Cottage and perhaps Beaumont Quay and Flint Island in Secret Water could all go in.
Then on Coniston you've got the Amazon River and Octopus Lagoon; and Long Island on Windermere....
Then lots of places on the Broads like Horning Staithe....
All this bears a good deal of thinking about. I shall. :-)
posted via 203.219.255.205 user mikefield.
Where there are reportedly several places associated with one book location, I have added them all in, so Wild Cat Island has three locations, Peel Island in Coniston as well as Blakeholme and Ramp Holme in Windermere.
It is by no means complete and I will be pleased to add suggested locations, where these can be identified to my satisfaction. For example, Alan Hakim suggested some Ransome locations in Syria, associated with the Altounyans and his visit there.
I have not got any Swallowdale locations, though I am aware of several possible locations, I am not sure exactly where they are located. Other locations such as High Topps have never really been clear in my mind, so help would be appreciated.
Although on p. 225: ". . . apples that might be meant for dessert."
posted via 31.52.43.144 user Peter_H.
Absolutely. But to be fair, the diagram in the link is far too complicated insofar as representing the Sea Bear's mast is concerned. In Sea Bear's case, the mast is a single spar all the way from the keel to the truck, and the 'topmast' is simply that part of it above the spreaders (crosstrees), to which an observer could climb and then stand or sit on, giving a better view than that available from the deck.
posted via 203.219.255.205 user mikefield.
It was the technical sailing term "topmast" which Nancy was referring to.
PM Chapter 6: I have Dot saying ".. any amount of cake for pudding" (not "for a pudding" i.e. no "A" on pg 55 (S/S has pg 64) [my Cape hb; 12th impression; 1964]
GN chapter 19 I have Nancy says " … crosstrees, he can see our topmast from his deck" pg 235 (mine says topmast not topmost; S/S has pg 240) [my Cape hb reprinted 1964, was type reset 1958)
My Coot Club wass published in Australia 1949, Australasian Publishing Co Pty Ltd, Sydney in association with Jonathan Cape London. Bound by Holland and Stephenson Pty Ltd, Sydney but Printed in Great Britain by J and J Gray Edinburgh. So it was printed in Scotland and the pages were then bundled up and sent to Sydney! Though some of the Capes were sent to another city in England to be bound (eg PM, 12th Imp 1964; printed by Alden Press Oxford and bound by A W Bain, London).
I have added for Swallowdale the List of Illustrations which says
“IN PETER DUCAVECK’S rather than "IN PETER DUCK’S CAVE” [28TH Impression, 1968).
posted via 202.154.131.70 user hugo.
High NZ TARS numbers? - perhaps it's because we can still explore Lakes like country & go on AR type activities without the same pressure of numbers as in the UK - except that is, for walks, adventure tourism, Lord of the Rings locations etc. known on the international backpacker tourist networks, which can get very crowded.
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
Interesting to see the Clifford Webb covers for SA and SD on Roberts pages. Be good to see in higher resolution.
So a big "thank-you" from a newbie to Dave, Adam, Andrew, Woll and Mike.
I'm on the look-out for more reviews, articles, etc. There must be original reviews of those other S&A books somewhere, especially as the 3 with reviews have at least 8 reviews each!
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
Nice place to sail (and tramp), as is Nelson. Might get there next year with our Farr 6000 and possibly keep her in the Nelson boat park over the winter.
Are there many NZ TARs? I've emailed Cheryl Paget (after correcting the email - the address on the AusTARs page is missing an 'l') about joining, but no reply yet.
cheers Bill
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
Bill sent us (ATR) the link to this review and I plan to add it to the index of reviews he mentioned.
ATR depends upon people volunteering or offering reviews, articles, etc. as noted in the requests for submissions on the site; we're always willing and eager to consider new material. Email contact@allthingsransome.net.
posted via 47.208.72.200 user dthewlis.
Nice drawings, not seen it before.
BTW I searched Google using "swallows and amazons book covers" and clicked - gave a wonderful selection...
Can anyone tell me who to contact with the suggestion?
Swallowdale: "a love poem to the Lake District" sums it up, especially noticeable when Nancy was talking about the hound trail. I think it's really sad that the 1930 real experience is now 'fantasy' for so many; "but it is still true in places" especially if you go off the beaten track.
Part of the reason I came to New Zealand, and a large part of why we stayed here, is that in NZ the reality is you can still freely camp in huge areas of the country (some very like the Lakes), sail in many beautiful lakes, have a camp fire (though increasingly frowned on), catch and eat fish (with an inexpensive license). AR would have loved it here, especially the huge trout; he might even like that the **only** way to eat trout here is to catch it or be given it by a fisher friend.
The downside of emigration is that my visits to the real Lake District have been few, and, as age creeps on, the lower hills, easier tracks and historical richness of the Lakes becomes even more attractive.
Jarring incident: Yes, that charge jars with me. I think AR wanted a final uncertainty, climax and relief to end the book. I tell myself that Amazons' charges are followed by parleys, but AR didn't quite get it right. A brief discussion, with Susan's point of view, perhaps with Nancy saying firmly: "Look, we've got to chase them off. Better chased off than unworthy; if worthy will stand and parley." would still allow a charge and reconciliation.
There is one event at the end of the book which always jars with me. When the Amazons and Swallows return to Wild Cat Island they see tents already put up in the camp and assume that someone else has got there first. We know by this time that the S and A's are well-behaved children, but they decide (unanimously) to charge at the tents. What did they think they were doing? It might have been an innocent family on holiday, who might have become upset. Was Susan OK with this? She and John and Nancy all know that the island does not belong to them, and it seems untypical behaviour.
posted via 86.139.55.69 user Peter_H.
You mentioned the sailing on the Lake; I've always wanted more of it - after S&A there only seemed to be sailing at the start and end.
One reason I like Picts and the Martyrs was the joy Dick (and Dorothea) was finding in learning to sail their new boat.
Peter - this Guardian reviewer seems to feel the same as you about Swallowdale:
"It's a book where nothing, really, happens - and yet even young readers learn to be caught and held by the richness of its sensual detail. Here are children building a camp, walking up a hill, watching a hunt, fishing for trout, eating breakfast. Where is the plot? Where is the struggle?
.....
Although there is so little plot in Swallowdale, it is always an urgent book - you are always waiting for something to begin, but you are also always looking backwards; this is a book suffused in nostalgia. Nothing happens, but every moment seems precious."
posted via 108.2.169.201 user Gerry.
posted via 108.2.169.201 user Gerry.
Either jump into an ongoing conversation of just start up one of your own. You may notice that some threads have a somewhat tenuous connection to Ransome but give them a chance and tou can often help them to return to the topic.
posted via 99.240.130.92 user Adam.
posted via 202.154.132.176 user hugo.
the definition of unflappable would be Kenneth Branagh on the end of the pier in Dunkirk. - What acting.
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
I've set up a prototype tracking spreadsheet as a Goggle sheet for us all to use. Anyone can access the tracker using this link, and can add to it.
You don't need a Google login, it's easy to use, especially if you've used a spreadsheet before. It's also easy to roll back to earlier file versions if anything goes badly wrong, (cntrl & z is good too) so don't worry, have a play with it and add to it if you've spotted a typo and are feeling nitpicky.
If you'd rather not edit the ss, just post a followup with Subject line "New typo in book name..." and I'll do it.
cheers
Bill (now picky'd out for a while...)
However, in The Big Six it has "the faint creak of the Death & Glory's wraps". so only partly corrected!
Wasn't there a recent effort to reset and correct all the typos that OCR had introduced over the years led by someone from TARS?
posted via 99.240.130.92 user Adam.
I agree. I find I'm reading more and more ebooks than hard-copy ones these days (partly a function of my changed reading habits rather than literary diet), and OCR scanning seems to be responsible for an awful lot of errors. Worse, the person doing the scanning doesn't proof-read the scan to pick up even the most glaring of them.
The Faded Page people you mention have an exhaustive system of proof-reading -- several readings, spread over several people -- and, as you've seen, even then a few errors can remain. (My experience with Faded Page, in proof-reading several of those books in the AR canon, showed me that even the most nit-picking, error-noticing, individual (like me) can, and does, miss things that, when later pointed out, are glaringly obvious -- like the number of commas in this sentence.)
posted via 202.168.18.69 user mikefield.
Once I've got a few more typos, I think I'll put them on a Google file so people can add them directly, and, ideally, publishers can check before reprinting. That's a good excuse for a re-read.
Here's another nice one: Great Northern, Puffin 1971, reprinted 1987, p240, of Jemmerling: “Just waiting,” said Nancy. “Like a snake. All ready to come chasing after us if we move. You see, as we can see him from our cross-trees, he can see our topmost from his deck.”
Is it nitpicking? Definitely! But as nitpicking is very similar to one meaning of chatting (see below) and as chatting also means discussion, and as TarBoard is for online discussion, I rest my case that this activity is quite in line with TarBoard aims....
Seriously, if you notice misprints (and unfortunately I do), they can bring the flow of the book to a jarring halt. I find that misprints are on the increase in book reprints generally, and I think it's due to books being OCR scanned for reprints, proof-readers being over-reliant on spell-checkers - which often don't have technical terms, said proof-readers being not familiar themselves with the subject and being pushed for time.
And it's a small way we can contribute perhaps to the S&A cannon -oops - canon. And I've obviously got too much time on my hands...
Having a chat/chatting https://www.bbc.co.uk/ As the prevalence of lice was an everyday problem at the front, men sitting around picking them off their skin led to such groups being described as men "chatting". In later years this has morphed into the term "chatting" or "having a chat" to mean a group of people, or even two people, sitting around casually talking to each other.
Soldiers from the Commonwealth were often billeted with the British "Tommies", and that included several regiments from India. Whilst the word was used way back (e.g. evidence of its use can be found in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet), it's popularity grew, in this instance, from the Hindi word for parasite ("chat").
Hello all,
Is there a central file/repository of typos/errors in ARs books? And is there a mechanism for getting them corrected by publishers of current editions? Or are they now seen as part of the period charm of the books?
If there is no such file/mechanism, do people think it's worth setting one up?
I was always a little annoyed with "the faint creek of the Death and Glory’s warps" in my father's copy (about 1950, chapter 12 Worse and Worse, first para, p154). My copy (1995) has "the only noise he could hear was the steady breathing of Joe and Bill and the faint creek of the Death and Glory’s wraps."
I don't remember the 'wraps' and wonder if more errors are being introduced in new versions. This is likely to be due to people not knowing nautical or dialect words like 'warps' or 'breaker', and being 'Atomic typos' not picked up by spell-checkers. I recently came across 'water beaker' in Missee Lee, as part of the Swallows emergency equipment - this seems to date from 1942 though.
warm regards from down under
Bill Dashfield
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
posted via 47.211.215.77 user Mcneacail.
I mentioned earlier a misprint in "Great Northern" Chapter II Roger says "We jolly well won’t (go back) ..... and earned a grim look from Sanus". Meaning Susan. Cape hardback, page 31: Eighth Impression, January 1956; Type reset 1958; Reprinted 1964. (Tarboard No 43911, 1/13/18). PS: I like the idea of a list of typos! (nitpicking?)
posted via 202.154.132.176 user hugo.
I'd like jackets for SA, SD, WDMTGTS, and GN please.
Please email to billSTOPdashfieldCOMMATxtraDOTcoPOINTnz No 'e' in xtra.
I think uploading them all to ATR would be good: there must be many people without all the dust-jackets. I can follow permission up with literary executors if you like. I should think "Reproduction Cover" would cover it.
cheers
Bill
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
I had a look at this book before posting and it looked to me that is didn't go down to the nitty gritty of typos, though his Tolkien work does seem to.
All I'm looking for is a TAR/TarBoard word/txt/spreadsheet file of items like this:
Coot Club
1. Chap 12 Worse and Worse, all editions, first para, p154 "faint creek of the Death and Glory’s warps." should be "the faint creak of the Death and Glory’s warps" Late editions/reprints may also have "wraps" for "warps"
cheers
Bill
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
A3 printing means no seam, but even then the paper's not long enough to provide proper end-flaps. I just made do.
At the price you mention you should be able to buy the whole book, not just the dj; but comme çi, comme ça -- if you really want them and that's the only source, then I guess that's what you pay. Maybe you can negotiate a bulk discount somehow?
The problem I found, both with purchased ones and with ones I printed myself, was that they looked too new for the books they were going on, and I actually printed a sepia wash over the ones I did for myself to get past that.
Please let us know how you get on.
posted via 202.168.18.69 user mikefield.
Does anyone know of a reasonably priced source of dust jackets or scans thereof? I have several Cape hardbacks without jackets. The images on http://allthingsransome.net/literary/archildrensbooks/arcc.htm are not high resolution and also are not the complete dustjacket. Dustjackets.com have them, but USD22 each seems pricey (and there is no mention of copyright - though being in NZ they would be out of our 50 year copyright period).
I have an A4 printer only, but I there's a shop near me that can do A3. I can also 'stitch' A4 scans together
thanks
Bill
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
Never believe an experiment until it has been checked by theory.
Not really a Dick thing.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
The entire population at the time would have been aware of the symptoms of measles and a range of other common diseases. You have to assume that Nancy's mother would have been able to spot parotitis so the problem period is 2 days, she woke up with it, so a 1.5 days.
The day before is the Igloo, so glove wearing -- it is a stat chance she passed it on
Mumps is a highly contagious infection with an R0 of 10–12 in a susceptible population. Prior to the introduction of routine mumps vaccination, 95% of adults had serological evidence of infection, and regular seasonal outbreaks occurred every 2-5 years, mainly affecting children
But they are outside the age range for usual mumps onset, 5 to 9 and most likely some had already had it - it can be asymptomatic.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
The Bittern Line in Norfolk doesn't get a mention, but "Cockermouth for Buttermere" in the Lake District does.
"As for the igloo, seven explorers and Mrs Blackett cooped up in that small space, rampant plague house.
As for the igloo, seven explorers and Mrs Blackett cooped up in that small space, rampant plague house.
posted via 99.240.130.92 user Adam.
1. I have read every MM since 1999.
2. I enjoyed Miss Goulder's article on the plots in SA - the factual side is well presented and I could not argue with her facts or the conclusions drawn from the facts, however she provides what is an opinion that The Dog's Home is not a high quality place to spend a holiday. High quality is subjective and I can assure you if offered a weekend in the Dog's Home and a weekend in Rome Hilton, I would choose the DH.
3. So I was hoping to have a small chat about her essay on the site with all things Ransome.
4. So if anyone has her email address, I would in the spirit of all Ransome communications politely ask her a question about her opinion.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Does anybody know who Miss Goulder is now?
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
She is wrong, any holiday accomodation is better than being in a home, Lord even a wet tent with 14 boy scouts.
The picture Tony last posted was from March 20, on Tarn Hows:
Sir Ben at Tarn Hows, March 20, 2020
posted via 73.173.24.114 user Jon.
Meet Ben, a new member of the Richards family. We drove this afternoon to the Northern Staffordshire Bull Terrier Rescue HQ
run by the 'boss' Bob Whittall. Of course we fell in love with him straight away (Ben, not Bob) !
There is an interesting short English film, that is partly shown in this video. The main boy character in the actual short movie, reminds me of a grown up cheeky Roger.
It is quite humorous and worth the watch. You can see him in this one. makes me think of Roger over MS knee for darning.
JMN
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
There is little love lost between the three, as is shown in this passage from one of the earlier stories:[22]
Bessie was, in Billy's opinion, a cat. Bessie's opinion of Billy could not be expressed so laconically. Her vocabulary on the subject was very extensive indeed. Only on one subject could Billy and Bessie agree. That was on the subject of Sammy. They heartily agreed that Sammy was a little beast.
Their father is Mr William Samuel Bunter, a portly, largely unsuccessful, stockbroker with a severe manner; although it is noted that "like many middle aged gentlemen, Mr. Bunter was better tempered after breakfast."[23] He is perpetually complaining about income tax and school fees and has little interest in his children. Written correspondence between Billy and his father consists of continual requests from Billy to supplement his pocket money; and continual refusals from his father to accede. By contrast, Billy Bunter is particularly close to his mother, Mrs Amelia Bunter, a kindly lady who appears only briefly in seven stories.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Ben's photo and yesterday's shots are still up. Here are the words I am sorry for the old boy, there are awful days and that would have been one.
the funeral in About Time is about as sad as it gets.
Sorry it took so long to type I was crying pretty hard.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I must say I always enjoyed the exchanges, and once I told my wife, it is ok I can fix the hole I punched in the wall
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
The useful Text Search page says "There is also an archive of lapsed messages stored in an old shoe box in the attic in the form of .zip files." but the link is broken. Is there anywhere I can access this archive?
(For other newbies: The Search finds posts back to 2008, giving useful access to another 8 years of posts, as the rest of TarBoard only goes back to 2016.
The Search seems to be only linked from TarBoard Messages; be worth putting on the main TarBoard page.)
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
And it makes her leadership in BS even more remarkable.
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
While the link stays current, here's the last photo Tony posted.
It is with great sadness that I must break the news to all cam fans around the world, we have lost a dear friend. Ben was put to sleep yesterday. Old age finally caught up with him, but he has had such a great time on the fells, what more could you ask from your life here.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
yes, but she is what 13?
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
As for my favourite book? Tends to be the one I'm reading, or the one reflecting where I am. In part I visited and loved the Lakes and the Broads because of the books, and our first 'boat with a lid on', Lillie of Pin Mill(!), was initially based in Hamford (Secret) Water, which was a delight and a perfect place for a bilge keeler.
I do like the books with the D's in, and the ones about real places, but every book offers something new and different.
Just reread SA and noticed how later books were foreshadowed in the discussion after eating the shark p332: "Farthest North or Farthest South"; "we'll go prospecting for gold"; CF "may charter a big ship" with "us all as crew"; p334 "climbing the ranges"; "sailing to the Azores" or the Baltic. p356 "in the winter we'll fetch our food over the ice in sledges"; p359 they visited shipwreck cove - "a splendid cove", "one of our most private haunts". So much in store!
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
She was sorry to omit Rumer Godden's "China Court" and Elizabeth Goudge's "The Herb of Grace" and perhaps (though rather too crude) Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher."
Houses in non-English language novels and hence ruled out were Hugo's "Notre Dame", Alain-Founier's "The Lost Domain", Mann's "Buddenbrooks", Kafka's "The Castle", Eco's "The Name of the Rose", and Allende's "The House of Spirits".
posted via 202.154.129.15 user hugo.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Also in Essex, I see young explorers found Southend beach was a Red Sea.
Yes, its strange how often it appen's that people ca'nt seem to get their word's apostrophes' in the right place's.
Back to wreckers and sharks: we, unlike the Teasel, did get to Norwich in our bilge-keeler 'Lillie of Pin Mill'. There we noticed the mooring bollards Norwich Yacht Station have steel loops welded to their tops. A Broads Authority guy told us to thread our mooring warps through the rings and take the ends back on board. Otherwise, at closing time the local Owdons (and Hullabaloos?) from the nearby pubs might cast off you off. Presumably they don't go as far as cutting ropes...
We moored elsewhere and had a quiet night. :)
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
In nautical jargon, slush is the refuse grease rendered from the salted meat cooked on board a ship. This slush was once commonly skimmed and put into barrels to be sold in port. The money received from sales was put into a "slush fund" and used to purchase luxuries for the crew that they otherwise could not afford.
In the late 19th century, the term slush fund was appropriated for monies set aside for political ends. Such slush funds were used to supplement the salaries of government employees, bribing public officials, or carrying on corruptive propaganda on behalf of special interests.
The phrase derives from the nautical term bitter end. On a ship, the word bitter is used for a turn of anchoring line around the bitts, or the posts fixed to the deck for securing lines. The bitter end is the inboard end of this anchoring line. When the line is paid out to the bitter end, there is no more line, and you are literally at the end of your rope.
"Three sheets to the wind" goes back to the early 19th century. The "sheets" in this expression are not bedclothes, as you might have guessed, but neither are they sails. The sheets are ropes or chains that are attached to the lower corner of a ship's sails and used to extend or shorten the sails. If you were on a three-sailed vessel and all three sheets were loose in the wind the boat would wallow about uncontrollably much like a staggering drunk. Old-time sailors would say that someone only slightly tipsy was "one sheet to the wind," while a rip-roaring drunk was "three sheets to the wind."
Aboard a ship, a boatswain's pipe, or whistle, is used to summon a crew or to relay orders. The sounding of this instrument is referred to as piping. A crew would be "piped" to a meal, for example. To dismiss a crew, the boatswain's pipe is sounded and the command "pipe down" is given. Because it got much quieter after the dismissal, the command became associated with quieting down or making less noise.
Oddly enough, the expression comes from the language of sailing, in which by and large refers to the ability of a vessel to sail well both on (that is, toward) and off (away from) the wind. In this context, the word "by" basically means "near" or "at hand," and the word "large" means "with the wind on the quarter." Hence, a vessel that sails well by and large can sail well close to the wind or off it.
Not from 'aloft' as you might think, Aloof was originally a nautical term referring to sailing into the wind as a way to stay clear of the shore or a hazard. (Its opposite is alee.) The word is commonly found with keep, to sea." The "steering away" technique of keeping aloof influenced the general uses of the word relating to physical or emotional distance or indifference.
Aloof is based on the prefix a- and louf, an older variant of another nautical term luff, which refers to sailing a ship nearer to the wind.
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
You also need to realize that the local copper does not want to tangle with the Palace type people.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I love Mile's comment that, "You just want to shake him," as this reveals the mark of a great author: creating a character that can invoke such a strong emotion. I believe that when I experience a strong hatred for a book character, the author must have created something very believable.
(If you read Harry Potter you may notice this in the feelings you - or a child - have for Umbridge versus Voldemort!)
posted via 109.154.88.20 user Magnus.
I too have always read the 'Portia' comment as being a complimentary one towards Dot, and just the way you've described it.
(I'm also heartily sick of all the 'politically-correct' anti-semitism -- and other anti-minority-group -- comments about matters in literature that I've been forced to read in recent times. Whether or not there was any anti-semitic material in Shakespeare is irrelevant to today's readers, having none but possibly historic interest.)
Your other conclusions, about possible motives for actions of the D&Gs and our friends Owdon and Starkey, are also on the money.
PC Tedder has always seemed to me to be a caricature -- the archetypal PC Plod. In the face of all of that evidence, he still thinks the D&Gs are guilty? You just want to shake him.... :-) But then of course, if there weren't so much bone between his ears, a lot of the story could not have been written.
posted via 193.119.51.171 user mikefield.
We took this as a subtle invitation to moor if you DID want water or a pumpout. On an ebb tide you'd then likely get stranded on the underwater slope/ledge that the smaller (and probably more recent) official sign warns about. We surmised that the wrecker might live in one of the houses conveniently close by, and that (s)he might also be a grocer.
Photographed in August 2013 after sailing from the Thames to the Broads via Secret Water and Lowestoft.
Anyone else come across signs of wreckers?
(Nor do I think she, or Dr.D, or AR were considered or being anti-semitic in referring to the Merchant of Venice. It's a debatable point whether Shakespeare was being anti-semitic or not, but that's a whole non-Tarboard discussion.)
One thing that Tedder, River Patrol and Farland never really address is what motive the D&Gs would have for casting boats off. The 'following Tom's example' motive is weak - it might explain one or two, but not them casting more off when they knew they'd be taken off the river. Whereas Owdon's motives - profit from eggs, revenge for humiliation in egg cases and being laughed at widely in CC - are much stronger.
Of course, if the D&Gs had rescued more drifting boats, THAT itself could have been seen as a motive, for possible acclaim and salvage fees (as in Yarmouth sharks).
I see that the Wikipedia article on Portia also says she was "fond of wordplay and proverbs, frequently quoting and coining them, which was considered a sign of wisdom and sharp wit" (and so like Queen Elizabeth the First). I've been noticing in SW that Roger was very fond of puns and wordplay; but that's another post...
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
But he doesn't slow the action down with explanations.
A couple of examples from BS:
Chapter XXII p258: 'plenty of herons and kingfishers, and no harriers but buzzards flying round the crags. “Crags?” said Joe, and Dorothea explained.'
- Norfolk being flat and fenny, Joe hadn't come across cliffs and crags. Tom, or the twins, would have.
Chapter XXV p284: Tom: '"Dad’s pretty upset about it too. He called you Portia by mistake, instead of Dorothea.”
Dorothea blushed. She understood, but she did not explain.'
- bookish Dot knows Shakespeare's 'Merchant of Venice'; Tom misses the allusion.
SW has quite a bit of this, especially with Bridget and Roger: '“Don’t forget to wash behind your ears,” said Roger.
“Used they to say that to you?” said Bridget earnestly, and wondered why Roger grinned a little sheepishly and Susan laughed.'
The 'earnestly' and 'sheepishly' makes this a favourite for me.
What's you favourite hidden AR gem?
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
I had always thought GN? was 'real', not "metafiction" until I read Captain Flint's Trunk.
Somewhat bemused by all the TarBoard posts on "metafiction" I had another look at the books, and the answer seems now clear to me.
Title page of PD: 'Based on information supplied by the Swallows and Amazons and Illustrated mainly by Themselves'
Title page of ML: '(Based on information supplied by the Swallows and Amazons)'
Tile page of GN: no 'Based on' text. But there is a later dedication 'TO MYLES NORTH who, knowing a good deal of what happened, asked me to write the full story.'
AR plays fair. You may have to look closely, but the answer is there.
PD & ML were made up stories by the S&A and written down by AR. In GN he's a reporter building on Myles tip-off.
The PD 'Illustrated by' is because PD was the first book AR illustrated himself. He thought his drawings were a bit childlike so attributed them to mainly Nancy. Capes feedback was such that he carried on illustrating new books and re-did the SA illustrations. Note sure whether SD was originally illustrated by him, but I think it was. Doubtless another TarBoarder will clarify this!
posted via 121.99.197.149 user BillD.
Hoathwaite campsite near Coniston Water is about as close as you will get, and looks good. The NT also have a holiday cottage v close by. Rose Castle Cottage
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto
Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park
Walter Scott’s Waverley
Emile Bronte’s Wuthering Heights
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables
Charles Dickens’s Bleak House
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes
Henry James’s The Spoils of Poynton
John Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga
E.M. Foster’s Howards End
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando & Vita Sackville West’s The Edwardians
Stella Gibbon’s Cold Comfort Farm
Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca
Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited
Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle
Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast
J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings
J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter
posted via 202.154.129.15 user hugo.
A new book on New Zealand and the Gallipoli Campaign (see link to ebook). The attrition (casualty rate was higher than expected prewar (p11) and General Godley said he did not want 6000 horses there! (p28).
Against Britain during WWI, there were the warship bombardments of Hartlepool, Lowestoff, Scarborough, Whitby and Yarmouth in 1914 and 1916. Some civilian casualties; 137 in December 1914. An enlistment poster said "Remember Scarborough". The Zeppelin Raids on Britain started in 1915.
From the end of Jacobite causes up until the Zeppelin Raids, England was quite lucky in terms of not fighting on English shores. Ted Walker had to have served in WW1, but so many had it, it is little wonder that they did not talk about it. My GU was at Gallipoli, I never knew, but darn it that was a brutal little battle. I know the Harbour Masters team at Newcastle in Australia were at Gallipoli. There is a great British yarn by an Officer who documents two Aussies from the harbour team saving his sergeant who was trapped at the front line. They killed four Turks to get him out. Called it a good afternoons fun, and a scramble like Titty on the road near the Gulch.
My personal opinion is that sailing teaches you a self reliance that is not possible in most situations. I know I have stood outside buildings that were collapsing as the Engineer and looking at the group of experts and saying come on in and I will show you the problems, they all looked strange and then declined, this happened so often that you notice.
The harbour master in the recent Dunkirk film is a classic example played by Branaugh.
One notices the differences to land lubbers.
Sailing puts you into dangerous situations and you survive - so you learn. I personally think this is built into all humans, but we turn it off with a modern education and wary parents.
Just a thought.
Of course the Brits were very worried about the Germans - re
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
PS: Christina Hardyment has a new (2020) book out; "Novel houses: twenty famous fictional dwellings' although not having seen the book I don’t know if Beckfoot is one of them.
posted via 202.154.129.15 user hugo.
The shocking 1857 rebellion (‘Mutiny’) by the Company’s native soldiers led to the British government taking full control of the Indian Empire. Soldiers from the subcontinent were deployed in conflicts fought in China, Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) and, less successfully, Afghanistan.
A lot of the officers came from the county based gentry -- so they often fought in the many little Indian skirmishes, England had a long peace, but a lot of minor stuff that a small army handled - usually with some problems, the Crimea showed the real problem with the development of a modern army.
For instance it is not till about 1870 that the Army withdrew from Australia - I think from memory the last was the 78th Regiment
IN 1905 or thereabout the Royal Navy surveyed Newcastle in Australia
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Thanks for the kind words about my elevation, too. Nothing like coming aft through the hawsehole, eh? :-)
posted via 14.200.207.199 user mikefield.
in one famous incident I said to Charlotte, 12 years old, if you complain I will eat one of your rations - she did and I did -- she still reminds me of my "bastardry" today - excuse the language but she gets hot under the collar at the story - we were halfway up.
My single item on the bucket list is to stand on top of Old Man with Ed and Rebecca, Ed can bring who he likes.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
So was it expensive? I have a Harrods catalogue for 1929 (near enough) and a half-pound slab or bar of milk chocolate (nut or fruit) cost 1/- (one shilling). That does not seem all that expensive and the same bar elsewhere would probably have cost less.
There is no bunloaf in the catalogue, but a 2 pound 'seed loaf cake' cost two shillings. I would have thought that a half-pound chocolate bar would have lasted the Swallows for one week.
posted via 86.158.206.177 user Peter_H.
In between the Black Shirts we had Black Magic; Berlin had Caberet and the Kit Kat club – we had our own Kit Kat of a very different kind. In 1936, when Adolf Hitler was issuing inflammatory demands of war, Aero’s marketing campaign of the same year was “don’t be angry, have a piece of chocolate,”. It’s a only pity it wasn’t translated into German and consignment of confectionary shipped to the Berghof.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
By the 1930s, these ornate confections were still popular – and not at all cheap. One box from Rowntree's was priced at 100 shillings, when the rent for a slum dwelling at the time was 10 shillings a week.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA
posted via 65.27.145.68 user Kisered.
So I checked in Pigeon Post (because I know that book well). There are only 3 occasions on which chocolate is actually provided for eating. The first is right at the very beginning when Roger is on the train and swallows a bit of chocolate. Next, when they begin prospecting Peggy serves out "a ration of chocolate from a secret store of her own". Finally, Mrs Blackett asks Peggy and Titty to include in the shopping at Rio a special kind of chocolate that Roger likes.
There is no mention of chocolate being included in the stores for any of the camps. It seems that it is a treat provided occasionally by Mrs Walker (for the train journey) and by Mrs Blackett via Peggy. The idea that the children were constantly eating expensive chocolate is a myth (in Pigeon Post anyway).
posted via 86.158.206.177 user Peter_H.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Even though AR paints a quiet picture of England -- they had been at the forefront of continuous war for almost 400 years, this short period in the 1930s was peaceful but not for long.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
So I really care not a whit, other than it has introduced me to some good friends, some like Rob and his wife I have enjoyed my chats with Ed, who I consider a close friend and jousting with Peter H reminds me of the Knights Tale.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Interestingly there is a historian who blames the slave trade in America on the low birth rate in England in the 16th century leading to not enough workers in the USA. But, I would blame the rather greedy investors in Bristol that I think in some ways is still visible -- Colston statue and the aftermath points to that.
Of course now we use other methods to reduce the potential unwanted excess births -- I appreciate this is a controversial somewhat biased view, but this is a mature forum and the point is fitting AR into a modern context.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
The father's death is certainly a nod to the war, which would resonate with a lot of children at the time.
An operating copper mine would be valuable during the war, but the ore was very deep by that stage and the story of some one prospecting during a war and dying is interesting but unlikely -- so this is a nice romantic yarn, for people who in the 1930s would have remembered the end of the copper era that brought a lot of wealth to the area.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I still think that is true on the whole, and certainly in Ransome's case. Surely the details, e.g. of sailing on a lake, are so real in his books because he had sailed on that lake himself, and had sailed the same, or very similar craft. I doubt if any amount of mere 'research' could have enabled him to write this, in Swallowdale:
"He was looking straight forward, feeling the wind on his cheek, enjoying the pull of sheet and tiller and the "lap, lap" of the water under Swallow's forefoot."
(By the way, Mike, congratulations on your promotion from the deck to the bridge of the good ship 'ATR'.)
posted via 86.158.206.177 user Peter_H.
Ransome makes the class system obvious with the Coots, although he wasn't pushing any particular agenda (and neither am I).
I just thought that the children of high ranking officer, in families with nannies, who had holidays, could probably buy enough chocolate.
Critics have moaned at Ransome and Blyton (and other authors) many times for writing about middle class kids, but I don't think this is a literary crime. The whole point of any kids book is to dispose of the parents as soon as possible, so the kids can have THEIR agenda, and adventures as scary or gentle as they like. Kids seem to be happy to make friends without considering class, which is lovely.
posted via 109.154.88.20 user Magnus.
"In recent times, mainly since the nineteen-seventies, Ransome’s books have been, unfortunately, dismissed by some as being very middle class and portraying a best forgotten world that ceased to exist many years ago and so having no relevance to children anymore."
Was being "middle class" a crime?
Had society by the 1970s lost the chance or the will for adventure? Possibly yes, when, as I've said, my brother and I were very nearly in the 1950s, doing S&A things sailing on mudflats almost like Secret Waters.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
"Mike Bender, a retired consultant clinical psychologist, is undertaking a PhD on Masculinity and the British Yachting Narrative 1889 to 1939 in the English Department of Exeter University, whilst working on a book concerning the Yachting Narrative from 1595 to 2005. He is a committee member of the Association of Yachting Historians; and the South West Maritime History Society. He is a qualified Ocean Yachtmaster."
Maybe some of us just read the S&A books because we like to and they have things in the stories that we almost did or would have liked to have done or some of us did.
The psychology of it all? Not even crossed our minds - for most of us.
As for class and class system, I suspect not even noticed out here in the colonies.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
This class question aside entirely though, I do take exception to Bender's view as quoted that "an author has to write about what he knows". Very many authors of fiction (perhaps most of them?) write about things that they don't know but have only researched -- or indeed, even just imagined.
I cite, as one example only, John Buchan's having been congratulated in writing so believably about events that occurred in the fictional South American country of Olifa, and about the country itself, its geography, and its politics, when he had never visited any part of South America at all. (The book was The Courts of the Morning, which was published just the year before Swallows and Amazons.)
posted via 14.200.207.199 user mikefield.
The question of AR's children being middle class is well dealt with by Mike Bender in an interesting new book about AR. Bender points out that "an author has to write about what he knows". He also quotes AR's own response to 'middle class' accusations:
"I should like to point out . . . that it is cheaper to take lodgings in a farmhouse than to take lodgings in Blackpool, that boats are much cheaper than, for example, motor cycles . . ."
(I am not sure that the latter comparison is true nowadays, but I dare say it was then.)
posted via 86.158.206.177 user Peter_H.
In the Harry Potter books, J K Rowling deliberately used chocolate as the 'cure' to be given to children after meeting a Dementor (a creature that magically sucks all the happiness out of you). She had experience of depression, and personified the illness in the books as the Dementors.
Dogs can tolerate some forms of chocolate, I believe. But not much. What you really have to watch out for are things like raisins - a single one can kill a dog if untreated.
I guess the children in Ransome's book were very middle class, and likely to be able to afford chocolate on a frequent basis?
posted via 109.154.88.20 user Magnus.
SA x6 (5x ginger beer, 1x unqualified beer, but from context also ginger beer)
PD none
SD x2 (ginger beer)
WH x3 (ginger-beer (bottle))
CC none
PP x4 (1x ginger-beer, 3x ginger beer)
WD x3 (2x ginger beer, 1x lager beer)
SW x5 (ginger beer)
BS x6 (1x beer, 5x ginger beer)
ML none
PM x6 (1x ginger beer, 5x beer - Timothy and Slater Bob)
GN - none
posted via 47.134.251.123 user Jon.
How often does the word beer occur in the books,
Thanks
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Teh use of the pub in SA with the charcoal burners is interesting.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
[ Image ]
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Science Focus, September 2019 page 59 has an article about chocolate and that it can boost the levels of good bacteria in the gut and possibly lower depression. Obviously not something that Arthur Ransome would be aware of though chocolate is often mentioned in the books.
Chocolate for us as children was something special so not very often eaten. Is it more commonly consumed elsewhere?
However something I especially noticed was mention of feeding it to William, the dog. Chocolate is toxic for dogs because it contains a chemical called theobromine, as well as caffeine and presumably Arthur did not know this and possibly a lot of people didn't know this at that time. Admittedly it seems to take a lot to really upset a dog so possibly not too bad but not good.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
I just read PM and enjoyed it - now back to SA and it is not quite as well written, he had not settled into the characters yet.
I wish he had written about the holiday with the SAD's and the parents after PM, would have been a good story
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Or are you referring to the David Godine editions? Referring to their Arthur Ransome page it looks like they may have changed the base cover colour when they ran out of old stock.
The only S&A series Cape edition with a yellow cover was PP.
posted via 47.134.251.123 user Jon.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
AR taught be to sail, developed my reading skills and provided me with the insight to stand up to the GAs of this world.
posted via 178.43.60.173 user Jock.
All Things Ransome (ATR) is responsible for the All Things Ransome website and the TarBoard discussion forum. See http://allthingsransome.net/admin/allthingsransome.html for more about All Things Ransome.
Dave Thewlis
Chair, All Things Ransome
posted via 47.208.72.200 user dthewlis.
As for bosom, also a common word and certainly in religious circles (Bosom of Abraham) as well as applied to women.
The song "Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham" sung by people such as Elvis Presley and Louis Armstrong so a common word in American.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
I was talking to my daughter this morning and I used an expression about the bosom of the home.
She asked about a bosom, not a common US expression
I tried to explain like a baby sucking and a badies head cradled in the bosom.
The above work is what came out -- it is not in the dictionaries I looked in.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I noticed them because someone has marked my copy
Example
shan't - interesting word
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Thistlethwaite, Miller and Johnson
1 Royal Street,
Kendall, Cumbria
Dear Mr. and Mrs. E. K. Turner,
We are in receipt of the your letter dated 6 Inst. We are able to arrange for representation of your niece, Miss M. H. Turner, in London, by Robert McCall, KC.
We request that you meet with us at your convenience. Can we suggest the 14th Inst at our chambers in Kendal at 2pm. The matter will be conducted by Mr. G. Thistlethwaite as per our usual conditions.
I remain your humble servant,
Thomas Appleby
Clerk
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
My dear Elizabeth,
You have probably heard about your niece, Maria, and the incident in London. Maria has been again arrested in a Suffragette March on Friday last. She threw a rotten tomato at Winston Churchill as he left Parliament.
She has been arraigned to appear in court on the 16 June. Can we arrange for George to represent her in court?
Maria is such a bother, one day she may become less flighty and become a lady, whom can make us proud.
I am glad you had a pleasant visit to Beckfoot, and I appreciate your observation that the children are attentive and obedient, although James can be a real bother.
I am, my dear Sophia,
Your affectionate Sister,
Helen Turner
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I also taught her the Australian concept of Secret Women's Business and she knows if she says it is SWB and we stop the conversation. Mrs Walker was Australian so I consider it a acceptable reach.
Actually Peter I was thinking about you yesterday on my walk as I had not heard from you for a while, I was a bit worried, we are all in the wrong age group for COVID.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Apologies,
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
The modern world is filled with Karen's and Ted's
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I think in that you are correct, and thank you for the example.
I was just trying to liven things up as I am stuck in a house with a 13 year old girl who wants to go camping but it is 40 outside and the countryside is infected with snakes and the COVID virus is raging.
So thanks -- ps - some one read Zoe Williams stuff on the Guardian she is not a GA and I always thought the GA great character without resorting to murder.
magnus - add 20 and you are probably right
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
The only confusing matter which remains is how such modern 'yoof' slang has made its way onto Tarboard, a website which I assume is populated by the over 40s only!
Just as long as nobody starts using hashtags next...
posted via 86.178.228.248 user Magnus.
------------------------------------------------------------
Somewhere buried deep in the English Medical Literature is a paper on the study of paternity in the 1950s and 1960s in England and that about 10% of the children's father was not the real father -- they did this through blood testing and some smart scientist did the last part, luckily the names were not published
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I was using the new term on the internet for a busy body type person -- the female term is a Karen.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
She is quite a good writer - not quite AR but close.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Not sure which way she was going but that's the area we rowed and sailed in. Mapua is on the entrance channel to the mudflats and Rabbit Island stretches from the channel towards Nelson. There are basically two mudflats, divided by the narrow bit where a river, Waimea river, comes in and a bridge across from the mainland to the island.
The wind always blows from the sea, sea breeze (except when it doesn't) and we lived on the far edge so always had a run home. My mother tended to roll her eyes, you might say, as we often, when I took her out, walked to take a shortcut across the mud, pushing our little praam dinghy on the way home.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
Yes, Paynesville's pretty nice. I sailed on Spray there once, back in the 80s.
Your comment about splatchers being like skiing on mud is about right, I think. Apart from the Mastodon's success with them, the only use I've read about that worked seemed to be this one from Alison Ballance in New Zealand --
"Two of my friends set themselves the challenge of walking at low tide across the Mapua estuary, near Nelson in New Zealand, each deciding on a different strategy.
...
"Method two involved old skis. The bindings were removed, and the golf shoes (in one case) and an old pair of cut-down gumboots (in the other) were bolted or wired at the toe onto the ski. The idea was to ski in a free-heel, cross-country style and it worked perfectly. The journey across 3 kilometres of mud took about half an hour to complete without incident."
posted via 193.119.51.6 user mikefield.
That sister lives at Paynesville. Now there's a place to boat. A cross between a lake and Secret Waters but much much bigger and without a tidal problem. I've been on a motor boat there a few times and try to do the canals each time there on a sit-on-top kayak. A great pity there isn't a sailing dinghy available.
Splatchers, as a kid I tried to get them to work without knowing of their name. Basically skiing on mud. A couple of planks with pieces of galvanised sheet metal curved up at the front.
Gunkholing - a term that covers what we did very well.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
Hastings Marina and Yaringa Boat Harbour, just north of it, are the closest boating centres on Western Port. Both Davey's Bay YC and Mornington YC are on Port Phillip (the closest ones to where I lived at Mt Eliza, back in the 70s). But they're a good half-hour or more away from the Creek by car, whereas I could get to my back gate in half a minute....
You mentioned Secret Water, and the country there is actually quite similar to the northern part of Western Port -- a lot of flat marshy land drained by little creeks, mostly mud at low water. I sailed (well, motor-boated) on Secret Water a few years ago. There are more trees around Western Port though, so the winds can be a bit more trying: more like sailing on the Broads. I find sailing in those shoal waters fascinating, just poking around in little narrow winding channels in the mud, finding the bottom with the c/b occasionally, and always having to watch the tide. (Our US friends call it 'gunkholing', which I've always thought a wonderfully descriptive word.) Tooradin's like that, and Blind Bight, and Warneet, just across the Inlet from where I was at Cannons Creek. I think Bucephalus, with her draft, would be happier down around Hastings rather than right up north where I mostly sailed.
I've posted a few pictures of Western Port, mostly the northern part, at the link. If you can see the background wallpaper chart clearly enough, the round dot right at the top of the page, left of centre, is Cannons Creek. The land behind the first two or three photos on the left is French Island, west of which are Hastings and Yaringa. There's a photo of Aileen Louisa in the top row of pictures, one of Sanderling in my mud berth in the second, and one of the bow of my putt-putt Serenity at the start of the fourth.
I have to confess that though I persevered with the splatchers for quite a while I could never get them to work properly and I gave it up. But I later found a design for rectangular ones that I might possibly have tried if I'd stayed there longer.
The mention of kayaks, my own kayaking didn't start until I was about 40 and because I wanted to explore an island at the top of the South Island of New Zealand that I'd sailed to a couple of times in my late teens. I built a kayak for my daughter's 10th birthday and then one for myself. Basically a modified British Kayel design. A few years later I ran a building class and we build 4 slightly larger revised versions of it. A double sea kayak a few years later and I did a circumnavigation of Vanua Levu, Fiji with it.
The next kayak was a modified version of a plan in Sea Kayaker magazine which was basically the tortured ply design by Dennis Davis, 1969.
My partner built the first of the Mac50s (I've sold maybe 50 plans for it) and a bit over a decade later she half built another one that was eventually finished by another person. I built a Mac50L, a narrow version, basically for short light women. I fail on two of the parameters, only being reasonably light.
The only sailing my partner and I have done together was the East China Sea trip.
As for reading S&A, a great regret that I only read Secret Waters very recently because it relates so much to the area I originally sailed on.
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
It wasn't till the mid 90s though, when I moved to Western Port, that I bought a dinghy similar to Amazon. At 15'-0", Aileen Louisa is longer, and she's rigged differently, but she's a clinker centre-boarder all the same -- built by an ex-Devonian boatwright in Melbourne.
I'd already bought and later sold a clinker putt-putt, and later again bought a pocket cruiser, Sanderling, each of them living in the mud berth outside my back gate. But Aileen Louisa was my true love, fully cathected. I took her north with me when I moved to Canberra in '05. Unfortunately, because I don't live on the water here and, Aileen Louisa being a true clinker build, trailering her for a day's sailing to one of our lakes was not a real option, I eventually felt obliged to transfer her to a new custodian -- someone who could keep her in the water where she belonged. (It was a heart-wrenching decision to make, and a heart-breaking occasion when it happened.)
Aileen Louisa was herself one of the reasons for my starting Wooden Boat Fittings, still operating after twenty-plus years. (See here, and on its home page (accessible via the link at the top left-hand corner) for background stories to the company, to Swallow and Amazon themselves, and to other similar present vessels.)
And all this because of Arthur Ransome...
posted via 193.119.51.6 user mikefield.
In my case my brother and I lived on the edge of mudflats similar in some ways to Secret Waters. The rowing dinghy our father built for us was OK but it did mean effort and as the wind was free and reliable why not use it? So I designed and made a mast, leeboard (one and swapped from side to side) and rudder and got my mother to sew up a sail.
S&A influence I can't say how much but it must have had some. We could have camped on islands but didn't. Though there were others (2? 3?) with sailing dinghies they weren't as dedicated to being on the water as we were. Every fortnight around mid day was a high tide. If not on the water it was being wasted.
We eventually bought a proper sailing dinghy, had it for 9 months, sold it and bought a lighter one and eventually to racing. In latter life sailing and racing, the longest trip crewing on a 45 footer across the East China Sea, Philippines to Japan.
By mid life the cost and ease of getting places led to sea kayaking. Cheaper and easier to travel to places. Most of the interesting places in this country plus a little in Australia and a trip in Canada's Queen Charlotte Islands.
So what have others done?
posted via 121.98.151.174 user Alex.
(AR died in 1967.)
posted via 193.119.51.6 user mikefield.
he has answered many of my questions with this.
A bit of humour never hurt anyone.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
The first rule of psychological health is not to interfere in other people's business.
The second rule of psychological health is to have a good laugh.
The third rule of psychological health is not to put up books on your web site that are PDF copies of books, still clearly or highly likely, still in copyright.
The fourth rule of psychological health is to try and teach the young folk not to steal.
One of your teachers has a external site linked to the school that breaks rules 3 and 4, which is illegal as far as I am aware, although I am not an expert on Canadian law, although it clearly breaks the ten commandments, whilst old, they are not a bad set of ethical rules.
Your teacher's book mistake, comes up as the number one search on the quest for the book Cue for Treason in Google, so it is pretty high up there in terms of visibility and finding you is two more clicks.
An English teacher doing this, even though he took the book from a Microsoft scan, is not necessarily some one I would want teaching my young folk.
(Robert) Geoffrey Trease FRSL (11 August 1909 – 27 January 1998) was a prolific British writer who published 113 books, mainly for children, between 1934 and 1997, starting with Bows Against the Barons and ending with Cloak for a Spy in 1997. His work has been translated into 20 languages. His grandfather was a historian, and was one of the main influences on his work.[citation needed] He is best known for the children's novel Cue for Treason (1940).
If he died in 1998, there is no way the copyright has expired, unless there are some rules of which I am not aware, Arthur Ransome, English Author, who died in 1968 is still in copyright.
Anyway I broke rule 1 and 2 writing this, and I would not have - but the mistake is being discussed on the web on a major author's page.
Have a nice day.
JMN
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
This teacher has it on his website.
He works in Canada.
It is a digitized by Microsoft.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I am not sure where or how Microsoft would be invoved in distributing free copies though. You can probably find it in onlone libraries where you may be able to read and/or borrow a version of it.
It would not be out of copyright in most localities.
posted via 99.240.130.92 user Adam.
----------------------------------------------------------
Has anyone read Cue for Treason and How could a book written in the 1940's be available for free from Microsoft?
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
But I realised this week that there is another tiny drawing that is shown between the book's title and the author's name. What is this - a chilli? Is it solely used for Ransome, or did other authors have this standard motif used?
[I will attempt to display a photo below]
1. Yes, I sent a letter to the editor.
2. It is not really about a published article, it is about owls in Texas, which relate to Arthur Ransome, as I have enjoyed his books all my life and am an avid Guardian reader. If you do not understand the linkages, then I assume you are Oxbridge.
3. The letter was a letter in the email - and I am fairly certain that it was under 300 words.
4. I am sure you will edit my letter, as there is not a living soul, who has not complained about my English. Although there is zero chance you will publish it.
5. I am sure your conditions are acceptable.
6. This email is generated from a real human who lives alone, except when he does not, does Alexa count as human, if she does, she is English, because her humour is not Australian.
7. I did leave out the part about using a straw broom to stop them swooping to low that is to Harry Potter.
8. If the reference to the Seekers is to obscure for you - ask your mother.
9. Having spent several enjoyable weeks in Bristol working with a University Lecturer, I must say I am glad you toppled the statue.
10. Whilst alone, i study the math of the epidemic, the waves in the daily death data are interesting to explain and have a weekly pattern, but no one is interested.
Warm regards
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
We have raised sufficient funds (~US$300) which will cover our expenses for the next year with a small margin for unexpected events.
The special links at the top or bottom of the pages will soon be removed but if anyone would still like to donate to the cause, there is a permanent link to the Donation page which can be found under the [ About the appeal for donations ] tag on the main page of TarBoard. We will be happy to accept contributions all year long.
posted via 99.240.130.92 user Adam.
However, the diaries are published by the Fram Museum and I found out it's website with a wonderful 3D virtual tour of the museum. The museum display looks amazing!
Benjamin Franklin
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Teh problem is the French had a large number of people who aided the Germans as well as fought against them -- we are all lucky not have been subjected to a foreign invasion -- it is a long time since 1066
JMN
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Or get stuck in England cursing because the company cannot refund the money as there is no money
Option 1 - fun and dead === Option 2 not fun but alive
Be thankful you got 2.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I've been searching online for information on my family tree as I've always known that a distant relative of mine, Frederick Lewis, was married to Tabitha Ransome. I never knew much about the marriage itself but have always been interested and thought I would do some digging which led me here...
Tabitha was married to a dock worker, which her father frowned upon, that dock worker was my great uncle, Frederick Lewis. They had two children, Hazel and John, Hazel had two daughters Suzie and Sally Stride who has an art gallery, you can google her.
Frederick had a brother, Cecil and a sister, Florence who was my grand mother, our family all live in Cornwall
Kind Regards
Paul Duff
posted via 5.69.172.219 user Paul1969.
Keep safe!
posted via 81.174.149.186 user Woll.
Peel Island is on Lakeland Cam today
Are you ok?
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I have committed the most terrible mistake in copying some one else's work.
My thought was - this is a great article and I should add it to Tarboard. Of course I should have followed the legal way and provide a link and not copied the words.
Here is the link and hopefully the admin will delete my offending words and only make me walk the plank once.
We realise that the times are difficult and people may currently be experiencing some financial hardship, however, if you possibly can we would appreciate it very much if you could make a donation, no matter how small.
We have not needed to hold a fundraising appeal for TarBoard and All Things Ransome for a couple of years. However, we have used up our reserves.
We are holding an appeal for funds to keep our All Things Ransome and TarBoard website domains alive and to pay the operating expenses to our website hosting service while still leaving us with a reserve to cover any future payments. Our accounts are available for inspection on the All Things Ransome site.
This year we are again asking you to donate a few pounds, dollars, or any other currency to keep the bank accounts topped up so we can keep All Things Ransome and TarBoard going.
Once more we are using PayPal this allows you to pay over the internet through your PayPal account or by credit card through PayPal. There are no additional fees to you, the site is secure and we will not keep any records of your details to maintain your privacy. To make a payment, please use the link below which can also be found on the All Things Ransome site and the main page of TarBoard.
Contributions to the All Things Ransome Association in furtherance of its goals are welcome; please note however that the Association is not tax-exempt or a charitable organization in any jurisdiction.
Plus of course the two spies which adds some excitement and a chase on the roof and sides of a passenger steam train, plus the appearance of vintage vehicles – a seaplane and a motorcycle and sidecar to add to Mr Jackson’s truck which picks them up at the station. Don’t think the Jacksons or Dixons or the Tysons (Mrs Tyson and Robin) have any motor vehicles in the books. And the film is set in 1935 rather than 1930.
posted via 203.96.138.96 user hugo.
I note that 'two weeks' and 'fortnight' have the same number of syllables, whereas 'week' is a shorter word than 'sennight'. Maybe sennight was dropped through laziness while fortnight was retained because it didn't really matter?
posted via 220.245.89.179 user mikefield.
Sennight from Seven-night was also originally Anglo-Saxon. It seems to have died out in the 19th century. Jane Austen uses it in Pride and Prejudice published in 1813 but by the end of the century it was obsolete. Fortnight (fourteen-night) for a two week period remains current usage in British English, though pretty well obsolete in North America, I don't know about other English speaking countries.
posted via 99.240.130.92 user Adam.
Having read nearly all the books in the series, I can vouch that 'Sopranino' is one of the best.
Having read more about Colin's life in the obituary linked below, I can now see he led a very interesting sailing life, with many fascinating angles and achievements. It's well worth a read.
Avunculus in Latin originally meant only the maternal side uncle but it has been absorbed into English to mean all uncle like behaviour whether from a relation or not.
Materteral is the far less widely known word meaning aunt like behaviour, again from the Latin word for the maternal aunt matertera.
posted via 99.240.130.92 user Adam.
posted via 184.65.110.60 user captain.
Then there's Timothy, whose thoughts in PP we had to infer from his actions, up until the Grand Reunion. So there's a third category; those whose actions are only explained by subsequent discourse.
posted via 98.218.103.166 user Jon.
He wondered what was wrong with her. She sat there saying nothing, and, as he glanced sideways, he saw that her lips were tight together. “Taking trouble to somebody,” he said to himself.
We see inside the heads of most of the children. Examples are:
Even William the pug has his thoughts laid bare for us:
For some little time after tea he had lain as usual on the foredeck, catching the last of the sunshine and knowing that he made a noble sight for anybody who might be sailing up or down the river. But the short spring day was ending. People were settling down for the night. There was no one to admire him. He went back into the well and heard Dorothea say what a handsome pug he was, but those newcomers seemed unable to do their washing up without splashing.
But not the G.A.! Who else does... and doesn't... have their thoughts exposed to us?
posted via 86.181.128.129 user Magnus.
posted via 92.16.97.42 user MartinH.
At least the plague and quarantine are very Ransomian, and with the schools closing life should be one long WH for our (grand)children. It won't be, of course, but that's life.
And the Facebook option has much to recommend it, though on balance I prefer the tone of Tarboard.
posted via 88.110.90.133 user Mike_Jones.
Are any Ransome fans out there feeling isolated or struggling to get supplies delivered? There is a high chance that many of our members are in the older 'at risk' groups.
If you need help then please do use this discussion thread as a way to reach out. I can't promise immediate deployment of pemmican and bunloaf, but there will be a sympathetic ear, and ideas of what can be done.
In the meantime, let's keep chatting about our favourite books, and maybe even use this quiet period of less distraction to turn our hand to writing or drawing! Even if it's not a skill you're great at, you can get better with practice.
Finally - if you've been ignoring Facebook for the past decade, refusing to be drawn into social media, thinking it is all bad... well, now might be the time to reconsider. You get out of it what you want to. It isn't "good" or "bad" - it is just a tool. It is free to sign up for an account, and then you can participate in the active Arthur Ransome group. It has a slightly different flavour to TarBoard, but is enjoyable. I think you can enjoy both at once. Neither will replace the other! Link below.
Note he 16.1 km which is 10 miles
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
lol - perhaps not
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
First I discover there are very few copies available on Amazon or ebay, and all overpriced. Hmm, is it rare... or are there just not many of them around?!
Next, Wikipedia. It says: "a title that hovers perpetually on or near the list of ten best-selling non-fiction books in British Columbia". Sounds promising.
So I have had to go by some public reviews: newyorker.com and homeschoollifemag.com and canlit.ca
It is an adult memoir, almost biographical, it seems. Not children's fiction like S&A. It includes lots of messing around in boats, but perhaps has a darker theme too.
I don't think I will spend a fortune on it, but I will read it if I get the chance. Have any other S&A fans tried it?
posted via 31.51.234.31 user Magnus.
(All I did was write a tiny bit of HTML to turn the URL into a downloadable link.)
posted via 178.43.58.85 user Jock.
posted via 178.43.58.85 user Jock.
collections.mun.ca/PDFs/lorelang/LoreandLanguageVol08No021989.pdf
posted via 81.135.223.235 user Peter_H.
I feel sure I've read about a snake in a cigar box elsewhere too, but my memory isn't what it was...
posted via 31.51.234.31 user Magnus.
"The question of whether the adder kept in a moss-lined cigar box 'for luck' was a pet or for some reason a practice steeped in ancient lore is unclear. Dr J B Smith, writing in 'Lore and Language'(1989) looked at Ransome's work as a key to folklore and language and had this to say:
'The charcoal burners, as a group apart, were nothing if not conservative, and it may be that we have here a reflex of the Scandinavian spirit beliefs recorded, for instance, by the Swedish folklorist Norland. In Southern Sweden, Norland tells us, the 'spirit' was a white snake kept in a box.' "
I suspect this might be more information than Beardbiter wishes to receive, but nevertheless I will add that Dr Smith's article is available in full online.
posted via 81.135.223.235 user Peter_H.
I enjoy the Hullabaloos backing track in the second clip as well.
posted via 110.175.105.147 user mikefield.
However, the German Railways on-line timetable gives the times of trains all over Europe.
Jock: Any knowledge on Czech Trains?
posted via 165.91.12.80 user Mcneacail.
our modern problem is some syllabus says XYZ instead of XYZ or ABC and ABC is suddenly obsolete
John
posted via 165.91.12.80 user Mcneacail.
As with Martin, though, I would have said the word should really have been spelled "blewed".
(Also, note that Susan didn't blue a mincing machine per se -- rather she blued a birthday present on a mincing machine. Presumably the present was a cash donation of some considerable amount, which allowed her to only just afford the mincer.)
posted via 110.175.105.147 user mikefield.
My Concise Oxford (9th edition, 1995) has many (9+) meanings for "blue" under two headings; one of them is "Squander" money (British slang, perhaps a variant of "blow"). Others include "a red-headed person" (!) and "an argument or row" (Austral. slang). I recall from the last century an Australian cartoon strip "Bluey and Curley".
And Collins Dictionary (1979) also has for blue "to spend extravagantly or wastefully; squander" (slang)
posted via 202.49.153.3 user hugo.
T. W. Robertson Caste 111 ‘So Papa Eccles had the money?’ ‘And blued it!’
I read Ransome as meaning she was lucky to get it -- never thought of it as squandering money -- must be from the perspective of the person saying it not hers
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Thanks
john
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I always assumed blued means a lucky catch -- but it is not in the dictionary
Thoughts
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Jock : Do you know anything about pre 1970 Czech trains?
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Ouch! I seem to be making more and more silly slips these days.
Here is the film of boats being paddled through Potter Heigham bridge, although one of the half-deckers shoots the bridge in true wherry style. I've also added a second film as a bonus!
Potter Heigham Bridge 2013 Three Rivers Race
The Broads in Ransome's time
posted via 178.43.194.73 user Jock.
There is no link - I would really like to see the film.
Interestingly the wooden boat ads tell you no power - just quant -- I wonder how many people know what a quant is or how to use it.
A wooden boat at the moment costs about 1000 USD a foot, so the 300 pounds is probably about 24000 pounds at the moment. Of course a 30 foot modern boat is going to cost about 300000.
The problem with comparing costs is the technological change. I like the way of using the average annual wage as a cost comparison. I read about it in that great Auction Mystery series that was on TV from the UK.
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
"Wood Anemone" was built in 1947 at a cost of £313.1s.5d. The equivalent value of that sum today is somewhere between £12k and £47k depending on how 'value' is calculared.
Do they pump out the wc?
The Hunter cabin yachts used to have marine-style toilets. They have been replaced with sealed units which are pumped out by the boatyard at the end of the hire period.
The boats are 120 pounds per day - 3 days hire is her construction cost.
Do they pump out the wc?
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
We at MI6 are putting technology at the heart of the way we work. It’s an exciting and demanding time for those who already think digital. But, as an organisation that has its foundations in human relationships, we’re also looking for engineers who are good with people. In a fast changing and unpredictable world, where digital thinking is crucial, you’ll need to be able to balance competing demands like the need for pace, rigour and security, always ensuring that the tools you build are compliant with the law. We’re also looking for adaptable people we can invest in, who are ready to learn and want to develop their skills, keeping pace with rapid change.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I laughed so hard I cried, and these are the people who accused Ransome of being a spy.
Even Roger would not make that mistake.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
My heartfelt condolences go out to Brett and his Mum. And with them goes a sincere wish that Brett does indeed read, not some but all, of the SA books so he can see what he's been missing....
posted via 14.202.17.38 user mikefield.
Mike had suffered a few strokes over the years and more recently had been in particularly poor health.
Despite all of this, I know he had been an avid AR collector and commentator and I know he posted here many times, as well as writing his own analysis of some of the works of AR.
He and my Mum (his Widow) have lived with me for twenty years, so our shelves are full of AR material! I might need some help appreciating what we actually have, so look out for me posting! In fact our last house was situated in the same road as the Witches Cottage, which I understand features in the Swallows and Amazons book.
I asked my Mum and she was OK with me sharing this sad news on the Tarboard forum and with your members.
As time moves on and when things are a little easier for us all, I will read some of Mikes comments and analysis, including actually reading some of the AR books, which I’ve never myself done!
Thanks
Brett Colley
posted via 81.174.149.186 user Woll.
I haven't compared the two, and don't know if they are duplicates or which is more complete.
https://arthur-ransome.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Boats_in_the_Swallows_and_Amazons_series
posted via 47.208.72.200 user dthewlis.
and make any comments about it.
posted via 99.240.130.92 user Adam.
Mine is the twenty-fifth Impression, 1968. Was the note at the bottom of the page included in the original 1937 edition?
posted via 203.96.134.185 user hugo.
I also used to listen to Morse with my father on his old Admiralty B40 receiver. I often used to hear the CQ code and knew it as meaning "I am seeking you" (CQ - get it!).
posted via 94.250.228.202 user PeterW.
A minor oint, after I posted I checked my recording of the programme and realised it was one of the questions where the contestants have to supply the last clue as well as explain the connection
posted via 91.110.170.228 user MTD.
GROUPS - excellent memory gimmick for learning MORSE CODE
The pairs of opposites, such as S O, I M, E T, G W (gee wizz), A N, R K, L F.
Some words are good practice, such as LEFT, with it's two pairs of opposites. L F, and E T.
The similar patterns, as Y and Q, as both have 3 DASHes and one DOT, but differ as to where that DOT goes among the DASHes.
In the special chars are also pairs, such as COMMA and QUESTION MARK.
Those two have a somewhat cute memory gimmick: COMMA, which is:
DASH DASH DOT DOT DASH DASH. Draw it and look at the pattern. The COMMA means a PAUSE for a moment, a sort of interruption. Think of driving down a highway, hit a pot hole, and continue down the highway. The "?" is DOT DOT DASH DASH DOT DOT, just the opposite. When one has a question, that questioning look is eyes wide, and a wrinkled forehead. So think of two eyes with the wrinkled forehead in between. Each EYE ("I") is DOT DOT, and use DASH DASH for the forehead wrinkles.
The MORSE CODE patterns define individual letters. There is the usage of a single letter to mean a whole statement as you pointed out. This is a sort of "code within a code". In a way, that is what ordinary SPELLING is, where a group of LETTERS signify a WORD. For that matter, speaking in any language can be considered a code, where certain sounds mean a concept. Here again, the receiver has to know the code to understand what the sender is saying, or "sending".
The short wave radio has quite a collection of a few letters that have a detailed meaning, such as "CQ" - "CALLING, IS ANYONE OUT THERE? IF YOU HEAR ME, PLEASE ANSWER." There is quite a shorthand language used by those operators.
TEXTING on a cell phone is developing along similar lines, where a brief set of chars has a meaning, like "U" for "YOU". The old rules of SPELLING seem to just get in the way, and take up too much effort.
There are other codes, not just MORSE. Such as, a WINK can mean, "Just kidding". A traffic light has a RED to mean STOP, and a GREEN to mean GO. We use abbreviations as a sort of code. Sometimes a word is really just the first letters of some expression, as SCUBA is from "Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus." And there is USA, a code for the country. Those three letters is not the name of the nation, but is a commonly understood abbreviation. There are certain movements called "body language", facial expressions, hand movements - each has a certain meaning. My car beaps when shifted into reverse. It beats faster if I forget to fasten my seat belt. The car flashes warning lights that to understand the problem, I have to get out my owner's manual and look up that code to find out what it is trying to tell me.
There are alarms, loud, irritating, but have special meanings. Our town sounds an alarm at NOON, meaning two things: "IT IS NOON", and "THE ALARM IS WORKING OK." Now, I hope that tornado does not strike exactly at NOON, or we just might get the wrong translation of the meaning.
Code is all very good, short, abbreviated, but is meaningless unless the receiver understands the code. I was in a department store with a rather loud alarm suddenly went off. I wondered if perhaps I should dive under a table, or just run for it. I asked an employee clerk near by as to what that alarm meant. She paused what she was doing, looked up with a questioning frown on her face, listened for a few blasts, then said, "The alarm is working." I don't think she understood that alarm any better that I did. Perhaps she had heard it so many times before that really had not noticed it this time at all. Whatever that message was, it was not properly received.
Our lives are full of codes, special symbols. We try to learn about these to get the message. Sometimes a code however is not understood.
I enjoyed Ransome using codes, such as SUSAN blowing her whistle, a DOT DOT DASH, which sometimes had perhaps a different meaning from time to time, other than "YOU ARE STANDING INTO DANGER" as sometimes she meant "COME HERE." Ransome did make use of a single FLAG of a certain design to have special meaning in several situations.
WINTER HOLIDAY used MORSE, and the single flag with its meanings, as well as the two flag semaphore. That book was the start of my wanting to know more about that concept of communication, and set me to studying MORSE as one of those methods. I am grateful for him opening my eyes and mind to those fascinating modes of communication. But then, his writings taught me so much, things like building an open fire (the wigwam of twigs), the concepts of sailing that were enough for me to manage my own sailboat without any further readings on "HOW TO." I feel a strong sense of gratitude for what I learned from him, and that just adds to the frustration when I want so much to share that Learning with my subsequent generations, to try to get them to read Ransome, and somehow pick up those teachings that were significant in my growing up, but then to be frustrated by their showing no interest in READING Ransome. They are missing out on so much.
It meant so much to me, for that, I am grateful.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
For those who have not watched it or live outside the UK, the format is that teams of three contestants are given a sequence of four clues, if they can work out the connection between them the more points they get with least number of clues – so 1 clue 4 points down to 4 clues 1 point.
The first clue for this particular sequence was
Winter Holiday
I realised at once the connection, the rest of the sequence was, of course,
Peter Duck Swallowdale Swallows and Amazons
Neither of the teams got it, and were chastised by the presenter, Victoria Coren Mitchell, for being part of generations (all adults) that spend their childhoods playing with computers rather than reading!
It has to be noted that the connections are often very obscure relating to the number of letters in words etc. or, as in another question last night, the colours used in flags. All in the style of cryptic crosswords!
posted via 91.110.170.228 user MTD.
As a boy I was taught a rhyme by my mother which helped.
E I S H what a curious word,
But sometimes you remember things truly absurd.
Its all the plain dotty ones put in a row,
And all the plain dashy ones spell T M O.
A is dot dash, N is dash dot.
and C is dash dot dash dot oh what a lot.
There was more that unfortunately I can't remember. No-one else I have spoken to has heard of this. Has anyone on here?
posted via 92.16.97.64 user MartinH.
Most of my Morse was sent by torch (flashlight), and the torches of those days usually had a special flash button as well as an ordinary on-off switch. While you held the button down the light would be on, and as soon as you released it the light would go off. This made them simple to use for signalling, and was of course what they were there for. While it lasted, this was a much simpler method than your occulting method. But no torches seem to come with flash buttons these days, and in their absence the occulting solution is a good one. (It's also the way an Aldis signalling lamp works, and I note it was the way the D's with their hurricane lantern signalled to Mars.)
The other use of Morse for signalling is via the International Code, by which a sentence can be sent in one letter. AR's best example was the use of the letter U (dit dit dah), 'You are standing into danger'. He uses it in, say, GN when the children are being chased by the gaels (where he also uses V, 'I require assistance'). He even wrote a short story, "Two Shorts and a Long" about that signal. Then there are the one, two, or three toots on a horn or whistle used by the D&Gs to indicate they are turning to starboard, or to port, or are going astern. These are the letters E, I, and S in the Code.
Also, compare the use of a Code flag itself -- as in S for 'I need a pilot' in WDMTGTS, or P for 'We are about to sail', in SW. And the quarantine flag L the children use in WH -- lots of examples.(But note that the International Code has been changed since AR's day, and, for instance, it's now G for a pilot. However, many of the others still have the same meaning.) Most of us don't carry a set of signal flags around with us though, whereas many still have a handkerchief we can wave.
Along with all your various methods of signalling by Morse, there was another one I used to use once in a while. I could signal to a mate in the classroom by winking an eye, a dot or a dash being identified by the length of time of the wink. Undetectable, and very useful occasionally....
[ Image ]
posted via 123.243.233.176 user mikefield.
If you look up TAPPING IN CODE on the Internet, it is apt to describe a NON-MORSE code defining a 5x5 square, where the number of TAPs gives the ROW number then the COLUMN number. The square has the alphabet. PROBLEM: 26 letters do not fit on a FIVE BY FIVE square, as that is only 25 positions, so a letter of the alphabet is simply discarded. To send a "Z" [bottom right corner of that square] would take FIVE BANGS [row number] then FIVE BANGS [col number], then a pause, then the next pair of numbered bangs to define another letter. That is a lot of banging. The main advantage of that BANG CODE is, it is easy to create a cheat sheet by drawing that square and filling in the characters (leaving "K" out) rather than having to learn the patterns defining MORSE CODE. It is an education/training difference.
Another digital mode for MORSE: A single flag, held straight up. To send a DOT, wave it to the sender's RIGHT, and back up to vertical. The DASH is a wave to the sender's LEFT, and back up to vertical. The end of character is a wave straight DOWN in front from the vertical, and back up to the vertical. The end of a word is two of these DOWN strokes with the vertical in between, ending in the vertical position. A flag can get heavy and tiring for long messages. Learn to wave it in a figure eight pattern to avoid it getting wrapped about the pole. If the distance is not all that much, try just waving a handkerchief, in the right hand for DOT, and pass into the left hand for DASH. This RIGHT or LEFT mode can be a nod of the head, or a tilt on a fork held in the fist on the table. The Receiver knows that meaning, but the others in the table think you are nuts.
AS for memorizing MORSE code, the Internet has references to a list of definitions of a WORD or a short phrase whose beat is the long and short defining the code of that letter that is usually the first letter of the symbolic code. For example: "C" is "COKE ah COLE ah". (DAH DIT DAH DIT). An exception to that first letter is "Q" where "Q" suggests "QUEEN" which suggests the well known phrase: "GOD SAVE the QUEEN." (note the timing and emphasis, where the "the" was a DOT and the emphasized words are DASH). Hearing DAH DAH DIT DAH just sounds like "GOD SAVE the QUEEN" - which suggests the "Q" (hopefully it does anyway.)
I am grateful to DOROTHEA and DICK practicing their code at the table in the Dixon's kitchen. Their memorization I don't think used the KEY PHRASE described above, which I find easier, and avoids the need of a pocket notebook like Dick had. The memorization method reminds me of learning the multiplication table in the third grade repeated often enough until it became memorized - a lot of work. But Ransome inspired me to learn it as well as a young boy which enabled me to be a TEACHER at the BOY SCOUTS to pass on this to my fellow Scouts.
ED KISER, KENTUCKY, USA [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
Just goes to show that SPACE is a significant part of the message. The novice problem is TIMING. The short signal for DOT and the long signal for DASH are ANALOG style definitions, with the problem being - "that was a bit long for a DOT, yet a bit short for a DASH". There is a boundary in the timing that separates the two items, and if the length is near that boundary, it becomes unclear as to the meaning of the symbol that has become ambiguous.
I like the TAP method, like banging a hammer on a wall, where one BANG is a DOT, and two rapid BANGS close together [reminds me of the double click used on the computer mouse] signifies the DASH, but the TIME of both are the same, a constant unit of time. Use 3 time units to be between letters, and seven units of time at the end of a word. You may want to try something faster for those pauses. This method becomes a DIGITAL signal to distinguish DOT from DASH and thus avoids ambiguity mistakes.
This method works for a whistle and a flashlight rather than the LONG and SHORT style.
Suggestion: when using a flashlight, leave it on. Put your hand in front to block the light, then slide the hand down to show the light, a movement similar to pressing on a transmitter key, and quickly back up to cover the light. When receiving, leave the light uncovered to show the other person where you are so he can aim his light at you properly. The concept of tapping can be used here quite well, with one flash is a DOT and two quick flashes is a DASH, the TIMING of both are the same, as some set beat, like a band conductor waving his stick.
Nice for hand holding in a theater. A quick squeeze, or two rapid squeezes gets the message across - quietly.
Try nodding the head across the dinner table. A quick nod for DOT, two quick nods for DASH. Others at the table think you are afflicted with a twitch. Can be fun.
Give a try to the SINGLE and DOUBLE way of distinguishing the DOT and DASH rather than the length of time being a SHORT and a LONG.
The problem with any code is that whatever method is used, both the sender and the receiver have to have previously agreed as to just what means what.
Hope you have some fun experimenting with this concept. A bit of practice, a good buddy to practice with, and it can become quite natural and simple.
I liked seeing that PERIOD at the end of your message I see you know your stuff.
PERIOD = "and THAT 'S the END of THAT"
Love those memory gimmicks. Makes learning Morse much easier.
Thanks for the reply...
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
Good show...
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
. -..
. - --- - .- .-.. .-.. -.-- .- --. .-. . . .-.-.-
posted via 94.250.228.202 user PeterW.
'' - --- - .- .-.. .-.. -.-- .- --. .-. . . .-.-.-
posted via 94.250.228.202 user PeterW.
"...when a man has greatly loved a book he read in
childhood he gets the pleasure from seeing new children
reading it."
"...reading it can shrink in weight and knowledge and be
himself what once he was before ever he was submitted to
the assault and battery of the world, which, when he
considers it, he is surprised to have survived. Reading
that book he recovers his own childhood. And to see a
child reading it is to be himself a child, looking over
the other child's shoulder and sharing page by page the
old enthrallment."
In those above few lines, Ransome has well stated the attachment
I have felt towards his stories, to where they have become a part
of who I am.
Indeed, it is perhaps a wonder how a elderly man (myself, age 84)
can still go back to those Ransome books and find yet again a
delightful satisfaction from reliving those moments with his
chilhood friends in those books. They never grew up, and when I
am rereading them again, I am made to feel young again, to take
part in those adventures that were so real to me in my youth.
It continues to surprise me how hard it has been to get my
following generations to even try to read these books. This
remains to be a disappointment, to have to realize that they can
never feel the adventure, to share in the learning experiences
that I gained from my childhood readings of these books.
Somehow, I have not "sold" them on the idea of absorbing the
concepts presented by these stories that have been so much a part
of my own gathering of knowledge. They have missed out on so
much that has become a part of me.
But perhaps in a small way, all was not lost, because I once
received a Birthday card from my grandson. In such a card one
writes a brief note, the usual greetings and well wishes extended
on a birthday, but in this case, in stead of those words, I found
several lines of DOTS AND DASHES, which, when translated eagerly
into letters, spelled out those well wishes in a manner that was
indeed my reward. Somehow, I had passed on my interest in Morse
Code, presented to me in "WINTER HOLIDAY." At least, a part of
those books has been passed on.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
He read to his daughter from the S&A books while she was recuperating in hospital, and got a book on sailor’s knots to help his daughter to plait her hair. She learned to chop and stack firewood, row a boat and clean a rifle. He got his two step-children to sleep on sheepskins on the floor rather than beds. As a young man he had an outdoors background in deer-culling and possum-trapping (both regarded as pests in New Zealand although the Australian possum is protected in its home country!).
He was an original member of the 'gang of three' that met in the "Red Lion Pub" opposite Ealing Film Studios to discuss the future of TarBoard. Wise voices opined that resurrecting the old 'Arthur Ransome Pages' (now incorporated in 'All Things Ransome') was going to need resources and diplomacy enough, and that trying to take on TarBoard as well could well be 'A Bridge Too Far'. Owen's enthusiasm carried the day and here we are!
posted via 178.43.131.157 user Jock.
It doesn't make it clear whether he read the book a lot, or just knew of it, but it's always nice to see our favourite referenced in print.
posted via 31.48.241.197 user Magnus.
Thanks to the Trust, and to photographer Marc Grimston, for their efforts.
It is the 12 year old in Texas with an AK47 that is the problem
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
When sailing, and especially when instructing novices, I carry a knife with a larger, serrated blade with a rounded tip. If I need to cut free webbing or cordage in the event of an emergency I want a tool that will do the job quickly. While travelling to and from the sailing club my knife is put away in my sailing bag with the rest of my kit.
posted via 92.16.48.90 user MartinH.
Reading WH as an older adult the realising that Nancy sees qualities in both Ds that all the other S & As overlook, is some very perceptive writing by AR. The book also contains some of his finest writing, though many argue that this accolade goes to WDMTGTS, this is a book I only read once in childhood and only got to know as an adult but still can't see why some rate it so highly.
posted via 31.127.243.106 user MTD.
I found a table and between 1962 and 19271, the dates of Easter ranged from 26 March to 22 April so I never experienced a particularly early one.
posted via 99.240.142.74 user Adam.
I mean I like the D's - they are such interesting personalities and Dots treatment of Dick is classic
Which one is older - never worked it out
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
My parents wanted to acknowledge her help when naming me. The lady's name was Eillen Hornbuckle, so not much scope there for a boys name. Her maiden name was Tristram so thats what I got! I hated through most of my childhood as I was endlessly teased for it at school!
posted via 31.127.243.106 user MTD.
I called my third daughter Catriona McLeod and she hates her middle name - lol I love it
John
posted via 165.91.13.49 user Mcneacail.
Vercingetorix (/ˌvɜːrsɪnˈdʒɛtərɪks/ VUR-sin-JET-ər-iks, /-sɪŋˈɡɛt-/ -sing-GET-; Latin: [wɛrkɪŋˈɡɛtɔrɪks]; c. 82 BC – 46 BC) was a king and chieftain of the Arverni tribe; he united the Gauls in a revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars.
Vercingetorix was the son of Celtillus the Avernian, leader of the Gallic tribes. Vercingetorix came to power after his formal designation as chieftain of the Arverni at the oppidum Gergovia in 52 BC. He immediately established an alliance with other Gallic tribes, took command and combined all forces, and led them in the Celts' most significant revolt against Roman power. He won the Battle of Gergovia against Julius Caesar in which several thousand Romans and allies died and Caesar's Roman legions withdrew.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
In short Australian speak : Brogan had some good tucker, was happy - read the bit about Ransome and was p_____d or to speak British - a tad upset. This is why I am not AR.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Mike Dennis said (August 8) that Brogan wrote a letter to Cape after a "somewhat bibulous" dinner at his Cambridge college when he read the review in the common room. Was that a normal Oxbridge dinner?
posted via 203.96.136.146 user hugo.
There is an excellent obituary of Hugh Brogan in the London Times today (9th August) but again is behind a paywall. Here is the opening paragraphs which give an insight in to how he came to write AR's biography unknown to me.
Like many of his generation, Hugh Brogan grew up with Swallows and Amazons, enjoying Arthur Ransome’s tales of John, Bridget, Titty, Roger and Susan, and their adventures in the Lake District. However, it was as a historian that he returned to Ransome because of his interest in the author’s role as an observer and chronicler of the Russian revolution, and as husband to Evgenia, Trotsky’s personal secretary.
His renewed interest was triggered one evening in 1974 when, after a somewhat bibulous dinner at his Cambridge college, Brogan retired to the senior common room. “I was reading the paper when I came across a review of the film of Swallows and Amazons in which Arthur Ransome was dismissed as an old Tory writing ridiculous and reactionary stories about children,” he told The Times in 1984 at the time of the author’s centenary. “My blood boiled . . . I sat down and wrote to Ransome’s publishers that this was absurd.”
The correspondence ended up with Evgenia, who was so impressed that anyone should feel sufficiently moved to defend her husband that she invited the young academic to become his biographer.
posted via 91.110.170.219 user MTD.
The n words are sad - but in reality variants on the Latin -- we make them bad with usage implications
I will get another EB book and see if it was just me being sensitive
I have two adopted Chinese daughters, the eldest one 14 once chastised the 12 year old when she commented on another race by saying - be quiet we have the white advantage -- and she does the name is everything in the end -- 'Catriona Nichols" is a name that does not bring racial overtones except Scottish and everybody hates the Scots -- lol joking .
posted via 165.91.13.49 user Mcneacail.
WH is good, but darn it some times I just want to get lost in the humour of PM and occasionally scared to death in WDM
posted via 165.91.13.49 user Mcneacail.
I have recounted here before that as a mature student at Essex Univeraity I metI him , found him to be most approachable (I just knocked on his office door one afternoon!) He signed my copy of the biography and we had a discussion about our favourite AR book, a choice we shared - WH.
I lost my signed copy of the biography in a messy divorce 20 years ago, when I acquired a new copy I e-mailed him asking if he would sign a slip of paper for me keep in the new copy (as the original book had been a present from my late mother I was keen to have his signature in the replacement copy), he replied to my request promptly and was willing to do so given the cirsumstances for which I was most grateful.
posted via 91.110.170.219 user MTD.
Most of the books apart from WH and CC (& PD and GN) are set in the summer holidays and August is often mentioned. The summer holidays are mainly in August but start in late July.
In SD they are on the summit on August 11, on Day 15. So Day 1 is 28 July, but on the first day AR writes "August had come again" (hb p18) And on day 4 (after the shipwreck) the able-seaman is in command and when they go swimming "the water was cold even in August" (SD11, hb p142); but it is 31 July!
When Captain Flint moves the camp to Wild Cat Island, they first see a lantern on the lighthouse tree, up "thirty feet of smooth trunk" (SD36, hb p441,446). Captain Flint says "that tree takes some climbing". No wonder he was tired! Or did Mary’s woodman climb it?
Yes indeed ... fell out of favour so far here, in fact, that her books were removed from the public school system altogether, and even our public libraries stopped stocking them.
Fortunately that's changed now, and I was pleased to be able to buy my 6yo granddaughter a copy of one of the Secret Seven books a few weeks back for her to try out.
Other children's books like Joel Chandler Harris' 'Uncle Remus' stories and Helen Bannerman's "Little Black Sambo" and so on have also been considered at various times to be non-pc, and suffered accordingly.
(Dare I say it, but there were even some TarBoard contributors here a while back who wanted to bowdlerise AR because he used the word "nigger"....)
posted via 123.243.209.130 user mikefield.
As for you being disturbed by EB's sexism - that was why she fell out of favour (along with racism) in the 1960s and 70s. Both aspects have been well used by the recent parody versions!
posted via 91.110.170.219 user MTD.
BBC 4 is talking about the Luddites, they were only trying to protect their income - think of banks during the recession.
I was talking to a children's librarian at my local library - she had no knowledge of Enid B or AR, we had a long conversation on these authors. Although I bought a Famous Five book for my 12 year old daughter and on reading it I was a little disturbed by the sexism in the book.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
On school, Missee Lee tests them in ML and Roger is the only one with much Latin. Nancy knows French; but it is not a classical language! When they are all quarantined in WH, John is concerned about getting into the "fifteen" i.e. he plays rugby. In SW, Daisy Susan & Titty discuss School Certificate on the missionary boat. But I think SD is the only book with holiday tasks – for John (algebra), Susan (geography) and Titty (French verbs) - but not for Roger!
posted via 203.96.130.152 user hugo.
It is nice to know we follow millennia old traditions -- even the British Parliament can not fix that
Another example of a proposed reform occurred in the United Kingdom, where the Easter Act 1928 was established to allow the Easter date to be fixed as the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April. However, this law was not implemented, although it remains on the UK Statute Law Database.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
AR stays away from almost everything grownup - church - I do not believe there is a reference to religion in the books, yet I would be surprised if GA is not a devout C of E and went to church on Sundays -- it was just the age and her class. He pokes gentle fun at the Police except for the Big Four
Albert Hawkins,[1]
Arthur Neil,[2]
Francis Carlin,[3] and
Frederick Wensley.[4]
And aside from French Verbs and Roger being tipped for "pranks" pretty well stays away from school.
he was very focussed.
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I imagine that the children would always be at home for the Easter weekend. Easter Day would fall some time in the holiday period. Probably most often in the middle, but on occasion at the very beginning or the very end.
posted via 99.240.142.74 user Adam.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Nancy’s comments on the 1901 note in the brass box on Kanchenjunga (that Jim and Molly would have had to escape from the Great-aunt) indicate that the Blackett grandparents were dead by then. With Nancy 12 or 13 in 1930 and Peggy a year or two younger, Bob Blackett could have died in the influenza epidemic of 1918-19 or even late in the Great War,
And would the Beckfoot estate have tenant farmers to provide an income? No mention in the books, but I have supposed that the Dixons, Jacksons, Swainsons and Tysons did not own their farms?
posted via 203.96.140.79 user hugo.
I wonder what great saying AR would have said of the new PM -
Ed: How is your vacation
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
We learnt a lot about being parents from the books.
PS -- I cannot make it past 2 am -- Ed how about you.
John
Tonight I have to make a tent in the living room - 40 degrees outside and snakes -- there is a 7 foot bastard in the wood opposite us make outside impossible
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
The family is like most families complicated and strangely wonderful.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
She's moored across the entrance to a dyke, and I suppose they're hoping that Tom will be a bit old now, and she a bit too big, to be cast off to allow that motorboat out....
Note, she is being worked by a rather larger crew than captain and mate that operated Sir Garnet.
So to redress the balance, here is another Broads film, this time made in 1948 when petrol was in short supply, with lots of sailing boats and some would-be Dick and Dorotheas learning to sail.
A wonderful piece of history -- and with wooden boats galore. Wroxham, Horning, Potter, Yarmouth Lowestoft, the New Cut... Two hundred and twenty miles in a Margoletta in two weeks. This family of four greatly enjoyed doing it, and I greatly enjoyed watching it.
There is more on Wikipedia (follow the link below).
Additionally, some employers of overseas and military parents would receive a contribution towards the costs of their children's education as part of their employment compensation.
Also many schools allowed fees to be paid in advance of entry to obtain a discount on the total, so grandparents etc. could support struggling parents of they had the money.
Finally, as supposedly charitable organization there were scholarships and bursaries available for "suitable" families with limited means, such as the clergy or children of those killed in the First World War etc.
posted via 99.240.138.46 user Adam.
Post WWII, labour costs increased rapidly, making labour intensive activities such as running boarding schools, or maintaining steam locomotives, much less affordable and many boarding schools closed.
Recently, UK boarding schools have started to attract the global super rich and fees have rocketed.
How did they afford it
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Tiny gunter-rigged dinghys, water quite deep at the far end by the old tide mill, strong squalls coming from the North Sea, no lifejackets!
My school friend (also John) chickened out and spent his hour-long sessions in a rowing boat!
My mother seemed to think that I knew what I was doing. Those were the days!
posted via 178.43.122.206 user Jock.
I remember well those days in the early 60's, sailing so grandly in my catamaran, on a Reach with one hull out of the water, a delightful balancing act, not once capsizing. Then close hauled, with the wind in my face, riding the waters rushing by, testing the main sheet settings to try to get the best out of the wind, watching the patterns on the water to be ready for a sudden gust to suddenly require proper adjustments. The thrill of hearing, or rather, Feeling the rushing waters as I pass by, riding the wind. As "John" would say, "sailing is the thing." Besides, rowing seems like Work. Those memories are vivid, as of yesterday, not to be easily forgotten. Thanks for the Memories.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
it is sunny outside how about we take Swallow for a sail --
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Very beautiful - but people died in the rain in the area that week - about 2 years ago
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Oh yes, please do!
posted via 178.43.189.109 user Jock.
The Martham yard is normally packed with wooden-hulled boats, so I assume most of them are out at the moment. As I write this, I think someone is just taking their stuff on board - lucky them!
When I last went, out-of-season, The Broads were pretty much as I remembered from the 70s. Quite quiet, and saw some lovely wooden-hulled cruisers and a fair few yachts. The are north of Potter Heigham is not accessible by many of the modern boats, so is much quieter.
There are some other webcams on this page:
https://www.horning-sailing.club/webcams.php
Yesterday is the past.
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
The past is a differet country, they do things differently there.
L.P. Hartley
posted via 178.43.209.55 user Jock.
If they had money - I would guess something like this?
That is not a proper holiday -- Ed :: did Roger once ask about wearing two ties or is that an old memory.
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
The whole film can be bought on DVD.
posted via 178.43.209.55 user Jock.
Towards the end of our voyaging we reached Wroxham. This had been a bit of a struggle because of the trees upstream of Horning. I was determined to reach Coltishall, the head of navigation, so after supper I set off in the dinghy.
All proceeded to plan and I reached the site of the burnt-out Coltishall Mill, but on my return the Seagull started to play up, and I had to restart it several times, and nurse it carefully at low revs to keep it going. It grew darker and darker and eventually it grew pitch black. There was no moon. Steering by the stars is all very well, but when there are lots of trees and the river does lots of "U" bends, it's not always possible to see the stars! It wasn't quite an action replay of John sailing in the dark, but close enough for me.
I did get back to Wroxham, but the rest of the crew were close to mutiny. The following day, it transpired that there was nothing wrong with the Seagull, but my father, not realising that two-strokes need a petrol/oil mixture, had filled the fuel tank with petrol instead.
posted via 178.43.209.55 user Jock.
The Beckfoot cold water system is easy. There was once a well, then a dowser came, a stream was tapped and the well replaced with plumbing. This much Ransome shares with us. Others go on and postulate ram pumps. I like to think of a small dam and a pipe running down the side of a larger stream.
Some narrow gauge railway enthusiasts will recogise the that there are similar arrangements at Dolgoch, but to say more would be to stray off AR.
Where I've never been able to get things right is the hot water system. A cast iron affair in the kitchen, and lots of pipes and tanks, or just a washbasin in the bathroom, a huge kettle and jugs carried to the bathroom? ISTR that the relevant text in PM can be read both ways.
posted via 178.43.209.55 user Jock.
... and Winnie-The-Pooh and Piglet before them, when following woozles...
:-)
posted via 61.69.151.10 user mikefield.
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I wonder what system AR used at his place
Jojn
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
By the way, I moved away from Florida in 2006, now living next door to my daughter in Kentucky. Not alligator territory any more, but horses.
Ed Kiser [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
[ Image ]
posted via 61.69.151.10 user mikefield.
I think any expedition beyond the trivial should be undertaken by believers only. Leave the heathens in bed if necessary.
If I ever manage to get back to the Lake District, I will be reserving half the budget just to give to my wife, with instructions to enjoy herself at the shops and let me take as long as I like to walk in the rain.
posted via 81.129.151.135 user Magnus.
Of course none of my 4 daughters would ever read SA, only one landed wet on Wildcat island and she climbed Old Man -- I told her that we would eat a bit of chocolate at the quarter points in the climb - if she complained in that quarter I would eat her bit for that quarter and vice versa - she complained - I ate hers and she never forgave me
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
I am so sorry it has been a long time since I was on the site, although I think of you and Florida and alligators all of the time.
Can we go back 20 years and talk about an honest subject plumbing
Warm regards your "old" friend John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Luckily the site had some conveniently located trees and
we had a good length of light rope from a sailing boat we had towed north. Remembering the tents mother made for the Swallows in S&A, I worked out how to rig the tent between two trees and so we were kept dry during the overnight showers
posted via 99.240.138.46 user Adam.
But there are some things you simply cannot arrange to do. Drift to Holland accidentally, and so on! I'd never thought about it before, until one happened to me by accident.
Cycling round the Army ranges near my house, visiting a corner that I'd been to only oncve before (memorably falling off my bike and wetting an ankle in a stream) I found myself approaching a slope which lead downwards to a... wait a minute! I was here five minutes ago! That's the same plank bridge across the same stream!
I'd been making up the route as I went, skirting round the edge of a horse-riding show that adjoined the ranges, and somehow had ridden in a big curve, right back the way I had come, till I'd looped around and rejoined my own tracks without realising it.
I felt very silly, until I realised I could now experience the same feelings that Titty and Roger did, when lost in the fog in Swallowdale.
Oh, except it wasn't foggy. Whoops.
Anyway, who else has recreated a moment from the books inadvertantly?
posted via 81.129.151.135 user Magnus.
I was surprised last week to get a message in my work email inbox about a large train in some forgotten corner of the world. But thank you for the post it was interesting. I had always thought the NSW Garrets were the largest engines because of the tale of one getting lost in the Liverpool Tunnel and the drivers could not open the doors.
Story - train went up mountain - and disappeared -- who would look in the tunnel at the top of the mountain.
it has been to long since I was on this site.
John
posted via 47.218.214.52 user Mcneacail.
Hart-Davis was a friend of AR because of their enthusiasm for cricket and rugby (and they had both dropped out of university in their first year). He got AR to write introductions for his "Mariners Library" reprints.
I recall that in "The Last Englishman" the bio by Chambers that Chambers wrote about Genia "She was his fiercest critic, deploring his books while he as writing them but praising the book as his greatest effort when it was published". She found "The Picts and the Martyrs" hopeless, but it was finally published as his mother liked it. A book I like, because of Dick.
posted via 203.96.136.126 user hugo.
I occasionally look at the Arthur Ransome public facebook group and often surprised by the comments or questions that are well covered by 'All Things Ransome', maybe someone should point this out and that Tarboard exists. I don't contribute or comment myself not being part of facebook (it always seems to be a kind of 'showing off'!
posted via 2.30.184.98 user MTD.
Ransome's occasional bad temper is well known and has been mentioned often. 'Lacking direction'? Well he chopped and changed a lot during his life, but once he found Evgenia and his ability to write successful books, he stayed with both. 'Forever running away'? I can't see it like that. He didn't run away from Russia, until he had to.
'Felt guilty about his treatment of Ivy' - again, this is more or less accepted.
'Mavis won and Ransome was furious'. Furious probably with himself, as Mavis was unwieldy and should not have won. Roger Wardale has written that 'the dinghy became unstable in anything of a blow'.
The rest of the interview is mainly about petty family liaisons and resentments. Many large families, thrown together by marriage, have these. I have always believed that we should not try to make either saints or villains out of the Altounyans - they were just there at the time, and certainly partly the inspiration for the Swallows. It has been said that the Swallows are a bit too perfect for children. The Altounyans were not perfect, but did much good in the world - particularly Roger. I'm glad that Mrs Ryan found him 'good fun'.
posted via 81.141.61.154 user Peter_H.
I don't know how many people here have visited and explored our companion site All Things Ransome . It developed from the Literary Pages of an earlier version of the TARS website.
It contains a lot of interesting Ransome related material, from articles and reviews to simple quizzes and games.
Today I thought that I would look in the Connections pages, Arthur Ransome Connections which contain a number of articles about people who met or somehow connected with Ransome during his lifetime. Several of them descrbe reply cards received by a young fans after they wrote to Ransome, another describes a visit by Ellen Tillenghast to have tea with Arthur and Evgenia when they lived in London.
However, the story that I found most informative was that of Roger Wardle's interview with Phillipa Ryan, Ursula Collingwood's daughter. She describes Ransome as a rather insecure and irascible man she knew as a child. Competitive and did not like losing. Her impressions of Evgenia were a bit different. Many people sem to demonise Evgenia a bit with concerns over her disapproving nature for Ransome's later books but she did seem to rule the roost as she was a decisive character. Reading this some of Ransome's later distancing from the Altounyan family can be explained as being part of his character.
The article also contains short snippets about the Collingwoods and Altounyans which are not really very complimentary. I did find Susan's later activity in France during the war etc. to be interesting when you think of how Ransome portrayed her in the books. Much more like Nancy than Susan in my opinion.
Of course one does have to wonder about the descriptions and how much it is a generational attitude towards her uncles, aunts and grandparents.
I suggest that yu have a read (see link below) and give me your ideas
I've only just realised the author has his old house (near Swindon, UK) turned into a museum, and I wondered if any of you had been there? Do tell me if it is any good.
Personally, I find Bevis to be a boy with all the Roger-ness of Roger turned up to 11, plus all the imagination of Titty turned up to 11, combined with Nancy's expectations of leadership....
(Just a few several-dozen more jobs to do before I'm declaring this finished.)
Apologies if you've all seen this on Facebook or elsewhere.
Andy
[ Image ]
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
Secondly, the change in the direction of flow as the tide turned would change the direction of pull on the anchor. One of the ways of "tripping" an anchor is to pull it from a vertical or from a position opposite from the one which it was originally laid. In this case as the ebb tide took the Goblin downstream. she would have been pulling the anchor from the opposite direction so making it more likely to break free.
posted via 99.240.138.46 user Adam.
It was on the next turn of tide, about six hours later, when another change of direction of the rode might have been sufficient (with by then a very short scope) to have broken out the anchor.
posted via 14.200.206.31 user mikefield.
Goblin had come back up-river and moored on the North Shelf on the last of the ebb, so she would have been facing upstream, with the rode pointing downstream, when the anchor was set.
As Magnus and Jon have said, even a few fathoms of chain at the anchor end of the rode (whether or not the rest of the rode is rope) would normally lie flat on the bottom, exerting a horizontal pull on a properly-embedded anchor and thus keeping it in place. If there are jerks on the rode, as with strong gusts of wind on the moored vessel, the length of chain can lift momentarily, but essentially it acts as a spring, falling back down again as soon as the gust is over. (In Goblin's case the entire rode is chain anyway, which of course is even better.)
If the effect of the rode's catenary is lost however because the rode is very short, then the weight of the chain has less effect and the pull on the anchor becomes more vertical, and eventually the anchor will be plucked out of the ground. This effect will be exacerbated should the pull of the rode start coming from a different direction at the same time.
Now, if Mike Bender's guess were correct and the anchor left the bottom at half-flood, then Goblin would indeed have drifted upstream until the tide turned. But we're told (by John, at the end of Chapter 7) that it was on or just after high tide when Goblin went adrift. So the anchor had held until just on high water, when the rode could have been very nearly vertical anyway (we don't have enough information to be sure), and it may well have been the change in direction of the pull on the rode when the tide turned that tipped the balance and tripped the anchor. In any case, Goblin would certainly have drifted seaward once she started dragging, exactly as AR put it.
So it seems to me that Bender hasn't read the text all that well, because he should have picked that up. And although I only read the first page of his article I noted two other errors in it -- one, that Roger was six in S&A (when the very first sentence in the book tells us that he was seven), and another when he mentions Goblin's length as being twenty feet, when as far as I know her length isn't mentioned in the book at all. But we do know she's a seven-tonner, which implies a length of about 30'. (And in fact, as we know but Bender might not, Goblin is actually the real-life Nancy Blackett, whose length on deck is 28'.)
None of this is to say that John didn't make mistakes. He did. After all, this was his first time on a vessel the size of Goblin, and his first experience of being in tidal waters. But I think Bender is drawing a pretty long bow if he concludes that John is therefore a poor seaman.
I believe that the author was referring to the "rising" flood exerting the strongest pull at half water; ebb, by definition, is when the tidal current is flowing toward the sea. I'm not familiar with the term "rising ebb"; I suspect it's a state (around dead low water) where the flood's begun and is flowing over the continuing ebb tide but the stronger ebb current at depth means the tidal level's falling though surface currents are running onshore.
My reaction is the same as Magnus' about the relevance of the time of strongest pull; as long as there's enough scope to the anchor line it wouldn't be a problem.
Since the main anchor's on a chain, not a rope (which will have, at best, minimal weight under water, and may even have a slight buoyancy), the catenary would provide some measure of "cushion" to the pull, decreasing as the scope of the anchor line decreases with the rising tide. The aid from the weight of a chain, rather than a rope, for the anchor line is why even where a rope anchor line is in use, larger vessels will often use a length of chain between the rope and the anchor.
At high tide, with minimal scope (approaching 1:1, since the chain was vertical when John checked it),the anchor could capsize, losing its hold, when the flow reverses to the ebb. Without ample scope to set it in the new direction, it'd skip over the bottom.
As to his not checking as to whether the chain was cleated off, in the chain locker, we have Ransome's own words that the chain went "out over the bows with a bit of frayed rope flying after it", so the rope at the end apparently broke under continual abrasion from the overlying chain and the sudden shock rather than not having been secured.
posted via 98.218.103.166 user Jon.
I'm a dinghy sailor though, not a yachtsman, so happy to be corrected....
posted via 81.129.151.135 user Magnus.
In the article, Mr Bender lists a number of faults in John's seamanship, mainly in WDMTGTS. He begins with a rather startling point about the Goblin drifting out to sea at the beginning of the book, which he thinks is "authorial sleight of hand" on AR's part:
"The anchor breaks out and the boat starts drifting. However, the strongest pull on the anchor chain would have occurred after half tide, but this would mean that, rather than drift with the new ebb out to sea, the Goblin would drift up the Stour on the flood, but 'We Didn't Mean to Go to Ipswich' doesn't have quite the same ring."
I am not a sailor, and I don't really understand Mike Bender's argument, but others might. The article is available online, possibly behind a pay wall, although it may be possible to access it as a guest. The first page is on open access anyway. Go to the 'Mirror' home page at the link below and then click on the article in the list of contents.
Mariner's Mirror
posted via 86.129.0.212 user Peter_H.
So it is not that the naughty Walkers disobeyed their parents and thus were nearly crushed in a mine / drowned offshore / died by exposure.
OK, perhaps Mrs Blackett didn't actually give permission as such; Nancy seems the type to disappear off regardless!
I suppose the children of the 1930s had a lot more risks to contend with in everyday life - fewer medicines, lead paint everywhere, no seatbelts, etc - so perhaps parents felt it impossible to guard their children against every danger (as parents try to in 2019). Or maybe I haven't thought this theory through properly?
posted via 81.129.151.135 user Magnus.
Wasn't there a child who wrote to Ransome saying, "please write another book with the same children doing all the same things"? It was quoted somewhere in one of the biographical works (I apologise for forgetting the exact reference). I can totally understand why children feel that way, despite our adult reasoning seeing a need for plot development and the lure of something new.
posted via 81.129.151.135 user Magnus.
My first thought is that this demonstrates why AR is a great writer (as opposed to a great children's writer as I have argued at length before) and the best that can be said about Blyton is that for many of us she was a starting point, but otherwise she provided 'safe' reading in the sense the nearly every book is the same as the last one.
I'll have to listen to the programme and give it some more thought.
posted via 95.144.242.144 user MTD.
Duncan
posted via 151.226.11.4 user Duncan.
PD, ML and GN are different from the rest.
posted via 95.144.241.218 user MTD.
However, in WD, there is also a real threat to life by their drifting out to sea in a fog, in rough weather, in shoal waters. This story has its fascination because of that REAL threat, and how they managed to survive.
And in the first of those three, the SWALLOW is being used. But it does not belong to the Walkers, but to Mr. Jackson at Holly Howe. While being lent to John and his crew, they may refer to it as THEIR boat, but really it must be left at Holly Howe as there is where it belongs. For the sake of their made up story in PD, they can pretend that SWALLOW really is theirs, where it did get nicked by a bullet.
We all understand all these 12 are fiction, all just made up, and those three are stories within a story which allows for a bit more "risk".
Within all 12, we are taken away from our own real worlds to become, once again, with our friends we met so very long ago, who never get old, and as long as we go sailing or camping with them, we too remain young. Therein lies the joy of being a part of the Ransome Adventures.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
I've been using the term meta-fiction (I can't remember where I first saw it) when in AR's case it is not the right one.
There is certainly something different about PD, ML and possibly GN. Perhaps, like others, I have been misled by AR's own explanation as to the origin of Peter Duck?
posted via 95.144.241.218 user MTD.
Peter Duck had grown up gradually to be one of the able-seaman’s most constant companions, shared now and then by the boy, but not taken very seriously by the others, though nobody laughed at him. He had been the most important character in the story they had made up during those winter evenings in the cabin of the wherry with Nancy and Peggy and Captain Flint. Peter Duck, who said he had been afloat ever since he was a duckling, was the old sailor who had voyaged with them to the Caribbees in the story and, still in the story, had come back to Lowestoft with his pockets full of pirate gold.Emphasis added.
The books are firmly within the genres of Treasure Island (find treasure, fight pirates, win), and King Solomon’s Mines (find unknown civilisation, get captured, escape), but that is as far as the literariness goes. To be within a genre does not amount to metafiction.
As far as I am aware, we only know from other sources that Peter Duck was written by the explorers. There was a false start along these lines, but it was abandoned. The reference to Peter Duck in Swallowdale as Titty’s imaginary friend is the only remnant, and this would have been better deleted, since it does not advance anything and simply makes the young reader wonder what’s going on (at least this young reader a long time ago).
As stated, the arguments for Great Northern? being metafiction amount to Ransome getting the plot from someone else and the story not fitting into the chronology. I don’t buy this. Shakespeare stole most of his plots from someone else, but no one labels the plays with stolen plots ‘metafiction’. Equally, not fitting into the chronology has nothing to do with the concept of metafiction. We don’t worry about the chronology of Sterne’s works.
We understand the topography of Great Northern? in some detail, but it is true that the story lacks the sense of belongingness that we find in the other books. This is part and parcel of the plot, in that the explorers have to find the Great Northern Divers in a remote place. It is also, perhaps, because Ransome had written himself out.
One of the great strengths of Ransome’s work is its reality. That is why his readers wrote to him, asking about the locations or wanting to be introduced to the characters. While my parents were having a drink in a pub, I used to sit in the car poring over the maps in the AA book, until I found the only lake which matched the description in the stories. But the key characteristics of metafiction are artificiality and literariness, at the opposite end of the spectrum. Let us put the term metafiction back in Pseud’s Corner where it belongs.
I’m glad we sorted this out.
posted via 86.179.131.131 user RobinSelby.
As you may remember, AR may not have used the exact term but he started the whole idea in his explanation of how 'Peter Duck' was created by the S&As during their winter stay on a wherry.
Just as PD is both a tribute to and reworking of 'Treasure Island' ML has its roots in real life events.
GN is slightly different, but the strong arguments for it being one are that most of the story was supplied by someone else and that it fits very awkwardly in the timeline of all the other books (and in relation to school holidays etc.)
posted via 95.144.241.218 user MTD.
‘He’s going to be stationed at Shotley…’ (p23, We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea, Jonathan Cape, 2004)
‘They looked up at the buildings on Shotley Point, houses, a water tower, and a flagstaff on the naval school as tall as the mast of a sailing ship. On one of the black, wooden piers were a lot of grey naval cutters and whalers and gigs. If Daddy’s coming to Shotley meant sailing in those boats, and living somewhere up there, able to look down on Harwich harbour and on the ships coming in and out, things were going to be very good indeed. They looked at the place as people look at a stranger with whom they know they are going to have a lot to do.’ (p60)
“Commander Walker took his passport out of his pocket and handed it over.
‘We heard you were coming, sir,’ said the elder man as soon as he had read the name in it.” (p329-330)
The Customs officer must have known that Cdr Walker was a senior officer at Ganges. He would have been less likely to know the name if Cdr Walker was only visiting to carry out a review.
posted via 86.179.177.159 user RobinSelby.
In WW1 Harwich was the base of Commodore (later Admiral) Tyrwhitt's Harwich Force of light cruisers and destroyers. Base facilities were rundown after the Armistice, and later reinstated for WW2. With no formal naval presence at Harwich Cdr Walker could have been borne on the books of HMS Ganges while on detached duty to review local facilities. From 1939 the area became a base for destroyers, minesweepers and coastal forces, and later landing craft for the invasions of Normandy and the Scheldt.
posted via 92.16.97.49 user MartinH.
In adopting a more imaginative approach, Ransome had to make minimum changes to the format so as to avoid breaking the bond of trust between author and reader. There is no need to regard John’s statement about Captain Walker’s promotion as untrustworthy. The statement does not advance the plot in any way, and telling the reader that it may be unreliable gratuitously destroys the bond of trust for no conceivable purpose. I was first given Missee Lee when I was ill many years ago. I would have been most indignant if some unkind soul had told me that some or all of it was unreliable. That would have wrecked the illusion.
I have no problem about Captain Walker’s promotion. Promotion was mainly based on seniority. One could assess pretty accurately when one would be promoted based on the number of captains retiring each year, and the number of commanders ahead of you in the Navy List.
In recent years I have been steeped in Admiralty matters and the Navy List. The Admiralty was a stickler for protocol, and would not have dreamed of putting a commander into a captain’s job. He would have been given the rank of Acting Captain, and this is how it would have appeared in the Navy List.
posted via 86.157.119.213 user RobinSelby.
(If you're viewing this post after today, scroll to the bottom of the link and hit 'This week on the Cam', where they'll be for another week.)
But more to the point, the master of a vessel is often referred to as her captain, whatever his actual rank. So the master of the Ganges for the time being, even if only a substantive Commander, could certainly have been referred to as the Captain. I seem to remember that Peggy refers to Ted as "Captain Walker" in 'Secret Water', while he was actually only a Commander. I should think non-naval people like Miss Lee and Peggy could quite readily get Ted Walker's naval rank incorrect.
posted via 61.68.82.101 user mikefield.
However, it seems that the book is indeed wrong in this sense --
The text has, "...he... looked out through that great window, at the tarn, and then away to the left at the wonderful picture of the big hills at the head of the frozen lake."
His initial look from the barn was north to the tarn, so that his line of sight would move to the right in order for him to see the big hills next, not to the left as written.
[ Image ]
posted via 61.68.82.101 user mikefield.
There are three references to their original return day: "There’s another week yet" (Peggy, WH3),"Only three more days" (Dot, WH6), "going back .. in three days time, day after tomorrow is our last day" (Peggy to the Doctor, WH8).
There are several chapters which cover two days (To Spitzbergen by Ice, Days in the Fram) and some which could be three or more days: Doing without Nancy, Sailing Sledge, The uses of an Uncle.
We have two dates from the cache: 28 January and 10 February (WH24,27)
So the trick is to adjust the number of days in some of the chapters; see the Ransome wikia below.
Given that the Chain Home station at Bawdsey wasn't built until 1937, yet is mentioned as a landmark, it's clear that Ransome's Harwich area is the one he lived in, not of the nominal time of the story.
posted via 98.218.103.166 user Jon.
Ganges was very large, consisting of about 2,500 people. It educated and trained boys for the Navy. It was commanded by a Captain, so Cdr Walker would not be in charge. It was not a place that one associated with high-fliers such as Cdr Walker. It was a pretty grim sort of place (‘Shotley As I Knew It’, by R L Maguire – ‘I have no good – or kind – recollections of Shotley’. There are also extremely interesting oral histories along the same lines in the Imperial War Museum which are available on the website - https://www.iwm.org.uk/-collections/¬item/¬object/80005758). In the normal course of events Cdr Walker might have been posted to the Naval Staff to widen his experience before promotion to Captain. A posting to Ganges suggested that he had been passed over.
There are two questions – why Cdr Walker was summoned to the Admiralty at short notice, and what it was that Mrs Walker had to buy in London.
The summons to the Admiralty was odd, because the Admiralty upheld the chain of command. If it had wanted to discuss anything about Ganges, it would have summoned the Captain of Ganges. This could only mean that there had been a crisis at Ganges which meant that the Captain had been suspended, so that Cdr Walker had been sent there in the rank of Acting Captain to replace him. There might have been any number of reasons for the crisis. For example, in 1914 the Captain was held responsible for the disappearance of cash at Ganges, though he retained his job (ADM 156/11), and in 1928 a boy died after falling from the 142 foot mast, and a question was asked in Parliament.
Someone must have told Cdr Walker about the real reason for his posting at Shotley before he went to London, because ‘when they had come back for high tea at Miss Powell’s they learnt that something had happened that had made Daddy at least feel quite different. Tea was over before he came in smiling to himself’.
We know from Missee Lee, two books later, that Cdr Walker was promoted to Captain, so his time at Ganges and subsequent service on the Naval Staff must have been successful.
We can now surmise what Mrs Walker needed to buy in London. At Ganges, she would need to entertain visiting VIP’s and local dignitaries, so she had to expand her wardrobe. She might also have bought some special Chinese tea for Cdr Walker.
Cdr Walker must have had considerable powers of self-control, to keep his worries hidden from both children and readers.
posted via 86.157.119.193 user RobinSelby.
Quarantine appears to have been a month, which may be considered 4 weeks, 30 days, or until the corresponding day of the next month (which would, for a holiday ending in January, be 31 days) (Ch. 10):
"It’s lucky it’s not the football term,” said John. “A month might make just the difference about getting into the fifteen. But anyhow, it’ll be pretty awful coming back to find everybody a whole month to windward and have all that leeway to make up.”
“I do wish it hadn’t all got to stop so soon,” said Dorothea, as she and Dick walked home along the road under trees heavy with snow. “Only three more days.”
Incidentally E F Knight, who was such an influence on Ransome, wrote a popular account of the Harwich Force.
posted via 86.157.119.193 user RobinSelby.
Mrs Barrable’s brother Richard who haddvised her against sailing the Teasel "was in the Navy during the War" (CC24).
Given their ages I would think that both Ted Walker and Colonel Jolys would have served in the "Great War" And Billy Lewthwaite may have learnt to drive (so could be a chauffeur) in the Army.
posted via 203.96.133.238 user hugo.
The following page lists Admiralty charts available in 1880:
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20131001164920/http://www.ukho.gov.uk/AboutUs/Pages/UKHO-Archive.aspx
Chart 1262 covers Hong Kong to the Gulf of Liautung (modern Liaodong). It was corrected in 1879 and may be the chart which Miss Lee gave to the explorers. It seems to cover the route which the explorers wanted to take, at least to Hong Kong.
Readers of Mixed Moss will be aware of my theory that Miss Lee’s islands were actually based on the island of Nan’ao, which is off the city of Swatow/Shantou. There are some interesting files about Nan’ao in the Archives, which I have not yet read, but which have fairly full descriptions in the catalogue.
In 1844 Britons illegally living in Nan’ao to trade were ordered to evacuate (FO 682/1977/78, FO 682/1977/50, FO 682/1977/43) The last file states that Britons had built houses, roads and bridges in Nan’ao. So the bridge which impressed Captain Flint may have been built by Britons rather than Mr Lee. It is odd that they spent money on infrastructure, without any hope of revenue. This suggests a sizeable English settlement, but the fairly detailed account in the Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle of 1840 does not mention any English settlers.
FO 931/1031 of December 1849 reports on the trial of pirates arrested in the vicinity of Nan’ao. This shows that pirates operated near Nan’ao, and the authorities tried to stop them. This was a good reason for changing the business model from piracy to protection.
We can try to construct a timeline. All dates are rounded to the nearest ten years. Let us assume that the events of the book took place in 1930. From the drawing ‘Captain Flint recites his piece’, Miss Lee looks about 30, and was born in 1900. At that time Mr Lee was already ‘Olo Lee’ when the harbour master took up his job at exactly the same time. Presumably ‘Olo’ means ‘old’. Miss Lee went to Cambridge in about 1920, and returned home in her first year. Mr Lee died some time after, but allowing sufficient time for Miss Lee to learn the business and exercise her authority over the Taicoons.
We now have to decide what is meant by old and very old. Very old means say 70 or 80. If 70, then Mr Lee was born around 1850 and was 50 in 1900. Mr Lee was a very little boy when he was captured by the Dragon Island pirates, say in 1860. People would still remember the arrest of the pirates in 1849, and doubtless the authorities continued their efforts to control piracy. Mr Lee’s move into protection after he became Taicoon was therefore very wise.
Mr Lee’s junk sailed from Foochow (modern Fuzhou), which is perhaps where his family lived. Fuzhou is about 250 miles from Swatow/Shantou as the crow flies, at the other end of the Taiwan Strait. It seems odd that Mr Lee did not visit his family after he became Taicoon, but this would have interfered with the plot.
If Mr Lee became a father for the first time at the age of 50, and his wife died some time afterwards, then we can begin to get an idea of the bond between father and daughter. Clearly it was a foregone conclusion that she would succeed him. It must have been a great wrench to send her away for education, first to Hong Kong and then to Cambridge.
posted via 86.169.192.75 user RobinSelby.
So the Harbourmaster arrived in the 1900s "when the old Empress was in Pekin" before the Revolution in 1912. But no indication of how old Miss Lee is. And who were the other Taicoons before Taicoons Chang and Wu.
Miss Lee gives them a chart "an old chart, of 1879" that belonged to her father, but it could have been second-hand (ML 27). So very little to put on a Timeline!
posted via 202.49.156.202 user hugo.
Her father remembered that his father was a "mandalin" (mandarin) with a peacock feather and gold button. He ruled "when the old Empress was in Pekin" but then the Levolution and Republic came; in 1912 with Yuan Shih Kai the first president; perhaps but not necessarily after her father died?
posted via 203.96.130.93 user hugo.
Alternatively, Ransome might have sent Miss Lee to a school that everyone (including Mr Lee’s agent, who made the arrangements) would have heard of, ie Roedean. By a couple of happy coincidences, Roedean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roedean_School) was a feeder school for Miss Lee’s college, Newnham, and during the war was evacuated to Keswick, where Walpole’s house was situated. It’s interesting that Walpole might have been able to help Ransome with Miss Lee’s original school, and (after his death) with her actual school.
Roedean was a boarding school, and was situated in Brighton. It would therefore have been easy for Mr Lee’s agent to run down to keep an eye on her and take her out for the odd treat. We need to consider where Miss Lee would have lived during school holidays; one does not get the feeling that Miss Lee was invited to the homes of other girls at Roedean. Did Miss Lee ever visit London? Difficult to avoid London on the way to Cambridge.
Mr Lee presumably acquired his English agent via contacts in Swatow/Shantou. Mr Lee might have maintained contact with businessmen who paid their ransom to him after they were captured by his junks. Perhaps the agent arranged for the supply of Miss Lee’s European furniture and Cooper’s Marmalade. Alternatively they might have been procured in Swatow/Shantou.
Perhaps an English company operating in Swatow/Shantou sent an employee back to London for training, and he became Mr Lee’s agent?
It’s difficult to tell when Miss Lee was at school. She has her Taicoons firmly under control, so presumably some years have elapsed since she returned from England. You pays your money and you takes your choice, but I imagine that she was at school in the 1920’s, and was 25-30 when the events described in the book took place.
posted via 86.179.177.173 user RobinSelby.
According to a report (http://www.¬buckinghamshirepartnership.¬co.uk/media¬/130576/¬marlow-_report.pdf):
‘Marlow’s most famous school in West Street was founded by Sir William Borlase School [sic], in 1624’. (p43)
‘The Borlase school is a seventeenth century charity school founded by Henry Borlase in 1624 and still in use as a grammar school. After a reorganisation by the charity commissioners and a major building programme, the school reopened as a boys' grammar school in 1881. After the 1902 Education Act, Buckinghamshire County Council was able to provide funds for further building and for scholarships. Girls were fully admitted to the school in 1988’. (p75)
The problem is that in say the 1920’s it was not co-ed. But as we know, Ransome altered facts as he wished; I myself have made a boys’ school co-ed in a novel to suit the plot.
The school (https://www.swbgs.com/) plays hockey among other sports. A former head boy describes the school as a ‘wonderful community of wacky and extraordinary individuals – a great place for young people to grow and be inspired’. In such company, the daughter of a successful Chinese pirate would not have been particularly conspicuous.
Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_William_Borlase%27s_Grammar_School) states that alumni include Hugh Walpole. Walpole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Walpole) was at Cambridge. During the war Ransome lobbied for the establishment of a bureau in Moscow to counter German propaganda, and in 1916 Walpole was put in charge. Hugh Brogan describes how this led to a breach between Ransome and Walpole, which lasted for 16 years.
Walpole wrote a very favourable review of Peter Duck (published in 1932). Ransome wrote to Walpole: ‘Is this an olive branch?’ Walpole replied ‘A twig’, and the quarrel was over. Walpole had a house at Keswick in the Lake District, and Brogan records that Ransome visited Walpole to give him some trout a few weeks before he died on 1 June 1941.
Missee Lee was published in 1941, and in a letter of 13 August 1941 Ransome told a correspondent that it was being printed. I therefore wonder whether he added the pointed reference to Great Marlow, which is otherwise difficult to explain, as a covert nod towards Walpole just after Walpole died. Miss Lee was heading for Cambridge in at least February 1941, so this is not attributable to Walpole’s death. According to Brogan, Genia recorded that apart from Madame Sun Yat Sen, Miss Lee was based on a Chinese girl whom Ransome once met who yearned to go to Cambridge. If it was not for this it would have been more likely for Miss Lee to go to Oxford rather than Cambridge, since Oxford was so much closer to Great Marlow. She must have visited Oxford while at the school, and the reference to Cooper’s Marmalade suggests that she may have had breakfast there.
posted via 86.179.235.127 user RobinSelby.
AR was very particular in finding out details when he thought it important. You can read his letters to friends, and friends-of-friends, in Signalling To Mars researching the right background to give to the young Miss Lee.
He questions a friend about whether their son might have a book containing the Latin rhymes such as "Artifex and Opifex", and asks another friend if she recalls whether a female cox would take a rudder as a trophy, and which of the Cambridge colleges were likely to have such a rowing/classics student.
This was Feb 14th, 1941 in he book, if you want to look it up: letters to Margaret Reynold.
The research on rowing boat rudders is pretty thorough considering it never made it into the book (Chapter XIII is where you need to look). Instead we get one of my favourite quotes:
...a large photograph of a school hockey team...
"Pretty beefy," Roger murmured to himself.
posted via 81.156.118.67 user Magnus.
Some pirate tycoons would have kept taking new wives until a son was born, and then handed the family business to him. But not old man Lee. He wants an education for his daughter AND for her to take on the leadership.
posted via 81.156.118.67 user Magnus.
The plot of ML depends on her working out from Roger’s addition to her book that "These persons are not thieves but students" (ML13). Roger is her top Latin student; John and Titty know some Latin but Susan, Nancy and Peggy are beginners. And Captain Flint an Oxford student has forgotten it (ML16). The plot of ML depends on Missee Lee wanting a class of students, and I would think the S&A’s are too young to have started Greek? Roger must be about ten (seven plus three) in ML, which seems young to be learning Latin?
posted via 203.96.137.228 user hugo.
The text was very probably from the Iliad. Miss Lee doubtless supported the Trojans, because their strategic position was similar to that of the Three Islands - they could prey on passing shipping, or tax them, as they wished. King Priam strongly reminded Miss Lee of her father.
The passage which Miss Lee set her class to translate may well have been the one where the Trojans are fighting by the ships. That is the nearest the Trojans get to throwing the Achaeans back into the sea - the equivalent of endlessly watching The Great Escape, in the hope of one day seeing Steve McQueen jumping over the third fence.
Since they are all starting from scratch, Roger is not necessarily the star pupil. This gives an opportunity for one of the quieter ones to shine. Congratulations, Peggy.
posted via 86.159.175.23 user RobinSelby.
I see from Hugh Brogan’s biography that Ransome had some dealings with Waugh’s father early on, but no mention of Evelyn. I’ve only read bits of the letters, so I don’t know if there’s anything helpful there. The idea that Ransome got the idea from Waugh is amusing, but alas I don’t know of anything to support it.
Kennedy’s Primer has certainly had a good innings. My son studies it while I drive him to school.
Incidentally, would Miss Lee have studied Greek at Cambridge? In my time at Oxford, I think you had to do both Greek and Latin, and perhaps the same held good at the junior university. If so, I am sorry that we never got the chance to see Miss Lee coaching her pupils in Greek.
posted via 86.170.231.38 user RobinSelby.
But I do wonder if Waugh’s ‘The Man Who Liked Dickens’ played any part. Tony Last is kept prisoner in the Amazon jungle by a lunatic who forces him to read the works of Dickens.
There are obvious parallels, which may cast some light on Miss Lee’s mental state. By any rational calculation the detention of the ‘guests’ was not fair to them or their families, and gave rise to dangerous instability in the eyes of the Taicoons. Yet Miss Lee managed to convince herself that her father would be pleased. This irrational belief underlines the sacrifice she made in leaving Cambridge, but leaves one to wonder what effect it had on her mental health.
posted via 178.197.231.154 user RobinSelby.
"Copryight remains that of individual speakers and other appropriate copyright holders, from whom permission to quote has been obtained. Permissions to reproduce in whole or in part in any what should be sought care of the editor..."
If this is still the way copyright reproduction permission is still represented, then to post the Transactions online (or any part of it) would require both permission from all individual copyright holders, plus the editor of the Literary Transactions. The statement doesn't make it clear as to whether the editor could grant permission without separately obtaining permissions from the copyright owners.
Independently of its appearing in the Literary Transactions, an individual could grant permission to ATR (or elsewhere) to post their article, and this has been done before.
There may of course be other issues unrelated to the copyright permissions or devolving from them that I haven't considered.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
Please respect this policy and enjoy your Christmas pudding without the inflammable methylated spirits leaving a bad taste in your mouth.
posted via 99.240.138.46 user Adam.
Yes, it would be interesting to discuss it further so if you would like to contact me please use this address
everyone.this-house@outlook.com
(and anyone else who wants to discuss things in more depth or beyond the remit of this forum!)
posted via 95.149.37.216 user MTD.
Maurice Griffith’s ‘The Magic of the Swatchways’ is a pre-war book about sailing on the East Coast. Husband and wife both sail yachts, but the interesting thing is that they both sail their own yachts, and rarely sail together. Griffiths was a journalist, so cannot have earned much. The books give the clear impression that you could keep a yacht at very reasonable cost, and a fortiori if you could keep a yacht you could keep a dinghy.
posted via 178.197.231.253 user RobinSelby.
In fairness, I had been considering joining TARS before this discussion started. I feel AR's status as a writer needs maintaining, and really enthusiastic readers such ourselves are getting older (and dare I say fewer) so we need younger adult readers to ensure his achievement does not become nothing more than a foot-note in studies of children's books.
AR was and is so much more than that.
posted via 95.149.37.216 user MTD.
It was in 'Mixed Moss' Volume Three, Number Three, Summer 1998. Two pieces entitled 'The TARS Voyage' one by Peter Hyland 'Where Now?' and a response by Christina Hardyment and Dick Kelsall 'Forward!'. Page 25.
posted via 95.149.37.216 user MTD.
Yes indeed, and he usually substituted uncles. If anyone is interested, I have written an article on the Missing Native Parents - it can be found online on the Lit Pages of All Things Ransome.
posted via 86.132.92.13 user Peter_H.
"We of the Never Never" is a classic autobiographical novel published in 1908 about a cattle station in the Northern Territory but remote from Darwin.
The ownership of "Swallow" is clear in PP2: "when your mother comes to Holly Howe and you have Swallow again"
posted via 202.154.148.174 user hugo.
(For the record, joining TARS has never appealed to me as I'm interested in the books not actually going camping or sailing!)
posted via 95.149.37.216 user MTD.
During the holidays, it might be an interesting task to calculate Cdr Walker’s private income. Today it costs about £35K a year to maintain a child at a public school, or £140K for four minus discounts for siblings. However, in recent years public schools have increased their fees much faster than inflation, so fees in the 1930’s would have been lower relative to income. Doubtless the Navy made a significant contribution to costs of education, but perhaps this was only when Cdr Walker was serving abroad. In all probability costs were higher than Cdr Walker’s pay, and the excess could only come out of unearned income. If so, Ransome must have killed off Cdr Walker’s parents so that he could come into his inheritance early. Or alternatively Mrs Walker brought a handsome dowry with her.
posted via 86.170.231.106 user RobinSelby.
But then
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
Incidentally, why was the future Mrs Walker sailing her cousin’s dinghy and not her own? Had her father (let us call him Fred) left the city for a sheep station where he lost all his money? That is why she set her cap at the dashing Lt Cdr Walker in his natty two-seater, who was independently wealthy and came from a good family (‘one of the Hampshire Walkers, you know’).
I can easily see Ransome inventing the Oxford story to get some Oxford/Cambridge tension going, regardless of any other story about Captain Flint’s background. This strikes me as a more natural explanation than Ransome thinking to himself ‘aha, this is meta fiction so I don’t have to bother about consistency’.
A genealogy would look a bit thin, since Ransome has killed off so many of the parents and grandparents.
I’d be happy for the article to appear in ATR or Mixed Moss, if anyone wants to publish it.
posted via 86.179.132.212 user RobinSelby.
In the other books he always seemed to write as if an observer, adding in background information where it wasn't clear from the exchanges between the characters.
posted via 95.149.37.216 user MTD.
Regarding Australia, there's no reason why the future Mrs Walker could not have lived for 5 or 10 years as a child on the shores of Sydney Harbour, and then the whole family moved to a sheep station further inland for the next 5 or 10 years. Or vice versa.
Captain Flint's comment about being a ships boy could perhaps be interpreted as: he was the youngest or most inferior member of the crew, and got all the worst jobs, despite not being a 'boy' in age. Maybe he worked on a large cargo ship where all the staff were adults, in a 'dogsbody' capacity, to pay for his trip - say, escaping to South Africa aged 20 after chucking Oxford.
posted via 81.156.115.204 user Magnus.
And I agree that the Blacketts are gentry and comfortably off; having a car (even smallish and ancient) and a telephone like Tommy Jolys - the local farmers like Mrs Tyson are not "on the line". And Jim went to Oxford, presumably not on a scholarship.
posted via 202.154.150.235 user hugo.
The Witwatersrand gold rush started in 1886, when Mr Turner was 21 or so, and Slater Bob was 23. We hypothesise therefore that Mr Turner took Slater Bob to South Africa some time after 1886, with Mr Turner (or his father) putting up the money and Slater Bob bringing his mining experience.
Captain Flint and his sister are ‘comfortably off’. Mrs Blackett lives in a large house with one or two servants, sends her daughters to boarding school and is a member of the local gentry (Colonel Jolys takes his hat off to her). Equally Captain Flint does not work, and spends much of his time abroad, either escaping the English winter or in the vain search for mineral wealth.
However, there is no sense that they are rich, as they would have been if their father and Slater Bob had prospered in South Africa. Mr Turner and Slater Bob returned to England because they did not find gold. This leads to the intriguing possibility that Captain Flint spends (I am tempted to say ‘wastes’) his life looking for gold because he is trying to achieve what his father had failed to achieve.
Ransome occasionally gives biographical hints about his adult characters. For example, in Swallowdale, at the summit of Kanchenjunga, the explorers find a message from Nancy’s deceased father, her mother and uncle, written in the same jaunty style which Nancy might have used. When Nancy introduced Captain Flint to Roger (Swallows and Amazons, p277), Captain Flint said that he had been a ship’s boy. However, he told Miss Lee (Missee Lee, p213) that he ‘chucked Oxford before Oxford made up its mind to chuck me. I went off to see the world instead’. This strongly implies that he had not left home before, and in any case it is scarcely probable that he was a ship’s boy before going to Oxford. It is unlikely that he was pulling Roger’s leg. It is more likely that Ransome wanted to introduce some Oxford/Cambridge tension into the story, and either forgot or ignored the earlier account.
In Swallows and Amazons (p27) Mrs Walker said that she was brought up close to Sydney Harbour. Yet in the same book (p191), she told Titty ‘about her own childhood on a sheep station in Australia’. There are anecdotes in other books which are consistent with both Sydney and the sheep station:
‘Why, when I was a girl in Australia I’ve often fallen asleep on horseback, riding home after a dance, and been waked by the horse stopping and snuffing at the stable door.’ (We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea, p30)
‘She [Mrs Walker] talked about fishing and about caves and about camping in the Australian bush…’ (Swallowdale, p206)
‘“I thought just the same,” said mother, “when I capsized my cousin’s dinghy in Sydney Harbour”.’ (Swallowdale, p116)
I suppose it is always possible that the family had a house in Sydney as well as the sheep station, but that seems a bit elaborate.
The question is whether Ransome did this deliberately, to intrigue his readers, or whether he simply wished to add a bit of realistic detail and colour. There can be no doubt that the episode at the top of Kanchenjunga was quite deliberate. It is a poignant moment when Nancy reads the message, one of the few times when she is almost at a loss for words.
However, the inconsistencies in the other biographical details suggest that Ransome merely wished to add colour, and had no concern beyond this. If so, it is a matter for judgment whether Slater Bob’s remark falls into the same category as the Kanchenjunga episode, or is just colour. Since it is a one-liner which is easily overlooked, it is probably colour.
posted via 86.176.200.164 user RobinSelby.
It is certainly available as eyedrops for allergies -- Cromolyn Sodium Ophthalmic Solution (Crolom and Opticrom are brand names). Been using it since 1985 by Rx.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
"Few swallow latest talk of Morrisons and Amazon"
The report by Louisa Clarence-Smith details how the online marketplace is looking for a UK supermarket to takeover, a number have been mentioned and yesterday it was the Morrisons group.
posted via 2.30.186.61 user MTD.
Jim had been ''sent to South America as a young man after "chucking Oxford"'' (SA11). He ''chucked Oxford before Oxford made up its mind to chuck me'' (ML16).
posted via 202.154.144.20 user hugo.
posted via 202.154.152.219 user hugo.
While focussing on the East Coast, we should not overlook the strategic significance of the Harwich naval base. As we have learned to expect by now, it comes with a hospital complete with doctors at Felixstowe on the north side of the harbour. Jim did well to get out before worse befell him.
But surely no one could suspect anything of Miss Powell? It must be sheer coincidence that she lives almost exactly where MTB’s etc were based during the war.
posted via 86.174.65.9 user RobinSelby.
This theory explains why her nephew Jim went to Oxford rather than Cambridge, as a reaction against the GA. He must have been a source of great anxiety and self-reproach to the GA in his rackety earlier years.
Adam Quinan is quite right to draw attention to Cook. She bears the classic signs of a highly trained and experienced operative working under deep cover. Her name is clearly based on the village of Braithwaite to the west of Keswick, in an attempt to give her local colour.
We can draw reasonable conclusions about her role and spymaster. Lenin may have embedded her in the local community to foment insurgency in a politically sensitive area which could easily trigger revolution in the rest of the country. Her secondary role would be to maintain surveillance on Ransome and Evgenia. Evgenia had been Trotsky’s secretary, and after Trotsky was exiled in 1929, it was clearly imperative for the Soviets to ensure that she was not collaborating with Trotsky.
Or it may be that the GA maintained her association with Naval Intelligence after the war, to the extent that a Foreign Power wanted to keep her under close observation. This implies that she was a very high value asset, because a similar watch would have been necessary on her Harrogate establishment.
Finally, it is possible that there is more to Mrs Blackett than meets the eye. With a respectable and respected position in society, Mrs Blackett was ideally placed to gather vital intelligence on the Vickers ship building site at Barrow on behalf of a Foreign Power. This enables us to reinterpret Jim Turners’s role. He clearly acted as a courier for his sister, under the perfect cover of a restless quest for gold. In this case it is probable that Cook was working for MI5.
posted via 86.169.42.147 user RobinSelby.
Cook has to fake all these outbursts, of course, lest the secret of their deep friendship be known. During the period where they both posed as men to join the war effort, 'Bobby' Braithwaite was Captain Turner's loyal batman.
I am lead to believe their excellent ability to disguise themselves as washer-women meant they were selected for several spying missions deep into enemy territory.
posted via 81.156.115.204 user Magnus.
The question what the GA, with all of Nancy’s force of character, did with her life can now be answered, though the documentation is still imperfect. Almost certainly she went to Belgium in August 1914 to drive an ambulance. Very soon she turned her energy and organisational ability into helping the flood of Belgian refugees. She provided invaluable assistance to a Belgian policeman with a luxuriant moustache, among many others. She was then talent-spotted for Room 41, where she applied her formidable intellect to decoding the Zimmermann Telegram. She was instrumental in proposing the plan to ‘Blinker’ Hall which helped to bring the US into the war.
In 1926 the famous author Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days, and was ultimately found in Harrogate. It has long been unknown why she went to Harrogate. The truth can now be told. After the war the GA set up a refuge at Harrogate for young women with problems, where, with the benefit of the GA’s boundless compassion and counselling skills they came to terms with their problems and plotted a new path in life. The person who suggested that Agatha Christie should go to Harrogate was none other than the Belgian policeman.
So far all is clear, to anyone but the most carping critic. Miss Turner’s contributions to society deserve belated recognition.
Finally, I am beginning to suspect that there is something fishy about Colonel Thomas Jolys. I cannot find him in any genealogical database, so perhaps he was an impostor, and all the stuff about hero of many wars was just nonsense. The GA knew this, which is why he collapsed when she enigmatically suggested that his only acquaintance with military matters was toy trumpets.
posted via 86.175.127.229 user RobinSelby.
I emailed them a couple of months ago about those two but didn't get a reply, so I rather hae me doots as to whether they're still in operation. (They do still have a domain name but it redirects to eBay, who apparently knows nothing about them.)
Sophie might be able to get one there if they're still operating. Otherwise I'd be happy to oblige with a print from here. Could you please let her know?
posted via 61.68.119.85 user mikefield.
While of course the maps are of real places (unlike the imaginary Lake in the north), they're somewhat different to current Ordnance Survey maps. First, I've tried to show the road and rail networks as they were in the 1930s rather than as they are now, and I've also shown more-or-less only as much of both as the children themselves used or that would have been evident to them from the water. Other features, like St Benet's Abbey, the Ranworth church tower, and the Cantley sugarbeet factory that were also visible from the water have been included. But the focus is on the waterways, with all the Ransome-specific features like No.7 nest, the Wilderness, the Roaring Donkey, Teasel's mooring locations, and so on also shown in order to allow you to see the children's locations and trace their movements as you read the two Broads books.
I experimented early on with map size, coverage, and orientation, and I finally concluded that AR had it right all along. So I've retained the Northern and Southern Rivers maps as he has them in the books' endpapers, with only marginal indicative overlap between the two.
(I still haven't entirely given up the idea of showing the entire Broads region on one large map, but not very much has happened in that direction yet.)
Because of the size of the geographical areas covered and the detail they contain, I would strongly advise anyone who wants to print the maps to do so at A3 (or larger) size if at all possible.
Finally, please note that the Lake map has had some minor modifications made to it. If you've already downloaded it you might like to have the updated version.
(A terrible thought for me, because I hated the GA with that uncomplicated sort of anger only a child could manifest, and that has stuck with me into adulthood!)
I started to turn this topic over in my mind after seeing the musical 'Wicked' at the theatre a few weeks ago. This re-tells the story of 'The Wizard of Oz' film, from the viewpoint of the (supposed) Wicked Witch of the West. It is fascinating how the entire film can be seen in a new light, if you take the musical's backstory and sidestory as gospel too. The green-skinned girl isn't quite what you thought.
You could perhaps take the GA theory to a whole new level, and suggest she perhaps had a wild childhood herself, running away from home with a friend, sleeping in boats, stealing food, posing as a working class kid somewhere... and then it all went terribly wrong, and disaster fell. The friend died? The GA sustained a lifelong injury/illness? So as an adult she would be desperate to stop any child in her care falling into the same terrible trap. Piano practice and best frocks could represent a well-meant wish to give Jim/Molly/Nancy/Peggy a better life.
posted via 81.129.150.158 user Magnus.
I'll be irregularly updating the build on a couple of forums, and on The Arthur Ransome page on Facebook. As the model's for a client, I don't want to give the whole game away before it's finished.
Today? While waiting for planks to dry (it's glued lapstrake - I'm not going to put in a bazillion tiny working copper rivets) I'm casting pigs. Five small ones and a big one. The small ones are about a cubic centimetre, the big one twice that.
Regarding the keel, it is immense. Dragging 100 lbs of pigs and maybe 300 lbs of boat up a beach = hard work. As to rolling it for a careen? Forget it!
Andy
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
Behind him on his bookshelf were clearly visible a set of the AR S&A canon, hardbacks with dustwrappers obviously well read.
Perhaps PP inspired him to take an interest in geology!
posted via 95.146.165.222 user MTD.
And unless Dixon’s farm had a wharf or jetty (or a boatshed) two of the Swallows must have been able to beach or tie up "Swallow" when they went to get milk. Swallow with a fixed keel would have been harder to beach than "Amazon" (and "Scarab") with retractable centreboards.
posted via 202.49.158.82 user hugo.
http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?244536-Swallow-the-dinghy
posted via 73.140.116.18 user Pitsligo.
But it could be overturned if you speculate the possibility of married/single aunts and uncles who went off to be missionaries in a foreign land (as two of Ransome's aunts did).
posted via 81.129.150.154 user Magnus.
Moving up a level to Great Aunts, there's a much broader set of possibilities, though I doubt that even there the Turner population was very large. If it had been, an orphaned (conjectural, but indicated) Molly & Jim Turner would have likely have been placed in guardianship of a married relative rather than a spinster. Of course if Molly & Jim Turner's parents were the only married couple among both their families that argument loses some merit (but suggests that all other parental siblings were male).
posted via 47.134.254.198 user Jon.
And no doubt the same Aunt Helen to whom PM is dedicated.
posted via 95.151.60.5 user eclrh.
As for Enid Blyton...
posted via 95.149.38.233 user MTD.
Enid Blyton equally guilty.
(Excuse my sarcasm...)
posted via 31.51.234.41 user Magnus.
posted via 98.218.103.166 user Jon.
Having said that, I did e-mail a university professor in the USA (on a non AR topic) having found their address online and got a very helpful and prompt reply.
posted via 95.149.38.233 user MTD.
It is headlined as
Arthur Ransome’s ‘Swallows and Amazons’ series: Harmless holiday adventures, or detailed preparations for the next war?
and according to the abstract AR "...is drawing a blueprint for rural guerrilla warfare after a successful invasion."
An interesting theory, is it one worthy of serious consideration?
Unfortunately, the paper is only available through a paywall. Anyone a subscriber to that journal?
posted via 98.218.103.166 user Jon.
It is reasonably clear from the book (‘The Norfolk Broads’) to which Magnus provides a link that a rond is land surrounded by an embankment. According to the British Library catalogue, this book was published in 1997. It looks a scholarly piece of work.
The reference to ‘marshy borders of rivers and broads, with beds of reeds and rushes which are called ronds’ is along the same lines, ie a rond is land (though in this case marshier) and not an embankment.
The painting ‘Cattle on the Rond’ shows that the cattle are on raised ground. It might be an embankment, but that is not clear. The artist, Edward Seago, was born in 1910 and died in 1974 – roughly a contemporary of Ransome. He was a Norwich man so should have been familiar with local terms.
So you pays your money and you takes your choice. A rond is either land, or an embankment. As far as Ransome is concerned, a rond is higher than the fields and something which keeps the river from overflowing, therefore an embankment. Although he was interested in dialect, he was only a visitor to the Broads and was probably not an authority.
posted via 86.174.47.92 user RobinSelby.
Twilight Years. But we got a lot of contributions.
A quick Google for "rond norfolk" reveals plenty of reliable sources. The link below is to a book that has been scanned in, mentioning "lost ronds".
You could also look at http://norridge.me.uk/norfolk/nfkcult/part05.htm which says "Beware of the marshy borders of rivers and broads, with beds of reeds and rushes which are called ronds".
Then there are paintings that use this word - see http://www.portlandgallery.com/artists/30911/13087/edward-seago/norfolk--cattle-on-the-rond for "Cattle on the rond"
lochanhead (at) gmail.comif you dont want to use the social media links suggested by TARS.
I thought it was a good bit of fun, trying to think of how to photograph myself reading S&A in a way that nobody else will. My colleague who is looking after 'Swallow' at the moment is trying to get a snap of himself reading out on the water. My own boat is garage-bound, so I need to think some more.
I did want to climb a tree and show that a Kindle is useful to take the entire 12 books with you anywhere, with no weight-carrying issues!
Do share your ideas, and have some fun!
Again, this is not limited to TARS members, and if lots of social media websites are flooded with S&A photos, that can only be a good thing!
I suspect this is the case. My understanding is that the rond is simply the bank, the solid earth border to a water channel. The rond may be a constructed embankment like a levee, but this is not a definitional requirement -- the definition is simply 'the edge'. So any river bank is a 'rond' by virtue of its simply being the bank.
Rond anchors a la AR have never been in use out here AFAIK, and when I wanted one for Aileen Louisa some years ago I had to design it and have it made for me. (An alternative, and simpler, method has been to cut one fluke and the folding stock off a traditional fisherman's anchor; but fisherman's anchors are themselves pretty hard to find nowadays -- I've only ever had two -- and I wouldn't have wanted to waste one by doing that to it anyway.)
The point about rond anchors is that once they're in place in the bank they dig in more firmly the harder the pull, and they don't present a hazard to anyone walking along. I was a bit surprised to learn that most narrowboat users seem to use 'pins' for their mooring lines, which are simply straight metal spikes banged down into the bank a bit like a tent-peg, leaving at least several inches of steel sticking up to bark the shins of an unwary passer-by. That's like driving in an anchor that doesn't have the second fluke cut off -- and it's less effective anyway because a good pull can have it out of the ground.
There's some correspondence at the link. An internet search will (now) throw up several other links and a few pictures.
‘The fields were below the level of the river and the Death and Glories, marching along the rond that kept the river from overflowing, looked down on feeding cattle and horses…’ (Jonathan Cape, 2005, p98).
‘Rond’ is an odd word here. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘rond’ as a ‘stick, or piece of firewood’. The OED omits mention of the rond anchor, which is commonly used on the Norfolk Broads. Ransome obviously means ‘dyke’ or ‘sea wall’. It may be a piece of Norfolk dialect, but it is difficult to imagine that Ransome used a word that would be meaningless to his readers, when it was far easier to say ‘dyke’. If it is a typographical error, it is equally difficult to imagine what word Ransome intended to use. ‘Road’ is the nearest word, but that is plain wrong. I have asked OED what they think, but this is evidently not one of their highest priorities.
Any views?
While I have pen in hand, so to speak, I thought I would list a few typos and oddities:
‘…a rope Captain Flint had borrowed from the porter’. (Peter Duck, p20, Jonathan Cape, 2004). Why did Captain Flint need to borrow a rope from the porter, when the Wild Cat had plenty of rope?
‘There was an old inn at the bend the Swan.’ (Coot Club, p27, Jonathan Cape, 2005).
‘leant Roger her torch.’ (Pigeon Post, p248, Jonathan Cape, 2004).
‘there was cheerful moment.’ (Great Northern?, p48, Jonathan Cape, 2005)
posted via 86.167.164.138 user RobinSelby.
It is a quietly accepted phenomenon that writers are prone to creating in one character or another our own romantic ideal. Likewise, when we endow those characters with flaws --as all characters should have, if they are to be interesting-- we tend to give them flaws we think we could accept in our romantic partner and compensate for with our own strengths. Knowing about it, wary of it, it's one of those traps most of us try not to fall into. Second drafts are a good time to make sure that characters are definitively their own people.
With as much attention as he lavished on the character, I wonder whether Nancy was, on some level, AR's romantic ideal. Her seasickness (pretty minor) and propensity to dominate and direct a social environment (not always bad, especially when done to a rewarding end) might have been traits AR would, in the quiet of his own mind, find attractive as small things that he could sympathize with and compensate for.
This would not be even remotely paedophilia, of course, especially if AR lived within those stories as someone of that age range. By that, I mean that I often live within my stories, as I write them, as a 20-something-year old (roughly half my current age); similarly, my main characters are about that age. It is an age I feel mentally comfortable in. Others of my characters are an older me, just as CF was an older AR, but as a writer I enjoy the privilege of existing in the story in simultaneous different roles --just as we have hypothesized that AR did with Dick and Dot as well as CF.
If AR was most comfortable to slip into the mindset of an early-teen, as his sublime ability to write an adventure for children might indicate, Nancy might be the ideal that he would find interesting --a fantasy crush, if you will, who might even reciprocate his interest in stories that he never wrote down.
If so, Mike Jones's observation that Nancy was, in some part, Evgenia, could be quite accurate. Perhaps a modified Evgenia, without the aspects he found grating (note that Nancy was not discouraging of endeavors, as Evgenia was of AR's writing: his "critic on the hearth"), or with them diminished, and perhaps with positive traits Evgenia didn't posesses. But it would stand to reason that his imagined romantic ideal would overlap considerably with his romantic partner.
The other possibility is that AR created Nancy as his daughter. Was Nancy an ideal of what he hoped for for Tabitha? I know *nothing* of Tabitha, or any genuine details of her relationship with her father, so can't really explore any Nancy/Tabitha similarity. Nor am I a father myself, to speak of parental fantasies authoritatively. That said, it seems likely that AR fantasized how his daughter might ideally move through her childhood, as any parent would. That AR and Tabitha were in some part distant, or estranged, could even have facilitated the creation of Nancy-as-Tabitha: what must it have been like for him, feeling the internal demands of his writing in conflict with what society idealizes as the preeminancy of parental joy? Would Nancy have been the daughter he actually could enjoy without the emotional dissonance of the art/family conflict? Idealizing her as the superlative child --a Golden Child-- would be a reasonable thing to do even without the conflict. A couple minor flaws, because all characters have them, and... Nancy. Perhaps?
Again, all that is WILD speculation.
Alex
posted via 73.140.116.18 user Pitsligo.
Andy
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
If the others "wrote" ML post-SW, when Nancy muscled in and re-directed the entire focus of the expedition toward a more fantastical scenario --not necessarily for the better if one looks at the original, cartographic premise of the expedition-- Nancy's glaring obliviousness to the difference of real/fantasy pirates becomes a dark mirror to her redirection in SW. One could imagine meta-Nancy's obliviousness in ML might have been John's (or even Susan's or Titty's) slightly reprimanding contribution to the ML story: "Your fantasy is not always appropriate, Nancy, and not only does it sometimes foul up more serious plans, it could even get people hurt."
Of course I don't know --can't know-- if that's actually why Nancy is perhaps a little less perfect in those two stories. It seems a very meta thing for AR to have 1) thought through, and 2) implemented. But given some of his other subtleties, I like to think this is where AR allowed some of his own resentment against Golden Children (I expect we've all known one or two) to be expressed gently, and to humble even Nancy, his favorite. It is, after all fiction within fiction, so Nancy herself, in the "real life" of the other books, could still be magnificent.
(And as a side note, yes, Titty reliably shines. Her faults are plausible and sympathetic, and her successes are genuine triumphs. If I, as a writer, could choose one character to go out sailing with for an afternoon, it would be Titty.)
Alex
posted via 73.140.116.18 user Pitsligo.
Leaving the question of meta-fiction aside for the moment, I have often wondered what became of Missee Lee. My speculation is that she and her father before her had salted away a lot of their wealth outside China, and that with the advance of Communism she retreated to the West and eventually paired off with Jim Turner.
posted via 88.110.69.226 user Mike_Jones.
A 'golden child', I suffered this in childhood being the second born of a family too (and after he had died young as I have recounted here before), but it had never occured to me about Nancy.
I find Nancy fascinating in some ways (I've argued that as she has no basis in real life AR did somewhat indulge in her character - see link below), and realise from your comment that Peggy is very much 'second' and always trying to live up to Nancy's image. I wonder if AR had similar issues with his elder brother who was killed in WWI?
For the reasons already noted by others, Roger is perpetually annoying; to me, it's in the way a much-tolerated baby of the family can be. Accomodated in his cheekiness and irresponsibility because his elders mitigate his influence. When I was a child, "Don't be a Roger" was my father's admonition when I was becoming annoying. It never failed to sober me.
Nancy, on the other hand, is a little too perfect. AR adored that character, and it shows --not necessarily in a good way. Her overshadowing of the others, especially Peggy, grows tedious. I knew too many "Golden Children" throughout my youth (and even a few now) that were a bit too much like Nancy. No more perfect than any of the rest of us, but somehow always able to appear so, and to call the shots as they wanted. When I very first read SW, I wanted to stand up and cheer at the appearance of the Amazons. Now that point just marks the beginning of Nancy trying to take over the story.
While she is irksome in her perfection, it isn't that I *dis*like the character so much as I dislike Roger, but I have come to find myself skimming past the Nancy scenes because the character struggles so little. Struggle is interesting, in characters, and Nancy doesn't do so much of it as others do. So from my vantage as a writer, she simply isn't very interesting. AR loved her too much to give her any valuable flaws.
We see John shoulder the responsibilities of leadership throughout the books. We see Susan's worries for her own responsibilities: the logisitics and support that make or break any expedition. We see Titty struggle many times, both with uncertainties and with skills that she develops and builds on throughout the stories; likewise Dick and Dot. Peggy is disappointingly under-developed as a character (I often think there should have been only three Swallows so that Peggy could have had more room to be developed as a distinct character), but even in her we see glimpses of interesting imperfections and insecurities that she struggles with. Roger is annoying, but over the course of the books we do watch him climbing a ladder of accomplishment; as an "Egyptian" (SW) we even catch a glimpse of some maturity under pressure. But Nancy just seems to exist in a perpetual halo, unchallenged, unafraid, without much room to grow, and to me that isn't very interesting.
Alex
posted via 73.140.116.18 user Pitsligo.
The whole Swallows situation depends on John and Susan being trustworthy and reliable, and therefore perhaps less favoured than the other characters by readers. But they have their moments, especially in WDMTGTS.
I have a least favourite Laphraoig Malt Whisky, but I still enjoy it!
posted via 88.110.69.226 user Mike_Jones.
Yet Ransome also makes passing reference to the fact that the GA brought up James and Molly Turner after they were orphaned at an early age (eg Nancy ‘You see, she brought them up’ – p52). It is clear that she brought them up at Beckfoot – ‘“I wonder how mother and Uncle Jim escaped from the great-aunt to come up here”, said Peggy. “She was looking after them, you know.”’ (p335). It is important that James and Molly stayed at their own house; my father was orphaned at the age of 15, and it was a great wrench to be shipped from England to his aunt and uncle in Vancouver. Of course, we do not know how much of a sacrifice this entailed for the GA; not much if she was still living with her brother at Beckfoot (assuming, that is, that Beckfoot belonged to the Turner family rather than the Blackett family), but quite a lot if she had already set up her own establishment in the bright lights of Harrogate. James and Molly do not seem to have enjoyed the experience, but the point is that the GA rose to the challenge, doubtless according to her own lights and the standards of the time. If we wanted to get sentimental we might speculate that the GA sacrificed the prospect of marriage by looking after the two children. It meant living in a place with a narrower social circle, and the existence of James and Molly might deter prospective suitors. So three cheers for the GA.
Next let us focus on the interesting and surprising insight offered by Timothy towards the end of The Picts and the Martyrs, when he points out the similarities between the characters of the GA and Nancy. This makes us view the GA in quite a different light. If she is like Nancy in forcefulness of character, perhaps she is like her in other ways. Perhaps she was not always grim. Perhaps she and her brother enjoyed Lakeland pursuits together when they were young. It was probably the GA who sent the hotpot down to the group of skaters on the lake, which Mrs Blackett recalled in Winter Holiday.
Ransome never gives any credit to the GA for bringing up James and Molly (eg Mrs Blackett ‘…how much better it was now that children could be the friends of their elders instead of their terrified subjects’ – p432). Nor does he give her any credit for going to Beckfoot to look after Nancy and Peggy, exactly as she had looked after James and Molly – the GA must have had a sense that history was repeating itself.
I personally think that Ransome is a bit harsh on the GA. True, he endows her with a touch of nobility when she is at bay on the Beckfoot lawn, though the abiding recollection is of the maid dancing in the kitchen. But of course Ransome was writing for children, and a good uncomplicated villain like Black Jake, George Owdon or Mr Jemmerling drives the plot merrily along.
posted via 86.182.107.133 user RobinSelby.
Dr Dudgeon commented later "to hear our good policeman talk, you’d think poor Frank (Farland) was in league with the boys himself" (BS24). And later Mr Farland is interested when George O. says "they hadn’t got a camera" (how did George know that, and for that matter why he was interested in whether they had a camera?). This is after Ralph says they let off a "great flare … we couldn’t help seeing them" and George gave him an angry look (BS32).
posted via 202.49.158.24 user hugo.
To me, the only bit of the book that felt unreal was this exchange...
"You cast of that boat?" said Bill's father to his son.
"No," said Bill. "We didn't. None of us"
"You hear that," said Bill's father, turning to his friends. "Bill never tell me a lie in his life."
...or perhaps I was just a very untruthful child!
posted via 86.134.225.25 user Magnus.
When I first started reading the Ransome series, I was lucky to
have happened to start with the right one, SA. That book began
with what are today to me famous words, "Roger, aged seven,..."
This is what grabbed my attention, for two reasons. I was seven.
Here was a character that I felt I could associate with, one that
I could understand.
The second reason: my Father's name was ROGER, but of course I
would not call him that, but I did know his name, so at last, now
I can talk about ROGER (not my dad) and get away with using my
father's name.
The story went on to show Roger pretending to be a sailing ship,
tacking (a term that at that time meant nothing - something to
learn). He was pretending, just playing a "let's pretend" game.
I could identify with that as well, as many a time I sat
astraddle of the big arm rest of the easy chair, listening to the
radio "LONE RANGER" and "riding my horse" shooting my cap pistol
to help The Lone Ranger fight off the bad guys, just pretending,
somewhat like Roger was pretending.
I could go along with the idea. I became a part of that made up
adventure. I felt a connection with this character who turned
out to be the youngest in his family, just as I was the youngest,
which gave me yet another connection with this character.
I was so proud when "WE" found the gold in PP.
Roger and I were good friends. I was glad I was able to go with him
on those adventures. He is still a good friend to me decades
later.
When I today re-read of his adventures, somehow it helps me feel
young again. One is never too old to go camping on Wild Cat
island, with the Swallows.
"Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end."
ED KISER, KENTUCKY, USA
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
When I first started reading the Ransome series, I was lucky to have
happened to start with the right one, SA. That book began with what
are today to me famous words, "Roger, aged seven,..." This is what
grabbed my attention, for two reasons. I was seven. Here was a
character that I felt I could associate with, one that I could understand.
My father's name was ROGER, but of course I would not call him that, but
I did know his name, so at last, now I can talk about ROGER (not my dad)
and get away with using my father's name.
The story went on to show Roger pretending to be a sailing ship,
tacking (a term that at that time meant nothing - something to learn). He was pretending, just playing a "let's pretend" game. I could
identify with that as well, as many a time I sat astraddle of the big
arm rest of the easy chair, listening to the radio "LONE RANGER" and "riding my horse" shooting my cap pistol to help The Lone Ranger fight off the bad guys, just pretending, somewhat like Roger was pretending.
I was so proud when "WE" found the gold in PP.
Roger and I were good friends. I was glad I was able to go with him
on those adventures. He is still a good friend to me decades later.
When I today re-read of his adventures, somehow it helps me feel young again. One is never too old to go camping on Wild Cat island, with the
Swallows.
"Those were the days, my friend. We though they'd never end."
ED KISER, KENTUCKY, USA
with the idea. I became a part of that made up adventure. I felt a
connection with this character who turned out to be the youngest in his
family, just as I was the youngest - which gave me yet another connection with this character.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
Yes, I think AR was more concerned with dramatic effect at the conclusion of The Big Six. The book was published in 1940, and in the mid-20th century 'murder mystery' plays and books nearly always ended with the full cast of characters assembled in a room so that the 'sleuth' could dramatically reveal the identity of the killer. It was always someone you didn't expect, and there would usually be a sudden struggle ("Look out - he's got a gun!") and a chase before capture. Anyone who remembers the Paul Temple series on UK radio will recall that every story ended like that. I think AR was doing much the same but, I think, slightly tongue in cheek.
posted via 81.141.61.62 user Peter_H.
Even on re-readings I find the reaction of most of the adults to the accusations against Tom and the D & Gs odd. I realise that AR needed to keep the plot going but this always seems taking it too far. Similarly, the lack of proper fulsome apology when they are 'proved' to be totally innocent is disappointing.
posted via 95.144.138.39 user MTD.
Pete is depicted in a much better light, though perhaps more well behaved and clean of thought than is likely.
posted via 86.134.225.25 user Magnus.
My own least favourite? I am not sure that I have one among the main protagonists; they are all likeable in their different ways - one of the strengths of AR's writing. Perhaps the most interesting are Nancy, Titty and Dorothea, but even that judgement may be unfair on the others.
posted via 88.110.69.226 user Mike_Jones.
It would be interesting to know which of any of the characters people have a disliking for, but... to stop it becoming like a Facebook or Twitter style poll you need to explain why.
By 'character' I mean any of the Ss, As, Ds etc or the related adults who have a major part in the novels - such as Peter Duck.
This, of course, has been prompted by my own thoughts on a particular character, so time for me to 'come clean' as it were.
Mine is Roger, reiterated for me by reading PP. His antics (such as when they are all attempting to dowse) are just plain irritating, and sometimes I'm surprised nobody bluntly and directly tells him so (though he does get some chastisement for it.)
Compare this to the description of Titty's attempts at dowsing, for me it shows where AR's strengths as a writer can be found.
posted via 95.144.138.39 user MTD.
“Can I tear the paper off?” said Roger. “Good. Garibaldi. That’s squashed flies. What about opening this box? We’re bound to want to. . . .”
“Shut up just a minute. One bag of potatoes. . . . What’s that other bag?”
“Beans,” said Bridget.
“Three slabs of sticky cake. . . .”
“A whole box of chocolate,” said Roger. “Nut and raisin kind, in slabs. Let’s . . .”
“Leave them alone,” said Susan.
if I remembered my ROT13 correctly.
posted via 98.218.103.166 user Jon.
...Bless the man, if he hasna been stirrin' a puddin' wi' the ties...
You will of course know who said it and in which book?
posted via 86.134.225.25 user Magnus.
In the description there is a cryptic C18 which stands for 18th century so the cottage is over two hundred up to three hundred years old.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
And according to the page at the link, the ship remains at Beaumont Quay are of the Rose, an 1880 spritsail barge. (And the quay was last used in 1921.)
Are there any other candidates, named or not, vocal or silent?
On the vocal but unnamed side, there is the regular of the Roaring Donkey who probably makes a comment which disqualifies him from consideration "Poor lads... So young and with nothing left to live for."
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
I don’t know whether there was much call for the pilot’s services. He seems to lead a leisurely life. His small contribution to the S&A books made me consider who makes the smallest contribution – perhaps the man (whom we never actually see) who compliments Roger on Swallow in S&A?
posted via 86.181.147.50 user RobinSelby.
On BBC1, started at 1705 BST Sunday 19 Aug. Two-thirds over.
I'm in the middle of a DIY job. Will maybe try watching it on iPlayer later, and stop if I dislike it too much.
posted via 95.151.60.115 user eclrh.
[ Image ]
posted via 124.171.83.56 user mikefield.
http://allthingsransome.net/locations/secretwater/Totem.jpg
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
The new building at Witch's Quay has meant some of the quay elements seem to be missing, I'll have to dig out some photos I took in the 1990s.
As for the cottage name, did it ever have one? Something else to look for on my old photos!
posted via 95.144.138.39 user MTD.
[ Image ]
posted via 124.171.83.56 user mikefield.
I visited Beaumont Quay about a year ago myself and saw the almost-gone remains of an old boat sitting upright in the (silted-up) channel right near the quay itself. But I confess I never thought of its being Speedy's prototype, either.
By the way, I noticed that where the canal and lock were is pretty-well entirely unrecognisable now -- no sign of the lock at all, and the canal has been filled in after fifty yards. Unless you'd known about them you'd never have guessed they'd ever been there. (I also noticed that Witch's Cottage is called Thatch Cottage by its present owners.)
Yesterday myself, my wife and her youngest son (45) took a walk down Quay Lane for the first time in some years. Things are much the same, a new house has been built by the Quay (not to my taste), but fortunately Witch’s cottage is unchanged.
On our return to the main road my wife’s son (45) reminisced that in childhood he and his brother used cross the field to the left of the Quay (when you’re facing the backwaters) and play on the remains of a large boat (no longer there.) This would have been in he early 1980s,
He knows of my enthusiasm for AR but nothing of the plot of any of the books, I related to him about the wreck ‘Speedy’ in SW and began to wonder if anything is known of AR's original for it.
posted via 95.144.138.39 user MTD.
Andy
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
posted via 86.176.197.210 user RobinSelby.
The gold rushes were for alluvial gold where prospectors could (sometimes!) make their fortune with a pan or cradle to recover the gold among the rocks and stones (or floating gold dredges in some New Zealand rivers). Mining for gold meant mines and also stamper batteries to break up the ore, so requiring companies or syndicates.
I doubt if English law had to cope with alluvial gold and gold rushes, but can’t say for certain that there was no legal provision for "staking a claim" as the SADMC did! And while the Lake District did have many copper mines, I find it hard to imagine cartloads or truckloads (?) of copper ore leaving Jim and Timothy’s mine to be refined elsewhere!
posted via 203.96.136.210 user hugo.
Thank you, John Wilson, for answering a question I have long had: is staking a claim something that happens in English law? Partially growing up in the mountains of California, with gold and silver workings fairly common in the areas I hiked, the idea was completely natural to me, but it always seemed out of place in an English setting.
Alex
posted via 73.140.116.18 user Pitsligo.
posted via 124.171.130.97 user mikefield.
John and Nancy wanted to take to Slater Bob "enough gold dust to make a respectable ingot" (Ch 23) While Slater Bob had been prospecting in Africa with one of the Turners (Ch 3) I doubt if he had any experience in producing ingots though Dick is anxious to consult him! Later Nancy said "Making the ingot matters most of all" (Ch 29) but after the disaster "even if we don’t have time to smelt an ingot, the main thing is to prove the stuff is gold" (Ch 30).
When he returns Captain Flint dismisses the story of the Government officer prospector who did not return from WWI as just a myth! And Timothy does not know that the SAD Mining Co had staked their claim with a notice; perhaps one of them had read a novel about the Klondyke goldrush (staking a claim is not in English law)?
posted via 203.96.136.210 user hugo.
All this is very unlikely, because the titles of books are not subject to copyright restrictions in the UK and US. However, titles can be registered as a trademark, and I do know that 'Swallows and Amazons' has been so registered and there are therefore restrictions on its use.
posted via 86.129.3.35 user Peter_H.
Were the literary executors for AR asked? Knowing the local council I doubt it!
posted via 2.30.184.75 user MTD.
In a recent copy of the local newspaper a public notice as been published by Essex County Council for 20 mph speed limits on not just 'Arthur Ransome Way' but roads connected to it - 'Secret Waters' , 'Swallows Way' and 'Nancy Blackett Avenue'. There are others as yet unnamed.
This is the first reference I have seen to these two roads, I presume this is in time for the completion and opening of an Aldi supermarket and M&S Foodstore later this year.
posted via 2.30.184.75 user MTD.
David
posted via 97.78.238.94 user DavidMaxwell.
David
posted via 97.78.238.94 user DavidMaxwell.
I did meet a chap who was a firm fan of Shute, who revealed the Chichester point to me, but he had never found written mention of meeting/communicating with Ransome in all the Shute-related research he had done.
posted via 81.140.196.201 user Magnus.
Re-reading more of Shute's novels in the interim, I've encountered a reference to (with a brief description of) Swallows And Amazons in No Highway, together with a mention of the fact that there are twelve novels in the S&A series.
And in Landfall Shute introduces the character Admiral Sir James Blackett KCB as C-in-C Portsmouth during WW2.
There doesn't seem to be much doubt that Shute knew and admired Ransome's works as much as the rest of us do.
posted via 124.171.64.156 user mikefield.
I agree with your other points, on language (my view has always been they reflect the time being written about) and on imperialism that was one motivation to put a different perspective on Lovelock's views.
posted via 95.144.242.209 user MTD.
I must confess, when I first read AR's letters I was surprised how much he referred to the comedic elements of the SA books. He often is pleased that a section is funny, or concerned that something isn't funny enough. I hadn't really thought of them as comedic novels up to that point, although with reflection, there is rather a lot of gentle humour in there. (Although occasionally the humour is the one thing that rather dates the books, such as the handful of unfortunate sentences relating to race, which are usually included with intended humour).
On the imperialism point, I often (and perhaps too strongly for some) argue the opposite: that AR's work is furiously anti-imperialist and that anti-imperialism is the one clear constant in AR's politics throughout his life.
posted via 94.192.188.106 user Duncan.
"A Roger coming," said Port.
"A Roger," laughed Dorothea. "Give him some chocolate..."
posted via 81.178.162.117 user MartinH.
"Well, you ought to hang out a notice when you're not there.
-----------
In WINTER HOLIDAY, If not a belly laugh, at least a big grin.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
If not the humour aspect what is it that puts Lovelock's book on your "Not to be reread" list?
posted via 95.144.242.209 user MTD.
Again it may be a matter for interpretation, but I do find the S&A books, as opposed to the Broads books, tend to maintain the "game" of explorers and natives a lot longer and harp on the theme more than I suspect real children such as myself would have done. A good starting point for adventures but I think carried a bit far by Ransome.
I do agree that the books do not exhibit a really "imperialist" mindset in my opinion. Exploration is for adventure, not conquest or exploitation. Apart from Pigeon Post but it is not the local people being exploited, just the mineral wealth.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
David
posted via 97.78.238.94 user DavidMaxwell.
As few childhood friendships continue to become long-term adult relationships I have not paired off many of the S&As, though sometimes I wonder about Dick and Titty or Nancy and Tom (an fortuitous meeting with Tom serving as a junior medical officer).
How about Jim Turner going to Malaya as a temporary manager on an old friend's rubber plantation and being stuck there by the outbreak of war and later having to escape following the Japanese invasion? He could use all his knowledge of the sea and small craft to escape in a native boat.
posted via 81.178.162.117 user MartinH.
I am sure Ransome would have seen wildfires during his residence in the Lake District but I doubt that there was any single occurrence which provoked his description in PP.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
During the interview a member of the fire services came along and recommended they didn't because of the changing winds and as in his experience animals had a better survival instinct than humans! The reporter added at the end of the report that some went anyway and found nothing.
I was immediately reminded of the hedgehog that survived the fire in PP, is this, as I posed before, AR drawing upon his own experiences?
posted via 2.25.135.36 user MTD.
Firefighters interviewed yesterday were describing how there were places you could not reach with hoses and they just had to go in and stamp with their boots on still smouldering heather etc.
Did AR witness such an event (as with the freezing of the lake) or was it just a constant fear in hot dry weather?
posted via 2.25.135.36 user MTD.
I hadn't speculated about ML (or PD) being meta-fictions but there is some scope there too!
posted via 2.25.135.36 user MTD.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
Two thoughts of my own:-
First, I think Jim Turner and Mary Walker start an affair in the course of SD, while Commander Walker is safely in the Far East, Bridget is in the capable hands of nurse, and the Swallows are camping on the other side of the lake.
Secondly, just as AR defies expectation by making the Farland twins non-identical, and Dum and Dee very similar but not twins, I think that Nancy would defy expectations derived from her tomboy manner by proving vigorously heterosexual. AR hints as much in the "missing chapter" between pages 178 and 209 of the first edition of GN? when she and John spend the day alone together.
And what happens when Miss Lee, driven out by the Communists, arrives in England and encounters Jim Turner again?
posted via 88.105.95.202 user Mike_Jones.
I haven't checked my book, but I bet it was Nancy who put forward the idea of a big solid lump of gold, wanting to impress. She would not be happy with half-measures!
posted via 81.140.196.201 user Magnus.
Either way I think that the idea that merely a small pinch or two of gold dust was not considered dramatic enough and a good sized solid lump of it would be more impressive and besides it allowed Ransome to pass on his knowledge of charcoal making,
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
The problem with these two processes is that involved a FIRE.
Mrs. Tyson was greatly afraid of what a fire would do to their
area, including her house. Seeing their efforts at charcoal
burning, she was quite alarmed and wanted them to cease this
dangerous process and go home. So when the fire did start, from
a totally unrelated cause, she was angry and accused them of
starting this disasterous fire.
However, after the blast furnace was finally cooled, they found
the gold had all gone, lost, the crucible broken into fragments.
All that work was for nothing. But they went back to the mine
and panned a little bit more for Dick to take to Beckfoot to
test. It was this little sample that Captain Flint saw, and was
quite pleased to find it to be rich copper ore.
All it took to convince him was a tiny pinch of the metal.
Why was it thought so necessary to convert that "gold dust" into
a NUGGET?
Of course, if they had gone home with that first pinch of panned
dust, the last third of the book would not have been needed. The
suspense of the charcoal burning and the blast furnace cooking
would be missing from the plot. And when that fire did start,
they would not have been on hand to save Timothy, and to send
Sappho home with the call for help with the fire.
So it made quite a dramatic build up, the anticipation of
creating that nugget, which turned out to be not needed after
all, but it made it a great story.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
Taking your points in reverse, yep, the new Candle Dyke was indeed Kendal Dyke when Dick quanted his way into it. I don't know how or when the named got changed, but I assume the new name is a lazy corruption of the old one.
Regarding Malthouse/Ranworth, one of the footnotes (down near the scale) says that this was the way Ransome named them (actually incorrectly, as you say). Because the maps are based on his two Broads books I've hung on to the names the way he used them.
I think Malthouse Broad is actually often known as Ranworth Broad because it contains Ranworth Staithe and the few houses that comprise Ranworth -- which of course weren't on the 'other' Broad because it was private (as it still is, indeed.) But note that the pub that's there was the Malsters Arms (now just the Malsters), not the Ranworth Arms or whatever.
When I was there last year I made a point of asking the people at the observation place on the (real) Ranworth Broad about this, and they told me that very many people confused the two.
But your comments are very valuable, and many thanks for them, because they show you gave critical thought to it and that was exactly what I wanted.
posted via 121.45.221.3 user mikefield.
Life has intervened for quite some time, but comments I received then were duly noted and amendments made accordingly. New drafts have now been uploaded to my website, and I would be most grateful if the eagle eyes of TarBoarders could point out any details that remain to be corrected.
By and large, I have attempted to draw the maps to portray the district as it would have been in the 1930s, and confined myself to showing those part of roads and railways that then existed and that were either known to have been used by the children, or where they were located in proximity to the various waterways. (So, for instance, the road from Acle to Yarmouth is only shown near each end, not for its full length.) My intention in doing this is to keep the focus on the Broads and the rivers themselves.
AR drew two maps for his Broads books -- of the northern rivers and the southern rivers respectively -- and after some experimentation I determined that this was indeed the best way to do them. So here they are. (I apologise for the fuzziness -- these are simply screen grabs. The final versions will be better.) Any comments would be most gratefully received.
posted via 121.45.221.3 user mikefield.
posted via 202.154.143.166 user hugo.
Thanks, Adam and Peter, you've solved it for me. There's no joint-focussing knob as such -- each eyepiece is focussed separately. And the knob at the front has nothing to do with focussing at all -- it just locks the barrels the right distance apart to suit the user.
I'm glad I got up this morning....
posted via 124.171.137.184 user mikefield.
There were however a couple of pairs (including a correct-vintage pre-war Zeiss) that more-or-less fit the 'Sea Bear' description, with the focussing knob at the front of the instrument. Frustratingly though, I still can't work out how the damn' knob works.... Surely it controls the eye-pieces? But how? It only seems to be fastened to the body....
I don't think anyone is encouraging anyone else to violate copyright laws anywhere, but because this is actually quite an important question in its own right I've made a separate post on the topic. See the link below. There is also a link in that post to the copyright periods that apply in over 200 other countries. Your comments on that post are welcome.
However, Adam's comments there about copyright are important and I think deserve a thread on their own, which is why I'm posting this.
The original intention of "copyright" was to protect the author's rights to a work for his/her benefit and the benefit of their immediate beneficiaries. Formulators of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, signed originally in 1886, considered that the value of a copyright would have dropped (and also been diluted) sufficiently within a period of half a century of the author's death that it could then be allowed to lapse without very much, or any, detriment to the rights of the author or his estate.
The Berne Convention is concerned with the intellectual property rights of a variety of such works, but here I'm only concerned with literary works, and in particular with the written works of AR. The Convention stipulates a minimum period of 50 years for a written work's protection after the death of the author, or of the work's publication (essentially, whichever comes last). Countries are free to increase this minimum period within their own territories should they wish. Canada, complying with the original Convention, sticks with the stipulated 50 years. Other countries have extended their copyright periods up to double that. Thanks to Walt Disney's wanting to further protect its products, and Sonny Bono's trying to get 'perpetual copyright' (!) for his own stuff -- they were both Republicans and therefore protectionist :) -- the US now has its own "Mickey Mouse Protection Act". (Really.) This Act extends copyright to 95 years in the US (and for some works to 120 years from creation). In the EU, some works that had been in the public domain have become retrospectively re-copyrighted by individual acts of individual parliaments....
In my view, this matter of "copyrighting" has now become a minefield of dogs' breakfasts (no, Roger didn't write that) and a new, universally-applicable, Berne Convention is badly required.
Now to the matter at hand. Distributed Proofreaders was founded in 2000 as an independent site to assist Project Gutenberg in producing public domain works for reading electronically. It became an official Project Gutenberg site in 2002. In particular, Distributed Proofreaders Canada (DPC, independent, founded in 2007, for which I've been working and to which I'll now refer specifically) first uploads its completed works to The Faded Page website, from where they eventually go to Gutenberg Canada. Works are made available in a variety of electronic formats, including UTF-8, HTML, Epub, Mobi, and PDF. Canada's is the most active proof-reading organisation I think because of its shortest or equal-shortest copyright-protection period, and hence its potential inclusion of the largest number of public-domain works.
Proofreading for the organisation is carried out by members all over the world, demonstrating the utility and beauty of the internet for facilitating cooperative work. The process consists firstly of locating works of interest to the instigators that are in the public domain in Canada, scanning them using OCR, then uploading the scanned documents to DPC. At that point they're then made available to anyone anywhere who wants to help, whereupon each individual page is proof-read three times and proof-formatted twice before being made available to other readers for "smooth reading" (looking for the slight possibility of remaining errors, and for the general flow of the work). After that it's released by its project manager and made available on The Faded Page, and eventually Gutenberg Canada, for free download by anyone, anywhere.
As Adam rightly points out, because of that minefield of different copyright restrictions referred to, The Faded Page draws the attention of copyright issues to its readers --
"These books are public domain in Canada (because we follow the Canadian copyright laws), but if you are in another country, you should satisfy yourself that you are not breaking the copyright laws of your own country by downloading them."
So to wrap this up as far as AR's works are concerned, this means that, as he died in 1967, his twelve S&A books are indeed all candidates for availability on that site. (In fact, nine have already been released and the remainder are presently being worked on.) But 'Coots In The North' will not yet be available because, being published posthumously in 1988, its Canadian copyright will not expire until 2038.
If you live in Canada or any other country that recognises a fifty-year copyright period, electronic download of all twelve books will shortly be possible, and legal. If you live in the UK or the USA, download will of course still be possible but will not be legal; elsewhere it may not; so if you download anyway you will take on yourself whatever risk that might entail.
This is such an important and now complicated topic that any constructive comments would be most welcome.
However, Adam's comments about copyright are important and I think deserve a thread on their own, which is why I've posted a new topic, Copyright, Distributed Proofreaders, The Faded Page, and the Gutenberg Press. I'd be grateful if anyone who wanted to further pursue the question of copyright do so there, rather than here, just in case we get a late binocular-aficionado who can help me with the original question.
posted via 124.171.134.77 user mikefield.
As has been speculated upon in various publications, these two are seen as representations of two sides of AR’s own self. For me, particularly in WH it is that they were ‘outsiders’ being welcomed in to the group – especially by Nancy, which is some ways goes against the person AR had previously portrayed her as.
They are both, I think, my favourite characters and I always enjoy reading how amazed all the others are when they begin skating of the frozen tarn in WH, removing any doubts as to why they should not join the expedition.
posted via 95.144.241.223 user MTD.
The site has a warning "These books are public domain in Canada (because we follow the Canadian copyright laws), but if you are in another country, you should satisfy yourself that you are not breaking the copyright laws of your own country by downloading them."
All Things Ransome and TarBoard are not domiciled in Canada and we work very hard to ensure that we do not infringe on anyone's copyright. Therefore we do not want anyone to believe that we support illegal downloading of material.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
The site has a warning "These books are public domain in Canada (because we follow the Canadian copyright laws), but if you are in another country, you should satisfy yourself that you are not breaking the copyright laws of your own country by downloading them."
All Things Ransome and TarBoard are not domiciled in Canada and we work very hard to ensure that we do not infringe on anyone's copyright. Therefore we do not want anyone to believe that we support illegal downloading of material.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-44347000
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I'm presently proof-reading 'Great Northern?' for The Faded Page (where most of the AR novels are now available for free download), and I've just noticed a sketch of binoculars as a chapter-break, presumably binoculars from the Sea Bear. Their focussing knob is at the forward end of the glasses, not near the eye-pieces where it has always been in any binoculars I've ever seen. Surely they didn't work by moving the objective lenses, instead of the eye-pieces? Can anyone shed any light on the construction of this particular instrument please?
[ Image ]
posted via 124.171.134.77 user mikefield.
In spite of its geographical setting, this is not particularly an 'Australian' story like, say, The Far Country, Beyond The Black Stump, In The Wet, or others, and nor is it one of his best stories anyway, but it's still a good read. (Let me know if you can't find a copy and I'll mail mine down.)
By the way, and just to get back on the AR theme, nine of the twelve AR books are now available for free download as e-books from The Faded Page; with the remaining three currently being proof-read and to be available shortly.
Cheers, Mike
And as far as FaceBook goes, despite missing some lovely stuff about the Broads and about narrowboats, I left it forever with few regrets after the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
For me, TarBoard has always been, and will continue to be, the go-to site for all things Ransome.
[ Image ]
posted via 124.171.134.77 user mikefield.
I just wanted to mention that participation in this once-fairly-active forum seems to have evaporated. I suspect everyone has headed to Facebook. (I avoid FB, so I can't say for sure.) Rather too bad, but... That's evolution for you.
Best of luck,
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I'm attending the TARS IAGM in Coniston coming up soon, and have a bit of extra time on the ends. I'm wondering if the walks in "In the Footsteps of the Swallows and Amazons" by Claire Kendall-Price are still doable. I see my copy is nearly 25 years old (eep!); around hear any walks that old would now be going through parking lots, but I'm hoping the Lake District is not in such dire straights. Can anyone enlighten me?
Thanks in advance for any help.
posted via 50.54.220.51 user Zeggpold.
That's considered a key element of good style.
Andy
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
The Swallows see a sharp-pointed rock on the port bow (SD3). Then (just before the shipwreck) "Remember the rock we saw yesterday .... the Pike Rock" (SD5).
Nancy thinks that "it was a jolly good thing that Captain Flint was abroad for the winter" (just before he arrives; WH20). Though he "has his uses" for the North Polar Expedition!
posted via 203.96.142.177 user hugo.
Andy
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
I think that is almost the opposite of the "fourth wall" in that it is putting the writing of the story into the realm of fiction too (especially with PD and ML, I suppose). It's a fairy-tale method of course, like Old Peter telling tales to his grandchildren, or Tolkien being handed the Baggins' book by an old hobbit and translating it for a modern audience.
I'm fascinated by it, not least because, in the hands of AR and JRRT it seems like rather an old-fashioned, or rather timeless approach to storytelling, yet also in the 20th century similar devices in the hands of writers for adults were seen as highly contemporary and experimental.
posted via 5.70.69.169 user Duncan.
It is something I hadn't noticed before, and gives a lot to think about.
posted via 95.146.165.153 user MTD.
Susan unhooked the traveller and she and Roger together brought down the sail and the yard. Titty with the crockery basket was well out of the way under the folds of the sail. All this happened much quicker than I can tell it, and when the sail was down Swallow still had enough way on her to slide in towards the beach.
...which made me think of this similar instance (which struck me as odd, as a child, that the author should address me so) from S&A Chapter XII...
Mate Susan, Able-seaman Titty, and the Boy Roger watched the lights and sang out the moment the top one showed a little to left or right of the lower one. With so many look-out men Captain John might have been content, but just once he looked round for himself and saw the two lights one above the other like the stop called a colon, which I am just going to make: there, like that.
These two are examples of 'breaking the fourth wall'. Can you think of others?
And having no money we want something which is and freely available, of course.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
Regards,
Woll
posted via 84.51.138.122 user Woll.
If so it would be really good to have found and moved to an alternative which meets everyone's approval but doesn't require a skilled programmer to keep it running and modify the code.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
Interested to see that there are going to be consideration of a 'New TarBoard', is this just at the 'thinking' stage or are there already some ideas on the table?
posted via 2.30.186.56 user MTD.
One website says "eggs is eggs" might be a corruption of the phrase "x is x" from a mathematical sort of deduction. Seems reasonable until you see other websites claiming the phrase appeared in a dictionary of slang published in 1699. Do 17th century mathematicians use slang? Do the sort of people who use slang, know about mathematical formulae?
To kick the debate off... what other weird old fashioned phrases can you find in the 12 books?
posted via 86.177.99.162 user Magnus.
Never thought of Roger.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
Since you are probably already aware that GN uses the word "egg" 467 times, and BS only 15, we need another eggy question...
Using your excellent memories, and referring to paper only (no ebooks!), can you tell me which three characters use the phrase "as sure as eggs is eggs"?
Just simply reply here with "Joe Bill Pete" or whatever three names you think likely, and we can see who got it right on Sunday.
posted via 86.177.99.162 user Magnus.
Swallowdale, Chapter VI
"You’ve got a jolly good crew," said Nancy. "If they hadn’t coiled your anchor-rope as it should be coiled it would have jammed, as sure as eggs is eggs, and you might never have been able to throw it clear."
Secret Water, Chapter VII
Roger was pointing. "A boat. I saw it. It was just going behind the other island."
The others looked up the Creek where Roger was pointing.
"We can’t see it now," said Roger. "It simply disappeared into the land."
"Are you sure?" said John.
"As eggs is eggs," said Roger.
The Big Six, Chapter XII
"Not going to be had that way twice," said Joe. "If anybody see us with them boats they’ll say we cast 'em off, same as George Owdon say when we tie up that cutter that were caught in the trees."
"Sure as eggs is eggs they’ll say it’s us," said Bill, who was hurriedly setting the sail.
posted via 86.177.99.162 user Magnus.
Nancy
Mrs Dixon
Jacky
posted via 92.16.48.141 user MartinH.
????
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
Since you are probably already aware that GN uses the word "egg" 467 times, and BS only 15, we need another eggy question...
Using your excellent memories, and referring to paper only (no ebooks!), can you tell me which three characters use the phrase "as sure as eggs is eggs"?
Just simply reply here with "Joe Bill Pete" or whatever three names you think likely, and we can see who got it right on Sunday.
posted via 81.156.118.120 user Magnus.
My grandchild signals by flashlight to me from next door, aving learned Morse from me, who learned it from Winter Holiday.
I sailed my four meter catamarin without any teacher other than Ransome.
On outings with my Boy Scout friends, I build the campfire, heating my pot well before any other, because Susan showed me how.
I studied the constellations because Dick thought it was important.
The list goes on and on...
Thanks Arthur, you game much meaning to my life.
Ed Kiser [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
I'm often dipping into the books, sometimes just to refresh my memory over a point. This time I decided to re-read all of SD.
posted via 92.16.48.141 user MartinH.
I've read SD many times but can't recall that usage at all, when does it occur? (Perhaps its time to read it again.)
posted via 2.30.186.56 user MTD.
"Watershed," said Titty, as if she had been waiting for the word, "I ought to have thought of that at once, instead of thinking it was the compass getting bumped."
Would it have been normal for a 9 year old of that time to know about such things? I'm pretty sure I didn't do that until I was about 11 or 12, when we covered rivers and drainage. I know when I first read SD I had to ask what the term meant.
posted via 92.16.48.141 user MartinH.
Whilst out there I recalled the one bit of Winter Holiday I never fail to implement in my life...
“Have you gone through the ice?” said Dorothea.
“Only snow,” said Roger, “tobogganing. Dry enough now.”
“You wouldn’t have been wet at all if you’d dusted the snow off before letting it melt into your stockings,” said Susan.
posted via 81.156.112.140 user Magnus.
Why, the first thing he had done that morning when they had run out into the glittering snow had been to put a scrap of snow on a bit of glass, so that he could look at the crystals under his microscope. And then he had stuck a bit of stick upright in the snow and made a notch on it, and taken it indoors to borrow Mrs Dixon’s measuring tape to see exactly what depth of snowfall there had been.
posted via 81.156.112.140 user Magnus.
posted via 5.80.192.167 user MarkD.
I once tried to create a font of that type of semaphore --including elements from CF's message in ML, like junks for periods-- using FontStruct, but never finished it. Does anyone know if a Dancing Man font has already been done by a ACD fan?
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
...Which any one of us would recognize at a glance as an example of Nancy's semaphore.
I haven't bothered to freeze the frames and read it --they probably got it wrong anyhow, from the bits they've been playing with as the episodes progress-- but seeing it made me chuckle.
I wonder who the AR fan is on their design team.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
Her response to ‘My Favourite Book as a Child was…’
“Swallows and Amazons. It was all I wanted in a book when I was younger: escapism, nature, gentle adventures, a tomboy lifestyle, and a sense of endless time and space in which to play and be free. I am breathing a sigh of relief just thinking about it!”
posted via 95.146.165.154 user MTD.
She was helped and encouraged to eat from descriptions of food and meals in children's books.
She says "Swallows and Amazons spurred me to pour golden syrup on my porridge."
I can remember references to porridge in many of the books, but golden syrup? Perhaps Ed Kiser could make use of his search facility to tell us if there are such references (if there are, they've passed me by over the years!)
posted via 95.146.165.154 user MTD.
If you find any problems, please get in touch.
TarBoard will not accept posts from Saturday morning UK time.
Once the transfer is compete and tested we will open up TarBoard again. However, there will be a new IP address which has to propagate across the internet and this could take some time before you will be able to find the site.
So please don't panic, just keep trying and we hope that normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
pitsligo a
t sprynet d
o
t com
Anyone who feels like sending me nastygrams will, of course, be sending me their email at the same time, and the scraper-bots haven't yet bothered me with such encoding.
I do wish TarBoard used different software for the forum, though, with such features as allowed private messages between members, and an easier sorting of threads. I suspect it's a (quite understandable) matter of cost.
Again, thank you.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
This means that TarBoard and All Things Ransome will be unavailable for some time (possibly more than 24 hours) while the new IP addresses permeate across the internet. Please keep trying if at first you don't succeed in accessing TarBoard after Saturday night.
I will post a second reminder closer to the actual time of the shutdown.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I then compounded the problem by marrying someone whose initials are PA and naming my children with the initials EA, ME and MP, the firstborn's name is often shortened to Em.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
More troublesome is the older practice of naming a first born son after his father, so that letters which omit the Snr/Jnr suffix are just as confusing. Plus you never know which person a telephone caller is asking for.
posted via 81.158.243.43 user Magnus.
On a tangent: from a long, long time ago I remember some AR fan-fic, a what-happened-to-them-later story, c.WW2. Most of them are in uniform by then, of course, but while on leave Titty and Susan are conversing in Susan's flat, catching each other up on who is where and doing what. While I can't remember all details, I do remember that a great deal of attention was paid to who was romantically involved with whom. The pairings were generally unsurprising, but one of my favorite bits was one of them telling the other how Roger was currently getting romantic whiplash trying to keep up with an unnamed pair of twins --the implication being that he was being courted by Port and Starboard, who would, of course, be strangers to Titty and Susan.
Which, depending on how that played out, could solve the "Miss E. Farland" confusion for (at least) one of them.
More seriously, does anyone else remember this bit of fan-fic, and perhaps have a copy I could have a look at?
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
And I have *no* idea whether that would have been likely, given the era and the ages of the characters.
So yes, I agree it's more likely they are DZ/fraternal twins with marked enough physical similarity to be indistinguishable at a glance to those who don't know them well.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
As for names, are Bess and Nell nicks for anything other than Elizabeth and Helen?
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
“It’s quite easy, really,” said Starboard.
“Once you know,” said Port.
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Barrable. “I remember now. Nell’s the one with curly hair.”
“And the right-handed one,” said Tom. “That’s why she’s Starboard, and Bess is left-handed and so she’s Port. It comes very handy for sailing.”
“Not much sailing for anybody today,” said Mrs. Barrable, looking up the glassy river.
Left-handed children born as recently as 1909 had their arm strapped behind their back at school; I heard this from my wife's grandfather. Do we guess that Bess was born around 1915 or just after? Or would AR have thought about his own childhood? Or that of Tabitha?
As a child of a solicitor I expect Bessie to have had a good education.
On another tangent: do you think their full names were Elizabeth and Helen?!
posted via 81.158.243.43 user Magnus.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
“Charcoal pudding shows what looks like titty pouring a kettle with her right.
PM has a few things that are possibly inconclusive (eg Dick holding the sheet in his right hand in “they were startled by a splash” despite being on starboard tack, and again in his right for “it acts as an extra sail” whilst on port tack), but does show Timothy writing with his right hand in “work in the houseboat”.
In my edition of SA there is a small untitled pic of possibly Titty holding a telescope in her right hand to her right eye.
ML in “at work on the dragon” shows Titty and Roger using paintbrushes in their right hands.
BS “it’s a different tyre” shows Dick writing with his right.
posted via 5.80.192.167 user MarkD.
In the text Roger pricks his own left hand, indicating he is also right handed.
It shows Don using his left hand to prick himself, John using his right, Susan holding the iodine bottle in her right to give to Roger and holding her left like it’s hurt (she gives the bottle to Roger after pricking herself, so presumably she is right handed and using her uninjured hand to hold the bottle). Titty is dripping blood onto the plate from her left hand after pricking herself so is also presumably right handed.
I think that’s fairly good evidence that all the Swallows and Nancy are right handed and only Don is a left hooker.
posted via 5.80.192.167 user MarkD.
AR was writing in, and of, a time when (in the UK) left-handedness was seen as an aberration and children would be 'forced' to use their right hand even to the extent of having their left one strapped up so they couldn't use it.
I also think that given how AR wrote, if a character was left-handed he would have said so!
posted via 95.150.14.207 user MTD.
(I'd also considered the question of sight-lines, but there's every reason to think that the whole side of the barn could be seen readily from Holly Howe, so that the issue of whether one side or the other of the barn was better doesn't come into play.)
posted via 124.171.149.247 user mikefield.
One could argue that the choice of sides to fix the sign indicated a particular handedness, but from the drawing the window is offset so that there is a much larger expanse of blank wall to the left and I think it would be the more natural choice.
posted via 5.80.192.167 user MarkD.
Actually, by listing map making and writing I meant more to wonder whether, in any of the books' *pictorial* illustrations, we see any of the characters specifically using either their left or right hand in a way that might identify handedness. Not that it would settle the matter --IIRC that era was known for training "lefties" to work with their right hand, some tasks effectively demand right-handedness from the nature of equipment (e.g. using a sextant), and ambidexterity could throw off any certainty.
I haven't seen a connection between left-handedness and creativity myself, in any of the examples I have known personally, but I won't contradict you. In fact, I dimly remember studies that would back you up in that assertion.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I'm convinced there's some connectedness between handedness and creativity, though.
The only left-hander in my family is my second daughter. She used to be quite a creative writer, but her physical condition limits her a bit in that direction these days.
Map-making comes from a primarily "lower limbic quadrant" form of thinking -- definitely left-brain I'm afraid, so I'm equally definitely right-handed...
posted via 124.171.149.247 user mikefield.
Now I'll need to look for other instances of handedness. Illustrations of map-making? Writing?
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
"This'll do," he said, trying it in his hand, and went to the big window. He stood there on the sill, holding to the wall with his right hand and reaching round it and as high up it as he could with his left. He found a crack between the stones, pushed into it a big nail that he fished out of his pocket, battered it firmly in with his stone hammer, and gave it a last knock from below to make it turn upwards.
This is pretty clearly describing how a left-hander would do this.
(Without any evidence) I'd only ever thought of Titty -- and just perhaps Dorothea -- being left-handed, not any of the others; and certainly not John.
Is there any other evidence of the children's handedness that anyone has come across?
posted via 124.171.149.247 user mikefield.
The books are being made available in Canada as that country recognises a 50-year-after-death copyright period, which, as AR died in 1967, has now expired.
(Naturally, you should only download this book if copyright restrictions in your country allow you to.... )
[ Image ]
posted via 124.171.149.247 user mikefield.
This can be seen in particular as AR wrote many in the 1940s, under the dark cloud of WWII, but carried on the same style.
posted via 95.150.14.131 user MTD.
Which of course drags us into the question of whether technology alone would have prevented S&A from being the story it is. Night sailing to capture Amazon wouldn't have been so duffer-ish with a GPS-enabled phone. The storm wouldn't have been such a surprise with a weather ap. What sort of tension would there have been with that instant umbilical of security back to Mother at Holly Howe?
Different stories of a different era; for better or for worse --and I won't make any attempt at *that* assessment!-- impossible to replicate.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
So when did "pudding" become a specific type of dessert? Has it always been in the US? Was it so in AR's time, and he is using a specific era/demographic's language for the purpose of establishing his setting?
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I wonder if it's a change made by AR after publication, or that the "a" was dropped accidentally by the printers at some point?
Both variations are acceptable English. I think the original fits the voice of novice-cook-Dorothea better!
posted via 87.115.148.117 user Woll.
You mention "cell phones", the first time I came across this in a USA TV programme it took me a few moments to realise they meant a "mobile"! These days over here "smart phone" has become more widespread.
Like you, over the years I have learnt much from AR and when I watch TV quiz shows (serious ones), I realise just how much I have to thank him for!
posted via 95.150.15.235 user MTD.
To a British English speaker this wold be equivalent of an American saying "And there's any amount of cake for dessert."
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
This forum has been a blessing to help understand the UK version of certain words.
My first "what the heck is That?" was there is SA, first chapter, when Roger came running up others with that telegram in hand. John, seeing the paper waving in his hand, asked him: "Despatches?" Right away, I became aware that reading this would take some translation.
Some time ago on this forum,I learned what "Midden" is, as used in the phrase "cock of the midden". To be "High and mighty", to stand on the high ground, that image gets knocked down a peg or two when that "high ground" is just a pile of stuff that occasionally gets scraped out of a chicken house.
Ransome has been a fantastic LEARNING experience, and not just learning about how to sail. My first sailing experience was just fine because I had read Ransome - I'm sure others could say the same. That first day out sailing, I felt I could hear Nancy saying, "Fingers, fingers." Yet somehow, I have a feeling that something a bit more forceful was needed by John when sailing the Goblin in stormy seas.
It was Ransome that got me interested in Morse Code. I was the kid that was always last to be chosen for the team, so to be asked by our Boy Scout Master to teach Morse to the others was quite a feather in my cap, a role of leadership among my peers. The Nerd was "in charge" for a change. Of course, that was back before the time of "cell phones". Hard to get kids motivated for Morse Code when they are busy texting.
There is that "secret" code that one uses when knocking on the door of a friend, a tapping that seems to mean, "It's me." Not really secret as it is well known. To put words to that code: "Shave and a hair cut, two bits." With the "and a" being said quickly together, and the other words all separately, and using the concept when banging Morse Code to send a DOT as one bang, and DASH as two bangs close together, (reminds me of the "double click" of the computer mouse) that little code becomes in Morse as "Dot Dash Dot Dot - pause - Dot Dot" which are the codes for "LI" (first two letters in "listen").
It was wonderful to be learning without knowing that is what was happening.
And the learning process continues. Ah, the marvels of modern communication...
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
A more typical/traditional/old-fashioned "pudding course" would be something like "spotted dick", "treacle pudding", "rice pudding", "Christmas pudding" which are often steamed, but it could also be used to mean a trifle, ice cream etc.
The word "pudding" can also be used for savoury food, like "Yorkshire pudding" or "steak and kidney pudding", but in this context Dorothea means "pudding course".
Having just moved into their new quarters, "the Dogs' Home", Dorothea is considering what to do for their first meal on their own.
I am unaware of a PUDDING needing, as one of its ingredients, a CAKE. Now maybe "CAKE" means something other than what one puts icing on, and some candles, then dance around it singing "Happy Birthday". If she has some "CAKE" why not enjoy the cake rather than glop it all up in some sort of a pudding?
Or is this a language problem, where "CAKE" and "PUDDING" mean something different, depending on which side of the Great Pond one resides.
Perhaps here we are frustrated with the faulty translation of one language to another (British into American) leading to misunderstandings.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
John
posted via 165.91.12.86 user Mcneacail.
When I joined the RN for officer training we were issued with, what I think was called "The Able Seaman's Handbook". This covered many practical items of seamanship that an AB might have to undertake. It was not the definitive publication, that was "The Admiralty Manual of Seamanship" in 4 volumes (Vol 1 of which is on my bookshelf as I type). As far as I can remember the AB's handbook covered compasses, ropework, and commands used in small boats amongst other items.
During WW2 there was "A Seaman's Pocketbook". Whether this was a republication of an earlier book or a new book as an aid to the many called up for service during the war I don't know. However it has been reprinted by Conways. It is described thus:
At the height of the Second World War this small pocket-book was issued to all ratings on board ships of the Royal Navy. In straight period prose it outlines all the basic expressions and tasks a seaman needed to know to perform his duties efficiently. Chapters are broken down into: Sea Terms; Navigation; Steering the Ship; Rigging; Anchors and Cables; Boatwork; Miscellaneous (which includes details on uniform and folding a hammock, etc); and Ship Safety. Functional black line illustrations are used throughout, as well as a few pages of colour (used sparingly) for flag recognition.
posted via 2.102.118.45 user MartinH.
Someone mentioned it was a US publication. If the title matches exactly, that is a pretty likely.
However, Arthur Ransome had a copy of "A Seamans Pocket Book" (published by the Admirality) in his library when he died, published 1943. It could be this one too.
Has anyone seen inside either publication, to know if they are something a young lad would see as useful when on the island. How to splice some reef points, for example? (N.B. No mention is made of John consulting a book during that scene!)
posted via 81.129.149.81 user Magnus.
That's some pretty impressive sleuthing. Did you go hunting for Dick's book in particular, examining the various options, or come across Sandars in the course of other pursuits, recognize the similarity, and have a "eureka moment"?
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I wrote an article for the 2005 Mixed Moss entitled "Is the Dick's Bird Book?"
Here is an excerpt from the article which gives my reasons for believing that this is the book.
The reasons why I am so positive that this small book was the one Dick consulted are the quotes from the book that Ransome gives in the text and also the illustrations in Great Northern? To start with, Ransome states that the Great Northern and Black Throated Divers were shown on the same page. This is what Sandars shows. In addition, there is the Latin name, colymbus immer immer, the species name was changed in 1931 to gavia immer immer, (note: I have read that urinator immer immer was also used for some time between colymbus and gavia but I am not sure for how long).
Sandars idiosyncratically abbreviated the Latin name to colymbus immer2 with a superscript 2 and continued to use colymbus immer2 in later editions. In Chapter VII “Is it or isn’t it” of GN? Ransome refers to colymbus immer which might be easily done if he did not notice or realise what the superscript 2 meant. He also uses direct quotes from the descriptions of the Great Northern and Black Throated Diver in Dick's book. These are exactly the same words as Sandars' text.
Nests abroad. Usually seen solitary. Black Throated Diver Colymbus arcticus. Length 28 inches. Great Northern Diver Colymbus immer. Length 31 inches.
Sandars’ description of the Great Northern Diver is also notable as being very short and lacking in the details given for other birds. This would have added to Dick’s frustration giving him too little information to conclusively identify the Great Northern Divers.
Finally, the picture of the Great Northern Diver in Sandars' book is one of those where he has chosen to put an enlarged picture of the head and neck of the GN to make the differences in appearance from the Black-Throated diver clear, just as Dick does in his notebook. The picture of the whole body of the GN in Sandars book is quite small and tucked into a space on the page. What is also striking is how similar Ransome's illustrations of Dick's notebook are to the images from Sandars' book. They face the same way, in the same pose and are almost identical in detail and relative size.
I am certainly satisfied that Dick’s bird book was Sandars’ A Bird Book for the Pocket. The pictures and the text hang together. It is a suitably sized small handbook to carry aboard a on a cruising yacht. It was published at the right time and was a popular field guide, maybe the book belonged to Mac and the Sea Bear rather than Dick, though it seems unlike Dick to go on an expedition without some reference book.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
Sinbad the Sailor seems the most likely source for the moggy and the pooch.
posted via 88.110.83.67 user Mike_Jones.
I don't think this is exactly what is said in 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu. Was it that book, or another, that Ransome was referring to?
posted via 81.129.149.81 user Magnus.
Specifically, was GN? printed from locked formes, with such moveable type as I at first imagined, where "us" and "an" would have been individual pieces of cast type able to be moved about independantly? Or was it printed from etched plates, where the entire text of a signature (so several pages worth of type) was etched, complete, into a single metal plate? If the former, my hypothesis has merit. If the latter...
Perhaps an etched plate might have been created using a forme --with the moveable type-- in which case my original hypothesis stands. A forme could have been made up, locked, and used to print the plate with an acid-resist, then the forme would have been rearranged into the text needed for next plate, etc. The book itself would have been printed off the plates while the formes and type were merely part of the typesetting process, used and re-used for any number of books. I imagine this would be much easier (and cheaper) for Cape than keeping/storing a complete set of formes. Later editions, once the mistake had been noted, would have had a new plate etched with corrected type.
But if the original plate was photo-engraved(?), where no formes were involved(?), we'd need to look for a different explanation.
I simply don't know enough about the printing process of that era to guess with any authority. My original guess ("us"/"an") feels sound to me, but I'd want to hear from a printer with historical knowledge before I called it gospel.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
Rural education in the late 19th century is described, for example, in Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson.
posted via 95.148.181.242 user eclrh.
None of this is any sort of problem and is a bit pedantic, but I find it of interest. The pitfalls of authorship!
posted via 86.156.56.162 user Peter_H.
"Cook," said Dorothea, reading a scrap of paper by the flick-
ering light. "And I've gone and missed her." She gave Dick the
scrap of paper and he read:
Hope your makin do. If owts wanting you can tell Jacky.
M. Braithwaite.
It seems odd that she would write a note in dialect, it sounds like something she would say out loud but surely she would have been taught "proper English" for more formal things even short notes.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
I saw a very small example of a similar matter, only just now, but it is a debatable one that just happens to resonate with me personally.
In P&M Chapter XX:
“She knows, with her son a policeman and all,” said Jacky. “I asked Mrs. Braithwaite at Beckfoot, but she wouldn’t tell me nowt.”
“Who is Mrs. Braithwaite?” asked Dick.
“That’s Cook,” said Dorothea. “Go on, Jacky. What did she say?”
Now some people might see this as blatantly telling your readers, not showing. And half-way through the 11th book is a late time to impart such information too!
But to me, this is just such a classic moment of true observation on the male-versus-female brain. I have said the same thing to my wife so many times:
Wife: "I will ask Deirdre to look after the cat next week."
Me: "Who's that?! Never heard of her!
Wife: "You spoke to her yesterday; the lady with a bad leg who lives three doors down and we see in church if it's not raining. She's got a son called Bernard and her ex-husband was in the RAF. She likes cheese-rolling and poker."
Me: "I am aware of the existence of this person. I swear nobody has ever mentioned her name in my presence."
Wife: [rolls eyes]
posted via 81.129.149.81 user Magnus.
I don't think there is any reference to "Lewis" in the book, but would defer to Ed if he finds differently.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
Interesting that "Sanus" is an anagram of Susan, but not a reversal --"nasuS". If it were a typesetter's error, I suppose I could see how the upper case "S" would obviously go first in the chase, when making up the forme, and then the rest... got scrambled. If they were using pre-cast two-letter increments --both "us" and "an" being useful words on their own-- it might have been a case of using an upper-case "S" and then swapping the next two type-pieces.
Interesting quirk! Sort of a "Wicked Bible" of A&R.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
PS: Is Lewis or the Isle of Lewis mentioned by name in GN? The 2013 Red Fox edition has a map of the north of Scotland showing Oban and Mallig, Skye and Lewis.
posted via 203.96.138.207 user hugo.
I have encountered lesser versions of it throughout the series, but S&A Chp1 is the best of the lot.
The only other one that leaps to mind is WDMTGTS Chp1, where we see Goblin almost miss her mooring and be swept away by the tide. It's a good forewarning of "bad things happen if you're at the mercy of the tide" that sets the stage for the later drama. However, it's not as immersive a prelude.
He then does similar, smaller things throughout the earlier chapters of WDMTGTS --a constant awareness of tide, current, and shoal water, the boat stuck on the mudflat, etc. But that's just basic writer's craft.
It's the scale of his accomplishment in S&A Chp1 and the subliminal ease of it that, for me, puts it in the context of genius. Sailing is *not* a simple art to explain, and in that instance he does it so very, very well.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I cannot believe I have never noticed this before. It all is so clever and cunning, yet totally unforced and almost subliminal.
Alex, can we have your observations on other chapters and other books please!
posted via 81.129.149.81 user Magnus.
First there is, in the first sentence, so much of what you need to know about Roger, his family, his mother's mindset, and the character of his (their) interactions with the world. None of the information is forced, not a word is wasted, and it soaks in effortlessly, allowing us to see the Walkers exactly as we need to for the coming story.
Beyond that, I cannot imagine a better way to introduce the concepts of beating and running to readers who might never have had cause to imagine how a sailboat must interact with the wind. A child zig-zagging up a hill, a little out of breath and wishing he could just run straight into the wind, perfectly anthropomorphizes the concept, and allows us to understand intuitively the intrinsic frustrations of tacking into a wind. Then the way Roger puts his arms out and runs back down the hill makes it clear just what a boat must do, and how much easier is that point of sail.
It is a chapter of genius, giving the reader all they need to know about the central conflict of the story to come: which way will the wind be, in the war with the Amazons? I don't know of any other book that teaches those fundamentals of sailing on so intuitive a level.
As a writer, I am always stunned and delighted by that chapter more than any other.
Just had to rave about it.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I envy you the snow, here in Secret Water country its just another too warm day for the time of year and trying to rain!
posted via 2.28.231.174 user MTD.
It is still early evening on Christmas Eve here in Toronto with the snow falling a bit harder since it started earlier this afternoon but it is not a blizzard so I won't be making a sailing dash for the North Pole.
May all TarBoarders have a very Merry Christmas and don't blow all your money on a mincing machine.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
In America though works published in the United States prior to 1928 are all in the public domain. From 1928 to 1977 the period was 95 years from date of publication and could require renewal, hence the books in the S&A series could have different expiry years? The Wikipedia article below mentions a 2016 case law ruling that remastering of pre-1972 music extended copyright because of the work involved, but I do not know if this ruling extended to films? And would it apply to the original unremastered work? The 1998 "Sonny Bono" Copyright Extension Act extended copyright for works of corporate authorship like Disney’s Mickey Mouse films to the earlier of 120 years since creation or 95 years since publication.
http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/class-of-2018/
(At the bottom of the article.)
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I would have thought that this is the main reason to want, if not a first edition, certainly an early one. Plates do lose sharpness and definition with repeated printings.
But otherwise, I agree that as a matter of strict utility, an eBook version is as good as any print edition. I have a shelf-full of the original green Cape 12 hardbacks (except for ML, which has walked away some years ago and is unmissed), but for the ones I actually read reasonably often (WH, PP, PM) I have bought eBook versions.
I do acknowledge that there can be a special thrill in handling an early edition of a book, something that creates a tangible link with a special period in the past. In 1962 (he wrote in the margin) my father bought an original 1941 edition of "Post D- Some Experiences of an Air Raid Warden" by John Strachey. It's splendidly written with the same clarity and unfussy directness as AR's best, and the stories (fiction based on fact) bring the time, and its social assumptions, vividly to life. The book itself was a Gollancz utility edition, between plain blue boards in a yellow dust jacket which has literally fallen apart, and on paper full of acid which has turned it brown and is eating it away. But it's still readable, I keep it by my bed and have read it many times, and the very crumbling state of it takes me back to what Strachey is describing. I remember it as a small child, and I vividly remember the excitement of the sirens. Holding that contemporary book makes it all the sharper.
posted via 90.252.99.43 user PeterC.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
If she is so sure of this why was so much money invested in the film last year and why are the 12 still all in pring in hardback and paperback?
I remember in the 1970s on 'Any Questions' a woman saying she went to France for her holidays as there was no beautiful countryside in the UK!
posted via 95.149.130.62 user MTD.
Chorley’s – Sale of AR 1st Edns.
posted via 81.129.127.149 user Peter_H.
posted via 86.19.218.132 user johnw.
So who read Wayne Hammond's addendum and realised there was another mystery book out there? Maybe AR wrote a short story for 'The Book of the Month' in 1909/1910 too? Keep your eyes peeled in the secondhand bookshops everyone!
posted via 86.191.65.146 user Magnus.
If anyone knows any way of downloading this clip, rather than streaming it, I'd be grateful to learn how. My "streaming", even though I've finally got something to work after a fashion, is more like a few disconnected drips....
posted via 185.186.77.65 user mikefield.
I'm telling you not so you can bid for it (the price is already over £100) but rather that you grab the chance to look at the photos, for you may never get another opportunity to see a copy!
The seller has photographed about 90% of the book's pages, so you can almost read the whole story. See what you think of the style of writing...
Also, Alan has suggested a private workaround to me, for which I'm most grateful.
posted via 165.227.55.125 user mikefield.
But the effort might be more than the results warrant, as as the old advert says, "your mileage may vary".
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
I appreciate your efforts though -- very many thanks.
Is Channel 4 a part of the BBC as Adam suggests, do you know?
posted via 124.171.146.111 user mikefield.
I haven't even got that far yet. As soon as I click on your original link I go to what looks the starting screen of the 47 min episode, with the Play button in the middle of a lovely picture of the two of them on what looks a red-painted steel narrowboat. But clicking on the arrow (or the lower one, on the timeline) produces just nothing at all.
Having just come back from a week on the Broads, I'd really like to see their take on it. (More about my time in Ransome country when I get some photos up and running.)
Below that picture mentioned is a list of other episodes -- some of which I'd also like to watch -- with a box stating "Only show episodes I can play" already ticked. But none of them works. Very frustrating....
posted via 124.171.146.111 user mikefield.
However, I did see an option to Register myself with Ch 4, but when I tried that my only country choice was UK or Eire. So perhaps it's only a local service anyway? :(
posted via 124.171.146.111 user mikefield.
The armed forces still use morse code by radio and light. The latter is regularly used by warships for line-of-sight communication. It has the advantage of being directional (with a proper signalling lamp) and un-jammable. As a watch keeping officer I was expected to be able to send and receive at 5 words per minute, a pathetically low speed compared to our experienced tactical signalmen. With a lightweight lamp all you see was a continuous flicker of light.
posted via 2.102.116.46 user MartinH.
The slow television programmes are very good. The other evening I watched the two hour canal boat chug along the Kennet & Avon, and felt totally relaxed after a somewhat hectic day. The first time I saw it I thought it was a pity AR had not set something on a narrow boat. Malcolm Saville redressed the balance, and now the Wests have almost combined the two.
posted via 5.81.204.24 user Paul_Crisp.
Not having seen the canal programmes, I can't compare it, but it passed a pleasant hour. I would have liked to see the railway posters advertising Broads Holidays featured as well as the boating catalogues.
posted via 88.110.85.110 user Mike_Jones.
There were moments when Prunella Scales comments about CC came across as if she had never read the book until asked to for the programme.
They could have made more about how AR was actually highlighting that the increase in tourist usage even in the 1930s was harming the Broads, it was busy with hire boats when I visited as a child in the 1960s but some of the footage would maybe put people off going there at all!
So for the two of them that's the Broads done and dusted, previous series have covered a whole area's canals and waterways.
posted via 2.29.96.120 user MTD.
Timothy West and Prunella Scales on Coot Club journey
posted via 31.51.45.214 user Peter_H.
Yes, Kobo and Nook both use ePub.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
Thank you, yes. I've got it on Kindle and reading it now.
Well worth it. The pleasure of relating the life to the novels is great.
posted via 90.252.108.93 user PeterC.
Maybe. I was referring there to an iPad, which I use with the Kindle app because navigation and searches are so much better than on my (early) Kindle. But the Kindle is ex-my wife's, and she is against half measures so it has front illumination by flip-up LED, which works very well. It's just the user interface which is a pain in the bum. I'm sure the newer ones must be better.
posted via 90.252.108.93 user PeterC.
My answer to this is to get a Kobo instead of a Kindle. They're front-lit with adjustable levels of brightness, and can be read if necessary on a moonless midnight inside a snake's stomach. :)
posted via 124.171.146.111 user mikefield.
Thanks,
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
https://sophieneville.net/2013/12/11/unveiling-a-plaque-to-arthur-ransome-at-rugby-school/
posted via 148.252.129.180 user MarkD.
Kindle is the answer to most things, provided that an electronic version of the book is available. Overy's account is on the dense side, and small print must make it harder going. I read my Kindle books on an iPad Mini, where the print is hyper-clear although best read in the shade. You can get magnetic soft covers very cheaply, and they fit into the same pocket as a paperback, although much thinner. Searching for and finding text, and navigation, is much better than on the early Kindle machine I also have.
And of course, although this is definitely off topic, it's a rather nice camera permanently in your pocket.
Drawbacks? Battery life isn't as long as the Kindle's, although what are night times for? And I would like to get Anthony Powell's memoirs but they are both out of print and not in ebook. Drat.
posted via 90.252.108.93 user PeterC.
Really? I always thought that the names of the real inventors/developers, Randall and Boot were so perfect, I had Dick down as working on Gee and Oboe. I always like to think that he might have run across Roger in the RAF.
posted via 90.252.108.93 user PeterC.
There is a "secret" that almost everyone knows, and that is the little line that goes: "SHAVE AND A HAIR CUT, TWO BITS". When this is spoken the "AND A" part is a pair of words but spoken rather quickly together, whereas the other words are held longer. If one is knocking at the door of a friend, one might want to use this "secret" code to indicate that "Hey, it's ME out here..." The knocking of this phrase sounds like: "tap, taptap, tap tap - pause - tap tap". If this tapping was interpreted to be Morse Code, the double taptap done quickly together is the DASH, whereas the others are just single taps. As for timing, the time to do a "TAP" is the SAME as the "TAPTAP" - reminds me of the DOUBLE CLICK on a computer MOUSE. So when tapping in Morse, the distinguishing feature is NOT the "DASH takes 3 times longer" as that is the rule for sending Morse using a flashlight, or a whistle. There is a certain beat the sender uses such that a unit of time is spent in sending the TAP as is spend in sending the TAPTAP, with two units of time for the "PAUSE" which indicates the end of that CHARACTER, or five units of time to indicate the end of a WORD.
So the SHAVE and a HAIR CUT, TWO BITS, when tapped, is MORSE for: "DOT, DASH, DOT, DOT - pause - DOT DOT" which is the code for "L" and "I".
One cannot TAP a Short tap for DOT, and a LONG TAP for DASH. Length of time cannot be used to distinguish the tapped DOT from the tapped DASH. To try to distinguish by a different timing, one gets ambiguous meanings, as one might try to pause a moment to tap for a DASH, but what is then the difference between a DASH, and a DOT at the end of the character? The PAUSE is a separator, not a part of the letter.
A long TAP? Doesn't work. A BANG is a BANG is a BANG.
At least, this is the way that was taught to me as a kid, and we made use of it, using the steam pipes and a system of radiators to communicate to anywhere in the building - that tapping sound really carries through those pipes.
Years ago, I saw this same explanation in a SEA SCOUTS handbook.
If the OFFICIAL SCOUT concept has dropped Morse code, that may not be in there any more, unless one finds an OLD copy somewhere.
Hope this helps understand the how.
The problem with learning Morse is trying to find someone else likewise interested to practice with.
A note of warning: do not try to tap using the knuckles, as that skin won't last more than a few words, but use the butt end of a pocket knife for example instead, or some other tool.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky USA [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
Quite bonkers, I'd have thought. His real passion was for Lenin, wasn't it? Apart from Genia, of course.
posted via 90.252.108.93 user PeterC.
Dick's role in inventing the cavity magnetron is of course well known. Without him the Battle of the Atlantic might have taken an entirely different course.
posted via 86.186.129.248 user RobinSelby.
I think that may be because the originals were close by. Dot, I believe, was AR's affectionate satirical take on himself, the author. Nancy might well have been drawn in part from Taqui Altounyan, the other half of who would have been John. Obviously, you always have to bear in mind that they are imaginary characters. I can't see any of them as clones, except perhaps for Roger Walker/Altounyan, who is described in SA as being teased for his interest in steam ships instead of sail, and who in real life became a flying instructor. I find it hard to think of him as being much different from his AR character.
posted via 90.252.108.93 user PeterC.
My views (and please everyone remember this is no more than a game) that John was in the Navy but nothing as outstanding as he may have hoped for, Roger in the Navy too but taken prisoner in the far east.
Ted Walker, I imagine would have been heavily involved (as being already in the Navy) but is killed in the early years of the war.
Susan, also in the Navy but in a far more important work than any of the others desk-base. Dick, a definite for Bletchley Park recruited from university.
I agree with you about Nancy and feel she would have been frustrated by the lack of action!
Titty and Dorothea I imagine surviving in London, with Titty having a good time much in the way Mary Wesley wrote of her own wartime experiences in her novel 'The Camomile Lawn'. As for Peggy, I don't know, probably tried to be like Nancy but never quite achieved it.
posted via 2.31.102.228 user MTD.
On the perennial question of AR's politics, in Tuesday's "Times" Melanie Phillips, comparing the evils of fascism and communism, refers to "many other cultural figures who supported Stalin and the Soviet Union, such as the writers Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Arthur Ransome, Bertolt Brecht, Picasso, Charlie Chaplin and more."
While it is good to see AR in such distinguished company, to suggest that he supported Stalin seems a bit rich.
posted via 88.110.92.248 user Mike_Jones.
I probably was, but at the time probably didn't think so. At home we were encouraged to read from an early age, and I read anything I could get my hands on: books, comics, backs of cereal packets etc. When starting senior school we were given a reading list and were told that by the end of the year we should have read at least twelve books from it. I could tick off far more than twelve so went on with reading what I wanted.
A that time I was reading a wide variety: The "Biggles" books, Green Sailors, the Lone Pine series, the Jennings books, SF authors such as Asimov and Heinlein; classics like The Railway Children, Mary Poppins and Kidnapped.
I still tend to be an enthusiastic and eclectic reader, though with a high percentage of non-fiction. Some of those childhood books seem dated now, but the S&A series are as good as ever.
posted via 2.102.116.46 user MartinH.
The copy of ML I had was my mother's childhood copy, printed on wartime utility paper. Similarly the copy of SD. Now this is now in a state of near ruin. I read it so often that that the spine was damaged and the front cover is falling off.
The sinking of Wild Cat and the way that Swallow and Amazon separated afterwards always moved me. But I was excited by the escape of Shining Moon through the gorge and although I didn't initially grasp the details understood that it was a great feat of seamanship.
posted via 2.102.116.46 user MartinH.
Same here. In fact, I have the green JCs lined up in my book case, and discovered when I wanted to look up something that ML was the only one missing. I have no idea where it might be.
These days there's always the possibility of downloading a Kindle copy. I've done that for my favourites- PM and WH, which I dip into on park benches and in cafés. Instant pleasure and relaxation.
You can tell that I'm in love with Dorothea.
posted via 90.255.62.49 user PeterC.
We read ML at the same age, and with the same ignorance that it was metafiction. It was my favorite at the time; I literally read the (dust) cover off the book (it's now tucked inside the boards). However, it is now one of those I don't read much at all.
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I think the last sentence is one of my favourites - the people of St Mawes waking to find a Chinese junk at anchor with a monkey at the masthead. Sorry I don't have a copy to hand, so provide the exact quotation.
posted via 2.102.116.46 user MartinH.
AR was entitled to assume his British readers would get the Latin jokes. He was not to know that 70-80 years later Latin would be taught in very few schools. "Those little Latin samples" are part of the period charm of AR, and I would not like to have done without them.
posted via 81.132.174.50 user Peter_H.
Minor further news on the trip to be posted soon.
[ Image ]
posted via 124.171.217.142 user mikefield.
I too remember his 'Lulu' stories very fondly, along with Kate's lovely illustrations for them. And I daresay that you, like me, hoped the stories and paintings might be published one day. But it seems that life got in the way, as it so often does, and it's not going to be. :(
You and I are not the only ones who remember Lulu fondly, by the way. Check out this link from nine years ago.
It is not "fun" for our friends to consider having the "heads chopped off." Such is cruel, whereas in WD, their need to use sailing skills in order to SAVE THEIR LIVES in the fog and high winds at night is challenging, letting them prove their abilities.
To me, the highlight of delight in ML was the use of Tapping in Morse code when CF was imprisoned below decks, yet was able to communicate with Nancy on the deck.
A similar highlight (using Morse with serious intent) was in WH, when Nancy saw the light flashing "NP" telling her, the D's were at the "North Pole".
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
PD I can accept as a 'made up' story from the S & A's enthusiasm for 'Treasure Island' but ML just pushes that notion too far, I think I've only read it three or four times and most recently as an academic exercise to see how and if it connected to the others.
posted via 2.29.89.67 user MTD.
Having received warm welcomes in Glasgow and remote (albeit polite) ones in Edinburgh, I reckon that sounds about right.
posted via 124.171.217.142 user mikefield.
Me too (Melbourne in the 40s), although often dinner was also referred to as tea, the words being essentially used synonymously. If there were guests coming for that meal though it was always referred to as the more formal 'dinner'.
posted via 124.171.217.142 user mikefield.
And that, other than what I believe is everybody's favourite line as the snow starts to fall in WH, is my favourite thought in AR's books.
posted via 90.255.62.49 user PeterC.
So of all those I listed, which one is closest to accurate?
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
That's a good point, about tracking the IP address. I'm so used to VPNs and TOR muddying the water that I never bother, but I doubt that's much of an issue here on Tarboard. Besides (and I don't mean this to sound critical of you or anyone else who does that bit of sleuthing), I always feel like a stalker...
All that said, it looks like it isn't infallible: plugging in your IP address to five different IP locators has you variously near Albequerque, New Mexico, USA; Milan, Italy; San Mateo, California, USA; Jakarta, Indonesia; or somewhere in the middle of China. So either you're running TOR, you've got an *exhausting* travel schedule, or the internet search engines aren't entirely reliable (shocking, I know).
But yes, I'm in Olympia, WA. The very south end of Puget Sound.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I have often bumped into that same uncertainty about just where a Tarboardian is located. Yes, a Dutch barge on Puget Sound would certainly demand a properly AR adventure, wouldn't it?
As for pictures, I haven't yet figured out how to use this website's italics yet, let alone post photos, but maybe I'll learn for the occasion.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
And today, heading off to the morning shop, I put the radio on to hear 'Arthur Ransome...' on a programme relating to the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. It didn't go into much detail, but - probably correctly - referred to him as one of many English in Russia who were 'intoxicated' by the social changes they were witnessing.
Andy
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
Paul
posted via 31.48.73.116 user Paul_Crisp.
As for my own boat-cum-library, a Dutch barge would be fantastic, but there aren't too many over here, and none on the market here in Puget Sound. The best candidate I've found so far is a retired BC Forest Service boat.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I like to re-read after a gap of several years, for this does ideed bring forgotten details to light.
Others, like the Aubrey/Maturin 'dad jokes' one does not forget. "In the Navy one must always take the lesser of two weevils"; and the Bosun's cat, "the only name for which can be Scourge".
As memorable at least as "Better drowned than Duffers" but with the added benefit of being both clever AND funny!
posted via 121.217.27.42 user Buzzook.
[ Image ]
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
Re a boat to accommodate a library, have you thought of one of the Dutch barge conversions? I visited one a couple of years back which was crammed with books! There are several on the Thames near Old Windsor and Runnymede, and occasionally one comes on the market. There are also some craft that appear on e-bay. Good luck.
posted via 86.156.48.17 user Paul_Crisp.
I'm still with Peter on this topic, as he says "There have been much wittier pastiches of Ransome..." and Victoria Wood is certainly one of them!
posted via 2.29.97.249 user MTD.
There is indeed
In that context, it's proving to be quite a search to find a boat adequate for even the 80 linear feet of my pared-down library.
That got me to thinking about the notorious Pterodactyl, and AR's illustration titled, "In the cabin of the Pterodactyl," and how big the Pterodactyl must have been to provide the space in which that scene takes place. Especially since that appears to be an athwartships cabin, and boats of that era were typically far narrower than boats of today. She must have been quite a good sized yacht! Does anyone know if AR modeled Pterodactyl on a specific vessel, or --if that information isn't available-- have any access to contemporary yacht registers that might offer a likely candidate? All speculation is welcome.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
If you haven't read it try to get a copy or go on line; it's worth the effort.
posted via 86.151.254.141 user Paul_Crisp.
For BBC movies, being an American, I need English Subtitles. The Potter series had that, and it was a big help to SEE what those kids were saying. Adults come through ok for the most part, but young people just don't project the words so I can get them. Lord of the Rings had English Subtitles that were a big help there also. But this S/A had FRENCH, no English subtitles. The old two seemed to talk ok, but the younger two had a problem with me hearing their words.
As for the PLOT, it had so very little to do with what I read as a child and had come to LOVE. The older two are TOO OLD. Not much difference apparent between the ages of Susan and her Mother. So much was added that just was not in the book, and even those moments similar to the book were so distorted from what I expected.
Only two visited the Charcoal Burners, and that was to get fire. Like the book, Mother had to remind them to take the matches, which (not in the book) they lost overboard with their food. John throwing a rock at the houseboat, and getting yelled at by its occupant. In the "war" don't think they looked anywhere but in the Beckfoot boathouse. No digging on Cormorant Island to find the stolen chest. And that "secret harbour" is a pitiful jury rigged resulting from sticking a few rocks upright off some shore. No real HARBOUR with protection from winds. Nothing like the Peel Island southern end which has come to be believed as the Real Secret Harbour. Anything else is just not right. The usage of that title is a gross misleading heading. A brief scene where someone is studying MORSE code, a tool that never came up again, unused, and not in the book. Where did THAT come from? Why put that in?
It was very disappointing. To appease my anger, I dug out my 1974 VCR tape and thoroughly enjoyed that version where my only serious complaint was NO STORM to blow down the tents. Those kids were of realistic ages. The Amazons looked reasonable, not made up Halloween monsters.
This new DVD? Back into the box, to the back of the top shelf, where hopefully it will be forgotten. So little of the real story is there, and that is what I was looking for.
John holding a revolver to some guy's face - Not the JOHN that I grew up with as my childhood playmate, and a good friend for the rest of my life.
Shy can't that story be properly put into a movie without totally screwing it up?
Waste of good money.
Thanks for letting me VENT...
Ed Kiser, Kentucky USA
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
posted via 81.151.141.31 user Paul_Crisp.
I was very careful for many years, not forcing my kids into a boat or a tent. I was too paranoid they would hate it if I insisted. So I just took it easy. I think one has come round to my way of thinking, but not the other...
posted via 81.156.115.105 user Magnus.
My TXT files were created well before E-books became all that available. They were the result of determination and the pleasure of re-living my childhood adventures with my childhood friends. Typing them in, I got to see EVERY punctuation mark, every BRITISH spelling that my American spell checker would protest about, and get to see EVERY passage, some of which I felt were somehow previously skimmed over, and delightfully finally to add them to my reading experiences, yet amazed to find that I had not remembered ever seeing that piece before. It was a labour of love (my American spell checker just threw up on "labour") that continues to bring to bring me great pleasure and enhances that wonderful Ransome experience.
I have learned much from his Twelve, and am grateful he put it all together. And I am grateful to my Tarboard "friends" that have enhanced those experiences for me. That gratitude is also to Tony Richards for his sharing his camera and its photo collection showing the land that Ransome wrote about, giving me the REAL view of the place my childhood friends took me to, to share with them the beauties of those locations otherwise so foreign to me. That photo collection is now over 24 THOUSAND pictures that have provided me with hours of slide shows to vicariously return me to that land of my childhood imagination.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
Yes, the idea has to be to fire the little ones' imaginations...I don't think it really matters where and how we manage it, or how "authentic" the experience is...just as long as it's real enough in their heads.
posted via 185.125.226.2 user MarkD.
Nevertheless, we will visit the Lakes in the coming weeks and see if there's a way of making it work in this country. In parallel my wife and I agreed last night to rent a lakeside cabin with boat for a couple of weeks in Sweden next summer. Just working out the logistics of getting everyone there now. If the holiday works as a proxy for a "proper" lakeside S&A break I'll post my findings up on here. The idea is to find somewhere remote enough that the kids can eventually camp nearby the cabin without annoying anyone, with a lake big enough to sail on.
posted via 185.125.226.2 user MarkD.
My thoughts (for what they are worth as a non-parent, never sailed, never camped but lifelong AR reader) is I agree with your wife, and not just because one of semi-obsessive interests other than AR is most things Scandinavian!
From what I have seen the Norway and Sweden options will give you and your children a more 'real' experience of the S&A world. Why?
As regular readers here know I live in the area of Secret Water, which though not mentioned in the book includes the Naze. Recently the local council in conjunction with the Essex Wildlife Trust have built a 'visitor's centre' so turning a natural headland in to a glorified theme park. It's supposed to be an educational centre for the school parties that visit mainly for fossil hunting on the beaches, but of course it is no more than a cafe and gift shop.
I have not visited the Lake District since childhood, but get the impression from TV documentaries that the natural landscape is more and more viewed as a place where famous writers spent there time and were inspired - Wordsworth, Potter etc and thanks to the recent film AR is not far behind. So there are lots of ‘helpful’ places to visit and signs everywhere to satisfy visitors.
When AR wrote the SA series he often had digs at the encroachment of visitors, and these days (as at the Naze) they are being accommodated at the expense of what made the landscape inspiring in the first place. I do wonder what he would make of the area now?
posted via 95.145.229.152 user MTD.
FWIW, I had S&A read aloud to me at age five, my first summer on a small island off the coast of Maine, where I would eventually spend the rest of my summers until I was 26. I then devoured the rest of the series on my own (I was a precocious bookworm), was taught to sail in a small boat (though I didn't solo until I was 10), and set out on a career of piracy and exploration. That included arming myself with a wooden cutlass (a toilet float cut in half makes an excellent guard) and burying sea-glass and beach-combed treasure every year in big tea tins --note: pacing off compass bearings is brilliant, but the length of a child's pace changes dramatically from one year to the next, so don't bury anything you'd be heartbroken not to recover. Post SW, it also involved a couple years of running compass bearings around the entire island --surprisingly, NOAA's charts are actually pretty accurate. My father still feels the best gift he ever got me was a 9' rowboat, when I was 9. I sailed from the English Channel to the China Seas in that dinghy, all without crossing outside the two-fathom line around the Island.
When I went to live with my mother, in the mountains of California, I promptly got in trouble when I chipped big holes in one of her favorite landscape boulders while prospecting for gold. I also got a lesson in safe bouldering after an adventure searching for cragfast sheep --you never knew; there might have been one up there!-- almost went badly. (As an adult, I eventually went on to instruct technical rock climbing and mountaineering.)
My point is that once the S&A match was lit, with the right encouragement and with the right landscape it was a self-sustaining combustion, and ignited my imagination in whatever environment I found myself. Make your kids the offer to enjoy it, and then enjoy it with them, and I expect things will go very well.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
"As late as 1945, Emily Post wrote in the magazine Etiquette that luncheon is "generally given by and for women, but it is not unusual, especially in summer places or in town on Saturday or Sunday, to include an equal number of men" – hence the mildly disparaging phrase, "the ladies who lunch". Lunch was a ladies' light meal; when the Prince of Wales stopped to eat a dainty luncheon with lady friends, he was laughed at for this effeminacy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunch
Which may be why the S&A characters intuit that "lunch" is a meal taken with natives.
That webpage has all sorts of interesting and potentially applicable "social etymology" of meals.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I was lucky enough to grow up not far from the Lakes and - luckier still - learned to sail while at school. Subsequently I did a pile of dinghy sailing during my twenties and thirties, but had to stop and sell up (I just had no time) when my two boys were very young: they, as a result, have had no experience in small boats.
Without any pressure I'd hoped, perhaps through some form of psycho-osmosis :) that they'd pick up the Ransomes at a young age, but they didn't, and I didn't want to push it. They've camped (and loved it), they've heard my sailing yarns often enough, and they're clearly aware of my groaning shelves of regularly-read Ransome-related literature - so I have a plan: my last chance to quietly enthuse them!
Next year is Dad-Gets-The-Wayfarer-Year, and following some Scottish Loch sailing to weed out any dufferishness (we live in the Central Belt) my plan is for a week's camping and sailing in the Lakes. I'm certain they'll amuse me, the old 'un, with traipsing around the Ransome landscape and maybe - just maybe - get bitten by the outdoors and what it has to offer. My secret weapon in this is my stepdaughter's son, 'then aged seven'. He and I have talked long and hard about things, and we've both decided a future of piracy and skullduggery on the high seas is really all we want out of life. Now, if there's a chance my boys as young adults can see the world through their nephew's eyes (and I think it's a good chance, stuck in a couple of tents together) all is not lost!
Mark, with regards to your post, the only practical advice I can give is this: I took my eldest son camping when he was just twelve weeks old. In Belgium. We survived. A few years later, camping on one of the coldest, wettest nights I've ever witnessed, and concerned that the kids (then about eight and four) would a/ hate it, or b/ drown in the tent, both boys said they loved every minute and 'when can we come again?'
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
Now that my eldest is three it suddenly occurred to me that whatever I was subconsciously preparing for has arrived, and I now just need to make it happen for them! I’ve re-read the 12 and found the old magic still there, and now I’m about to buy a small boat, and try to persuade my dad to trade down his own largely unused modern yacht for something smaller and hopefully more traditional.
We’ve joined TARS and are now planning our first recce up to the Lakes to see what can be achieved. My wife is Norwegian and grew up camping and holidaying in basic family log cabins on a private island and in the mountains, and the usual arguments on family sailing holidays. She thinks that we’re better off hiring waterside summer cabins complete with boats in Sweden or just wild camping in Norway (and is dead set on just hiring boats in the UK instead of owning).
Has anyone tried this journey with kids in the UK? Any advice on what worked for you, or tips of things to do while the kids are still very small? I appreciate it’s a broad topic, but it’s a wonderful journey and I can’t wait to take my kids on it...and then grit my teeth, cross my fingers and turn my back and let them go and do it on their own…!
posted via 185.125.226.2 user MarkD.
"Perhaps, Ed, you could do a search for '[high tea]' and prove I am right?"*
*copyright 'Arthur Random' 2003.
posted via 81.129.127.205 user Peter_H.
All the others are definitely native meals or referring to native meals.
SA
And we wanted to be allies at once, if only we hadn't promised to be home for lunch.
If we'd only known we'd have given you broadside for broadside till one of us sank, even if it had made us late for lunch.
SD
Mother's taking the great-aunt out to lunch, so we needn't be in till tea.
Those two pirates were twenty minutes late for lunch yesterday.
They won't be back till lunch-time. (GA & Mrs Blackett)
"We've got to be back to lunch," said Peggy.
But Captain Flint kept reminding them that they had to be back for
lunch, and they were only looking round as quick as they could before racing down again to the Amazon and setting sail for home.
PP
Pull down the swinging bit, and push the slide across till lunch-time next day.
I'll just see what Cook wants. And you'd better have lunch before going.
How are you getting on, Dick? What about the pigeon-bell? Lunch in another half-hour.
Dick, his work done, went into lunch with a very happy smile.
After a lunch that was not dry bread after all, during which Mrs.
Blackett told them just what shops to go to and what to get
He met Mrs. Blackett in the hall. "Hullo, Dick," she said. "You're just in time for lunch.
CC
She had taken them to lunch at an inn where everybody was talking about boats at the top of his voice.
The twins were in at lunch-time, and they seemed to think he (Baby) was theirs.
Tom would not wait for lunch. (Aboard the Teasel)
BS
"We've got to have lunch with the Admiral if we're not going anywhere."
Towards one o'clock they went home to Mrs. Barrable's for lunch and in the afternoon Dick and Dorothea borrowed the bloodhound and came back to Scotland Yard to wait for the return of the detectives.
"I'll telephone to Mr. Farland. You come home for lunch, Tom, and I'll tell you then if you can see him or not.
"We'd better begin lunch," said his mother and began to mix a salad.
Dick had bought a bottle red ink on the way back after lunch, meaning to mark with a cross the place where the shackles were found as soon as the photographs had dried.
The others were watching the door and wondering why Tom was so long over his lunch.
WD
Five hours later John, Susan and Jim Brading were resting in the cockpit of the Goblin after a hard morning's work and a luncheon of bread and cheese and ginger beer.
"We've a grand spread nearly ready in the cabin, and the owner and the skipper and the crew and the passengers want you and Bridget to honour them by lunching aboard.
PM
I've told her it would be as well if she made a practice of resting after luncheon.
They were very early, and for fear luncheon might not have begun at Beckfoot, they worked their way round through the wood till they came down on the road well beyond the house, crossed it after careful scouting, and were presently looking down from the ridge on Beckfoot.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
I'd like to put "lunch" in the search engine to see how often it is used and by whom, and referring to a native or explorer meal. It would be even more instructive to do this with Ransome works not from the 12, to observe his own usage.
It might sound like I'm a bit obsessive on this point, but it is probably the one thing that jars every time I read the books and I'm curious whether it was deliberate or just unconscious usage by the author. As Andy noted, the usage of “dinner” for the midday meal would probably have been commonplace for Cumbria and Leeds, and the North generally but not for the South or in RP which I'd guess (possibly erroneously) most of the children would have tended towards.
posted via 185.125.226.2 user MarkD.
SECRET WATER - CHAPTER I
And then, when they had come back for high tea at Miss Powell’s they learnt that something had happened that had made Daddy at least feel quite different. Tea was over before he came in smiling to himself.
THE BIG SIX - CHAPTER XX
Mrs. Barrable gave them a high tea so that the Death and Glories had no need to worry about supper. They told her some of what they were doing but not all, and she did not ask questions.
THE BIG SIX - CHAPTER XXII
They made a leisurely round of the busier parts of the village and then, sure that everybody would know that they had left the Death and Glory, went slowly back to the Doctor’s house where they found high tea nearly ready for them.
posted via 81.156.115.105 user Magnus.
I grew up in suburban Washington D.C., my parents were from the midwest. We had breakfast, lunch, and supper. On Sundays we had breakfast, dinner, and supper of some sort. No tea or any sort of fourth meal (and no second breakfasts either).
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
I still have not had a chance to watch the 2016 version here in Canada
posted via 184.151.36.234 user rlcossar.
Overhearing a conversation with a colleague who was himself from Texas, and of a similar age as me, this distinction was also the case there --much to the bemusement of the (much younger) student with which he was conversing.
Sadly, while I grew up drinking tea throughout the day, we never had "tea" as a meal. I always envied the S&A characters that cultural advantage.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
"Oh my friends, be warned by me,
That breakfast, dinner, lunch and tea
Are all the human frame requires...."
posted via 92.18.212.120 user Mike_Jones.
I agree- I can't remember "High tea" appearing anywhere in the books. But I think Susan would have known what it was. My upbringing was strictly middle class, and immediately after the war, so in the '40s, I knew what "high tea" was, although in my family, we had "tea" and "supper".
posted via 90.252.96.169 user PeterC.
posted via 81.156.115.105 user Magnus.
Not sure about tea as there are too many references to the beverage rather than the meal.
As for referring to Mrs Braithwaite as Cook, I think that this is just referring to her by her job rather than her name, just as Nurse is never named, though I am not sure she was ever spoken to as "Nurse" either. Similarly, the doctor in the North is always referred to as just "the doctor", again I don't think his name is ever mentioned but I can see it being perfectly normal to say Hallo, Doctor" to him without it being impolite.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
Andy
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
Andy
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
That sort of thing still goes on, even with a loose AR connection.
In Siberia one winter, around the end of the Soviet Union, we found that in a steelworks town they would dump hot slag from the steelworks on the icy roads in town, in huge explosions of steam, which would melt and re-freeze to create a kind of abrasive ice-bound surface which people could drive on as though it was a dry road.
In the spring it would melt, and the acidic slag would drain into the river and kill all the fish.
Nobody cared, except the local fishermen, and nobody cared much about them. Anyway they had lakes to fish in, which we were told were full of PCBs.
I don't suppose that AR would have come across these apparently eternal Russian attitudes when he was there. Far too much happening...
posted via 90.252.96.169 user PeterC.
So the fire-lighting must have been taught for a while before S&A.
posted via 81.156.115.105 user Magnus.
The only two other places I could think of, in SD and SW, didn't refer to barbecues though ("Great Aunt Steak", and the Human Sacrifice). Given Mother's Australian background, "Corroboree" seems to have been the term in favour for the event.
posted via 73.173.62.89 user Jon.
Did AR include any reference to BBQs in The Twelve? There is, of course, much mention of campfires and cooking, but BBQs?
Just wondered. (I haven't The Twelve at hand,)
posted via 70.78.126.205 user captain.
Wonder when the idea of putting an enclosure on a wagon got started...
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
As I see it, unless they had done a fair bit of camping in previous holidays, with a considerable share of the campsite "chores" carried by the children so that they had been observed being competant at campcraft, I would expect the idea of camping on the island would never even have been considered. Mother would have squashed it pretty quickly, perhaps offering them a camp at Darien as an alternative --sort of like the Beckfoot camp in PP.
I expect Mike's right with the "best knife ever" enthusiasm --which is also a pretty good quirk for AR to have picked up on and inserted into the story.
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I think caravan/camping sites in the Lake District were an anathema to AR.
It recalls Neville Shute’s 1955 novel “Requiem for a Wren” in which the Wren thinks that it will be a comedown to marry an Australian “farmer”, thinking of farmers as "peasants". The Australian (who is killed in the war) went to a private grammar school and Oxford University, and comes from a large sheep station (though I can’t recall if he was the heir to the sheep empire).
I suppose we are meant to assume they have done 'outdoorsy' things in all their previous school holidays (including sailing at Falmouth) so they have stayed in a few wild spots before, maybe in borrowed tents?
As to the canvas, it's described as "light" canvas, so I've always thought of it as closer to muslin.
posted via 73.173.62.89 user Jon.
I suppose we are meant to assume they have done 'outdoorsy' things in all their previous school holidays (including sailing at Falmouth) so they have stayed in a few wild spots before, maybe in borrowed tents?
But Mike is right: often a child's first penknife is "the best knife ever" and so on.
This has made me think about Mother, and her middle class-ness. Would an officer's wife, with a nanny and farmers wife to look after her, be prepared to sew a tent? I can imagine her doing some fine needlework, but canvas is tough stuff, and it is hard work to get a needle through!
posted via 81.156.115.105 user Magnus.
To answer with some seriousness, Susan's comment is quite common in children as to what is the 'best', it is more a statement they cannot imagine ever experiencing anything better.
posted via 95.149.130.35 user MTD.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
I need a spot where I can put the program so it can be tried as it is developed. It will be an exe file able to run on Windows.
I do not have such a spot.
John
posted via 50.24.59.133 user Mcneacail.
What do we want it to do?
posted via 50.24.59.133 user Mcneacail.
posted via 203.96.129.149 user hugo.
Then across for a tour of Oxford with friends we met in Canada (or was it China? -- can't remember) a few years back, and who studied at Oxford and know it well. And along the way there'll be a brief visit to Elsfield Manor, the erstwhile baronial seat of John Buchan. Then on to Glasgow for some family research on Jenn's side, before a cruise of the whole of the Western Isles, starting at Stornoway and ending at Barra Head. Then we finish with Scotland with another shorter cruise to see Iona and Staffa (and of course Fingal's Cave).
Then boat to Dublin as a stopping-off point to see most of Ireland by back roads (including some family research on my side). Then back to London briefly before heading off for a back-roads tour of Cornwall -- and catching up with an old mate JohnR (of 'Lulu' fame) in Falmouth.
Finally home via Bangkok to see ex-pat mate Bruce and his lovely Thai wife Meow, before back to (we hope) a considerably-warmer Canberra.
Should be fun. :)
posted via 124.171.218.243 user mikefield.
However, she did hear my computer ringing those bells, and asked what that was all about, so I explained the concept of the bells and the names of the "watches". A few days later, I had overslept (permitted when retired), and she woke me by saying, "It is 3 bells of the fore-noon watch, and you are still in the bed." She must have gotten the idea right. What a pleasant surprise, nice way to wake up, too. Now when she asks me the time, I give it in bells time, and she just nods her head in understanding. Finally, she has learned something from Ransome. She likes the clanging of the bells on my computer, says it is like having a grandfather clock in the hall clanging out the time, just in a different style.
However, if friends are visiting, and she or I say something about the time using bell notation, we do get funny looks from the visitor.
It is like talking in CODE, but one that is not really a secret.
But we seem to enjoy doing the bell talk to each other, as a
"togetherness" thing. No harm in that...
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
As Roger Wardale pointed out in 'Arthur Ransome on the Broads' such visitors from the towns and cities may have been good for the local economy, Ransome was pointing out the problems they were creating (p. 58)
It seems what is happening today is a very similar situation.
posted via 95.146.63.167 user MTD.
No, this app is a dud. The bells don't even have a good tone. I'll have to wait for ship's bells until I bring the chiming clock in from the boat for the winter. I'm going cruising for a few days tomorrow, though, so I'll enjoy them then.
Alex
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
MacHD > Library > Ship's Clock --I think. Now that it's in the trash I can't remember if it was an independant folder within Library, or if I had to go into another folder within Library, like Componants, to find it. It was pretty obvious, though.
MacHD > Library > PreferencePanes will let you get rid of the actual control panel, rather than just hiding it via the System Preferences.
There's also a file titled "org.sonofagun.shipsclockd.plist" in the Preferences folder, if you want to be really tidy. I *think* that's in the master Library, but it might be in the User Profile Library.
Remember that there are a couple different Library folders: one within your User Profile, and then the master Library under the MacHD icon. You want the latter to dig out the Ship's Clock app itself. (I always get stumped by this detail.)
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
MacHD > Library > PreferencePanes will let you get rid of the actual control panel, rather than just hiding it via the System Preferences.
Remember that there are a couple different How the deuce would AR have gotten anything written if he'd needed to mess with a computer? I sometimes consider going back to a fountain pen! Alex Alex Thank you, Dave, for telling me how to remove it from the Preferences pane. I wish I knew where the app itself was, to remove it from the computer. Alex However there's no way I could find of turning it off. So getting rid of it was more of a challenge - I had to use an option in its control panel to remove it from the System Preferences pane, and then rebooted the system. At least it did remove although it didn't call it that - I was afraid something more complicated was in my future. So yes, there's a Mac Ships Clock that works under MacOS Sierra 10.12.6 but controls are minimal and inobvious, as is removing it. Apologies for stuffing all that in a TarBoard post but I wanted to be clear about what to do if you decide to try it. Alex Alex I haven't used it yet.... :) I just choked on my tea. Thank you, Jon. I needed some laughter today. Alex OTOH, it rather reminds me of a former colleague, whose ring tone for his wife was "General Quarters". The report (I can't provide a link as you have to be an ST subscriber)told how cabin cruiser hirings by hen and stag parties are causing problems with the excessive drinking and extreme lewd behaviour. I have memories of this being a problem in the 1970s, and then most hire companies refused to hire boats to all male or female groups, it seems now the lure of more income or fear of accusations of discrimination have meant companies once more allow them - and the trouble they cause! So there is an AR connection, a kind of nostalgia for different times when people seem to understand how and why things were done in a certain way. Or am I just getting old? I too ran that ship's bell program under XP, but I haven't tried to load it with my current OS Win 7, so I can't tell you whether it still works or not. The concept of using BELLS to announce the time probably originated ---------- SACH30.TXT "What is it in real time?" asked Peggy. "Two o'clock in the morning," said Captain John. After all, [In the later stories of the series, it seems that Nancy had [Part of a note from Swallows's Mother, who seemed quite comfortable ---------- SDCH17.TXT John looked at his watch, but did not put the time into bells. "All three meals," said Peggy. "We've fairly done it this time," said Nancy. "Come on. ---------- PDCH18.TXT ---------- PDCH22.TXT ---------- PDCH34.TXT ---------- GNCH8.TXT The morning passed. Roger sounded eight bells for noon. ---------------------------------------------------- On the Internet at: http://www.allthingsransome.net is offerings of several items of software, one of which is "SHIP'S BELLS" There are several applications offered at that site that have been made Perhaps the growth of technology creates such questions as to "where can I My XP computer still has the A: drive (diskette), which can let me But then, at my age, perhaps I am just an anachronism of a bygone age. More arguing between John and Susan than there were in the book, and John calls Roger a duffer twice (which he never does in the book). Roger did manage to lose John’s knife and to fall overboard from Swallow! And would Susan lose a hamper of food overboard when going to the island? The Swallows have binoculars not a telescope. Introducing the Russian spies who are after Jim enables the film to star a vintage motorcycle sidecar combo and a seaplane, plus a chase along the roof of the steam train carriages! Rio must have had a production of The Mikado on, going by all the Japanese costumes in a procession. So the icon is probably just Amazon/Kindle and the publishers themselves may not know anything about it. Possibly an advertising stunt on somebody's part. It's still irritating; all the rest of the canon are shown with icons of the dust jackets. I hope they will revert S&A to the original icon. The credit for the digital publication is "RHCP Digital". It does seem that Cape have stuck with the original dustwrapper designs, despite all the changes made to the paperback ones. Let's try that poem reference again: http://www.bartleby.com/41/570.html There. Now try that. sorry for the momentary confusion. Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA The above reference has the poem whose last line is quoted in Swallowdale. This poem here was references as being much more difficult than the one Captain Flint suggested they "learn" for the GA, especially since they already knew it: "CASABIANCA". The use of warning beacon files on mountain tops was also seen in LORD OF THE RINGS. Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ] As for reading on the Kindle, I sent the TXT files I typed to that device to carry them with me. No movie commercial there. Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ] But now I wonder if the printed hardcover has this changed dust jacket? I strongly suspect at least paperback edition in the U.K. does but PB editions don't usually use the dust jacket of the hardbound book as a cover. This book had better get the bunloaf recipe right, or there will be trouble.... (wink) Robin Selby I devoured the books in my childhood (and as I have explained here a few times lived an alternative childhood through them as an escape from the real world.) As an adult I always had a complete set of the 12, a mixture of the hardbacks from childhood and paperbacks of the ones I had not got. I have to admit I didn't read them much but they were there on the shelf. Then in my mid-thirties when the Brogan biography was published I became a mature student at the University of Essex where he lectured and I met him - well, sought him out (as I have explained before) which motivated me to return to the books. In the last ten or so years I've gone to the other extreme (I can thank the Internet and the discovery of TarBoard), I have multiple sets of the 12, I have re-read them numerous times and read as many of the books about them and AR I have been able to get hold of. Why? As an older adult I appreciate them on two levels, just for the pleasure of reading them and then reading them to discern AR's methods and motivations as an almost academic process. What I find most interesting is that every time I read them for whatever reason I discover something new, something I had not noticed before, so even though I know the plots this does not detract at all from the re-read. It's a curious thing, only yesterday a book blog I follow had a post about 'comfort' reading, and my response was of course AR's 12. I have my set in a very prominent spot in my home and acknowledge them regularily Now I am motivated to re-read, not the books, but my typing, as I am looking for typo errors, which somehow managed to escape notice on previous re-readings. At least this medium avoids wear on the books themselves, some being rather fragile with age. Looking for these errors of my own making helps me to want to look closely, with avoiding the scanning that had previously diluted my revisits to the books. It is a labour of LOVE that continues to return joyous bounty. I feel I know these people, knowing them as dear friends, continuing to bring me the delights of being "with" them, regardless of my true age. I am grateful to Ransome for having given me so much pleasure, for having taught me so much without me having to feel I had to learn something, for letting me enjoy the sailing my own with my children on board, for bringing signalling to my attention for me to learn, and then to teach, not only my friends, but my children, and now my grandchildren. My reward was for a grandson to send me a birthday note, consisting of a printout of just dots and dashes. The proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof, and he ate it well. And my thanks to the Ransome internet community for enhancing my understanding and appreciation of the wonders of these stories. and providing photographic peeks into the land he wrote about, a place I will never get to go, but with the pictures giving me a vicarious visit. So my THANKS to Arthur, and to You All. The adventure continues... Ed Kiser, Kentucky USA [ kisered@aol.com ] I am now re-reading my Patrick O'Brian's which have also been sitting closed for a number of years awaiting a propitious time for another passage. Again, I keep noticing little things which I have either forgotten or never picked up on previous voyages. I have a good memory for book plots/details and song lyrics (sadly my brain disregards more useful everyday knowledge) and so there was never any surprise. I really felt my pleasure was being dulled by over-reading. So I took a break. A ten year break! I knew that nothing less was going to have any affect on my memory. Hopefully time apart from the books would allow me to later re-read with fresher eyes, and properly enjoy something I loved. It is upsetting when you love something, but cannot truly enjoy doing it. Nothing can conjure up that magic of the first ever reading, of course, but this is about as good as I'm going to get. I've remained totally Ransome-obsessed, of course. I've still been reading books about Ransome's life, and trying new titles from the Mariner's Library he helped set up. But I found my decade-of-holding-back gave me plenty of time to try new authors too, and there have been some pleasant surprises (and many other books cast aside in disgust!). I honestly don't feel I have missed out on anything. The green hardbacks have been there on the shelf the whole time, giving me comfort without even needing to be opened! So do tell me: Paul I am still alive, wish I had more time. Rob are you in the Lake District at the moment -- thinking of visiting from italy for a day or so and would not mind catching up John Interestingly, there is a still from the 1974 movie and a note on how to obtain it on DVD, but no mention of last year's film Interestingly, there is a still from the 1974 movie and a note on how to obtain it on DVD, but no mention of last year's film Not even to sit on a hill above Pernambuco, talking with Arthur Gnosspelius about copper mining in the Lakes? How sad... Like the rest of us; they look at it on Google. Did AR ever visit North or South America? I'm not sure he ever did. Ed, are you around to run a search? Alex I suspect Inpenetrable Forest in Uganda was found to be hard to penetrate. Its now one of the major gorilla refuges. I didn't know until I saw that list that there's an Inaccessible Island. I did know that there's a Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda. I'm tempted to ask, if they're inaccessible/impenetrable, how do they kow that they're worth designating? After all Ransome does use the n-word in a casual conversation without it obviously being a slur, and his description of some of the Chinese in Missee Lee strikes me as being a bit patronising at the very least and possibly racist if you want to go that far. it seems in 1924 just using the term ram was enough for the readers. If you used it today no one would have a clue except Tarboarders -------------------------------------------------------------------- If Max (Beaverbrook) gets to Heaven he won't last long. He will be chucked out for trying to pull off a merger between Heaven and Hell ... after having secured a controlling interest in key subsidiary companies in both places, of course. H. G. Wells I thought this also interesting on the Lake Land cam today. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I must say I am struck by the racism in Buchan -- was that really normal at the time -- AR seems to have been completely normally modern compared to Buchan Serious paddlers call them canoes in Britain too. The other sort are kayaks. I recall a joke that my children used to tell. "What do Chinese people call Chinese food?" "Food". Tom drove it along with a single paddle, like a Canadian canoe, and he took some pride in being able to keep the Dreadnought moving at a good pace without making the slightest sound. Hi Adam, Swallows and Amazons will not be receiving a Canadian theatrical release but will be available to rent on iTunes on July 14! Let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks! Best, Great to hear from you! Please find below the cities for the release and theater they will be playing at in each city. Note that, for the shows listed as 7/13: these cities will only be showing the film for one night only on that Thursday night. If a 7/14 date has an asterisk by it, then the theater will also be playing Thursday showings as well. In addition, as I let Robin know, the film will available on video-on-demand services iTunes, Amazon Video, Google Play, Vudu, and Fandango Now and on Cable VOD platforms through AT&T, DirecTV, InDemand, and Ubiquity on July 14 as well. Let me know if you have any questions! 7/13/17 (One Night Only) 7/14/17 I see I mentioned the quote about Mrs Blackett visiting them at their school in post 43137 on New Year's Eve. Maybe some were too busy celebrating to take it in. From his own experience (as with most things). He describes in his Autobiography childhood holidays at Nibthwaite where there were "charcoal-burners who in those days still dwelt in wigwams carefully watching their smoking mounds". You missed another relevant quote in PM, three pages into the first chapter (pp.9-10 in my Cape hardback): "Before leaving, Mrs Blackett had visited Nancy and Peggy at their school" (singular). I think that one has been appealed to in previous discussions. One point which I can't remember whether we've discussed before: In WH chapter 5 we learn thet the Ds had previously skated "on the indoor skating rink close by the University buildings at home". Did we establish whether ther is/was a rink in Bloomsbury or other plausible London site? Of course their father could have moved from another university to London between WH and PM - especially as he seems not to have the title Professor in the earlier books. S&A Chapter XXIII: S&A Chapter XXIX: What is this 'schoolroom' they speak of? A room at home where they are taught? By Mother or a governess? Or do they mean a 'common room' at a real school? (Apologies if this has been covered before; I can't find it online.) A book I read a few years which, had me assuming one gender when it was revealed to be the opposite in the final chapter, was "Sunset Breezer" by Rosie Austen. Incidentally this is also a book about sailing, though primarily about the people and places seen rather than the mechanics of sailing. The second I think is a very good piece of evidence. Good find! It appears that they are glad to have been invited to Beckfoot by an absentee Molly Blackett because otherwise they would have had to spend two weeks "sweltering in London" while their father marked exam papers.(Chapter 2) I doubt that they would have sweltered there unless it was their home. Secondly, did Nancy and Peggy go to boarding school? The GA seems to think so, because in her letter inviting herself to come and look after the lonesome waifs abandoned by their mother, she writes"...your mother did not tell me that she would be away from home when you returned from school for your vacation." (Chapter 3) One side note here, about Through the Looking Glass: that book gave me a word that has become a part of my vocabulary, even though when I use it, people question me as to whether maybe I just made it up, and cannot believe it was used in that classic Alice book. The word is MISCONSCREWED which lets it be subject to invalid interpretations. It means to DELIBERATE take the wrong understanding knowing some other meaning was intended. Now, have fun looking through your Looking Glass copy to see if you can find it. Oh, the things we learn from the love of Ransome. These daily visits to this Forum are quite an education. Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ] One side note here, about Through the Looking Glass: that book gave me a word that has become a part of my vocabulary, even though when I use it, people question me as to whether maybe I just made it up, and cannot believe it was used in that classic Alice book. The word is MISCONSCREWED which lets it be subject to invalid interpretations. It means to DELIBERATE take the wrong understanding knowing some other meaning was intended. Now, have fun looking through your Looking Glass copy to see if you can find it. Oh, the things we learn from the love of Ransome. These daily visits to this Forum are quite an education. Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ] First Published 1931 It has "FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READ "SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS" at pages 13 and 14 and the text begins on page 17 He came back from a trip to Nairobi ("Civilisation" - we lived in Mogadishu!) with a copy of S&A for my seventh birthday. It was obviously the book that he would have wanted to be given as a child, but he was 26 when it came out! Unsurprisingly, the other favourite books in his juvenile library were by E. Nesbit, but he also suffered the sort of thing that Lewis Carroll lampooned in "Alice", because he used to come out with remarks about "improving the shining hour", and suchlike. Interestingly, I'm teaching an adult evening class about short stories at the moment, and I used one of Bill Naughton's short stories for children (Spit Nolan) and the women in the group (they're all women!) all thought that it would appeal to boys rather than girls. The reason didn't appear to be because it was a story about boys (I'm not sure there was a single girl) but because it focused so much on the technicality of the go-karts/trollies. It does make me wonder whether the technical sailing (and occasionally fishing/prospecting, etc) elements of AR's books ever put off girl readers? I don't really see why it should do, but I suppose being a bit obsessed with one particular thing is quiet boyish. How about each of us now takes the time to go ask a female friend? A little bit of direct research, instead of guessing from past conversations? My ex just arrived, so I'll ask her, and I'll ask my sister when I see her this week. More later. Alex More generally, the idea of a lead character is limiting in itself. Who is the lead character in e.g. Oliver Twist or Dombey and Son? Did she express this as a feeling on her part, or an assertion? Either way did she offer any substantiation (I'm not looking for peer-reviewed studies here, but a bit of understanding would help). I am curious because this strikes me as possibly "anecdotal evidence", which isn't. Perhaps the previous concern that children weren't reading at all has been superceded? The original question was about a male or female lead, and whether that mattered to children. It would be nice to think it doesn't matter, but I'm pretty sure it does. Anyway, it has made me think... AR, Enid Blyton, and many others were cunning in their use of a mixed group, so that the idea of a 'lead' character was carefully blurred. Was this a relatively modern trick, in the 1920s/30s? I wonder if older books (Treasure Island, for example) were more often stuck with a single lead character. Was that the exception or the rule? Plus... If there are, then when and who decided that AR’s are for ‘boys’ (though some of the early editions reviews show that they were clearly thought of as that.) To the general question, I just read novels that look interesting from their blurb, if when I start reading them I don’t enjoy them or like them I just stop. Quickly thinking about it most of my favourite novels are by women and so are my favourite writers, at a very quick estimate I would say 70%. Not that it matters, it doesn’t even come down to the quality. Sometimes I read ‘rubbish’ as a form or relaxation or escape. Then she read Jacqueline Wilson and other 'girly' stuff as well. That's the way to do it: rounded! On the same theme... PS: do the American Godine editions of S&A books have any differences apart from the illustrations eg Americanised spelling? Of course some British editions eg Red Fox also have their own or amended illustrations compared with Cape. I think that makes sense, in general. Boys will identify more readily with boy characters, and identifying with the characters is certainly important. But I had a sister, and she read Malcolm Saville books... And I certainly read those, and enjoyed them a lot. I suspect that "cross-gender" reading happens a great deal between brothers and sisters. I'm sure it is much more complex than just the gender of the lead character. In my opinion boys like stories with action and adventure and are not so keen on "goody goody" books. Girls are more content with a slower story which develops character and emotional ties. These are probably generalisations and there are probably examples among your own family and friends which do not fit. Certainly I read some books that were considered to be for girls: Ballet Shoes and Heidi for two. The former I reread at least once. Are there any teachers or librarians on tarboard who can tell us whether the Alex Rider series appeal to girls as well as boys, and do boys read the Tracey Beaker books? As for the issue of boys being 'put off' I think it is far more complex than just saying its becasue there is no male lead. From the point of view of sales, children's authors benefit from appealing to both sexes, as AR obviously did. As for S&A, I know I identified with both John *and* Titty, in about equal measure. It was much more about sympathetic personalities than similar chromosomes. Alex PS: I noticed in the Wikipedia article on "Copyright in the United States" that a judge in 2016 decided that copyright on remastered recordings would be extended, in view of the work in remastering them. PS: as noted the performing rights to Barrie’s play "Peter Pan" (owned by the Great Ormond Street Hospital) were extended indefinitely. As Barrie died in 1937 his British copyright ran out at the end of 1987; but was brought back by the 1995 harmonisation of EC copyright, until the end of 2007. Given the comments I assume that one or more of these apply and have acted accordingly. Now, the important date is the year of death of the author, and copyright expires 50 or 70 years after death, or rather from the 1st of January of the next year. Hence the period is not affected by the date of death in that year, or the years in which the works were first published. For Ngaio Marsh (died 1982) the copyright period will be the same for her first work (A Man lay Dead, 1934) as for her last (Light Thickens, 1982). Her piece about Roderick Alleyn was probably published before her death so the same rule would apply (though for works published posthumously there are different rules). Apparently, this is why Disney remasters their films every so often, and makes a shiny new case for them. Gotta keep the copyright going ad infinitum in each country they distribute to! In the United Kingdom, the basic rule for literary works such as books or plays etc. is 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the death of the author or last surviving author in the case of multiple authors, occurs. So Arthur Ransome's work will be out of copyright in the UK on 1st January 2038. These laws change from time to time so don't make any expensive advance plans for your personally published special edition of Swallows and Amazons until nearer the date. I'd like some information from someone in the know about copyright, please. My (sketchy) reading about copyright and the Berne Convention would appear to show that copyright in a written work generally expires 50 years after the author's death. Does that means that copyright in AR's works will expire in three days' time? Or if not, why not? http://pullman.davidficklingbooks.com/publication?pubID=99 It is also available in print, as it happens: Their Own Story was published in Christina Hardyment's Arthur Ransome and Captain Flint's Trunk. Under these circumstances, I don't think it is something they would be comfortable with having us publish at least at the current time. Dave They did not include some like Lewis Carrol’s Alice as not enough of a a character in her own right. And the Blackett sisters were No 14, to save you watching the video (and hearing of many I hadn’t heard of!). So the Blackett sisters; Peggy as well as Nancy! In any case I can't see why ATR wouldn't post Their Own Story verbatim for those who haven't read it, and since I've got it in PDF form I'll ask Dave T. if he'd like to put it up. Dave, would you care to put it up? :-) In the short term, I've put Their Own Story on my own website for anyone interested. (If Dave decides to host it on ATR, then I'll take it down again.) I think it was actually seeing it in the book so taking me by surprise that did it! Alex Is there a copy of that Author's Note floating around that I might have a look at it? My 1932, fourth impression, doesn't have it. Alex Alex FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READ which explains the circumstance of SA and the creation of the PD story on the wherry in Norfolk. Does anyone know if AR wrote this, or if he insisted on its inclusion? I've not seen it in any other edition. IIRC, the exceptions to this conversion system are ebooks that have embedded DRM. Typically, those cannot be converted from one format to another --since unlicensed modification or distribution is the entire point of DRM. Now my understanding is that DRM is relatively easy to circumvent, so some freeware may be able to manage the conversion despite the DRM, but that isn't something I play about with or know anything about. Alex No fancy knowledge required. The one I use is at the link below. There may be others that are better. Alex I myself have a Kobo and everything I want to read, whether on the reader or on the computer, I either download directly in EPUB format or download in HTML and convert. Alex Alex And then there are publishers who omit the postscript of ML... (Ugh!) Alex I managed to get the entire set of British editions a few years ago (but I had to be in the U.K. and another couple of hoops to do it) thanks to Rob Boden. Yes, there's aa authorized set available from Amazon.co.uk for the Kindle. The transfer editing was a little sloppy (there's an awful omission of the postscript of Missee Lee (the paragraph following THE END) starting with "Well, not quite the end. ...") unless it's been corrected in the last couple of years. I don't know of any editions in other e-formats. This is embarassing: I have both a Kindle and a Nook (I use them to test-run different formats of my own writing) and didn't even think of them. Which tells you what I think of them as a reading experience! Are the ARs available as ebooks? I know they weren't for quite a while. I don't currently have a solar set-up, but it's on my wish list, so I can keep the computer charged and, thus, keep writing while I'm out sailing. Maybe, if I do get set up that way, an e-reader would be the most practical option, even if it doesn't have the same appeal as a real book. Nah. When I'm fog-bound, I want a book. And I agree with Mike Dennis, that sometimes it's good to make a choice and limit selections. The ones I listed are my favorites; the companions I'd want along on a cruise. Using my sister as a lending library is a clever idea, but I'd rather be self-contained, and not bound to visiting any given port. Again, thank you all. Alex Yes, e-readers can store a huge number but better to have to make some proper choices. On occasions, even from AR's twelve, it makes us choose one or two in preference to others. Cheers Of course kids books are expected to be longer these days. I laugh when I compare the Narnia stories to the final Harry Potter or The Hunger Games etc. 1cm or less has grown to 3 or 5cm! As much as I love hardbound, I agree that a more sacrificial (I hate applying that word to a book!) paperback would be the way to go, for use aboard the boat. From the dimensions you've all given me, it sounds like I need to dig around for a couple of the Puffin edition. My sister has a set, and I'll be seeing her this next week. I'll bring a set of calipers to make sure of the thickness --that should startle her! Alex My one Red Fox, Swallowdale, is just under 7" tall by again about 4+3/8" by 1+1/4" thick. Looking at them 60+ years later, I can't pretend they're beautifully done. But I don't think they're too bad, and I know I had an awful lot of fun doing them.... [ Image ]
posted via 124.171.196.222 user mikefield.
My Red Foxes are 7" x 4 1/4", and the thickest is probably 'Swallowdale' at 1 1/2". BookFinder indicates that AbeBooks has used copies of 'S&A' for $US1 plus postage, and if all the titles are available that way you could get the whole set for a pretty modest outlay. Moreover, if you want decoration for a bulkhead, you might consider one of my maps, laminated, to go with them. :-) I ask because I'm putting together a small, stuck-at-anchor-in-the-fog fiction library to have with me on my very small boat for a multi-month cruise I'm planning in the next few years. My sloop is only 19', so space is extremely limited, and precedence must be given to coast pilot, cruising guide, etc., thus I'm wondering which AR edition has the smallest footprint. At the moment, I'm looking at only taking my two favorites, S&A and WDMTGTS, together with a few other favorites (Racundra's First Cruise, The Day's Work/Many Inventions, collected Saki, collected O.Henry, Three Men In A Boat). In some ways thickness is more of a concern, since I'm more limited by length of bookshelf than height (9" max) or depth 6-1/2"). So while the Puffin Edition softcovers are smaller footprints (standard mass market paperback), they may be thicker. I have Godine and Cape editions on my shelf, but I don't have a Puffin close at hand, and I know nothing of the Vintage Classics, RedFox, or the different Random House editions. And there may be others who, by going with lighter paper or denser/smaller type, are what I ought to be looking for. Any thoughts? Alex This is borderline heresy, given that they're AR's illustrations, but what would a colored-illustration edition be like? Looking at the other books on my shelf, I don't really envision something like Howard Pyle or N.C. Wyeth plates. Are there illustrators out there who could do the works justice? Alex When I looked through this copy two of the illustrations had been coloured in what appears to be either water-colours or basic children's paints. Surprisingly, whoever carried it out did quite a good job. You can see each of them at these addresses - http://www.the-russell-lodge.co.uk/images/cccoloured01.jpg http://www.the-russell-lodge.co.uk/images/cccoloured02.jpg (My thanks to the owners of Russell Lodge to let me use their Webspace to store the images.) Andy She is in excellent condition, fully equipped for cruising overseas. See link for details of construction, inventory etc [ Image ]
posted via 2.103.26.190 user Ted_Evans.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39817430 and wondered if there was an AR connection. Interesting they chose 'The Amazons' and not 'The Swallows'! I'm looking forward to horses called 'Trotsky's Secretary', 'Death and Glory' and 'Jolys Tin-Trumpet'. Hopefully all riding in the Outlaw Stakes at Norwich. Good luck to them; I quite enjoyed the track I heard from their website. Their tour takes them around Europe and then to Japan and South Korea.When they are in Exeter I might send my son to hear them and gain his opinion - he is nearer their age! You may well know of them already, but if, like me, you didn’t, remember folks, you heard of them here first! Oh yes, and unlike the ancient warrior race and the crew of ‘Amazon’ they’re all male. Much better reading than anything even slightly political. Your search confirms what I already suspected. Thanks for asking me to run this search. Glad my collection of TXT files can be of good use. Typing them in was a Labour of Love, a delightful re-visit with my childhood playmates, who now, some 75 years later, help me to stay young as I return to those adventures of my childhood. I was easily hooked. First of all, there was a MAP in the front, a map frequently referenced until memorized. Then there were those first three words: "Roger, aged seven,..." My Dad's name was ROGER, so that was familiar. I was also SEVEN years old, and quickly identified with Roger. He was my personal representative. I was him, or, he was me - we did things together. I was able to be a part of the group. They were Good Friends to grow up with. I am grateful they were there for me. Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA In the 'i' newspaper a letter was published claiming that our Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, only knew the word as he was 'posh' and read Arthur Ransome books in his childhood. So Ed, could you search your database and find out if AR ever used the word? What I did notice is that the picture is wonderful. You can see so much that I've never seen before. And there are some likeable little extras too. I have taken a scan of the instruction book for my TV. I'm afraid that's the best I can offer. Not the least, Marcus discarding the guise of stoic Roman centurion for that of the ebullient Greek quacksalver The Great Demetrius of Alexandria, Inventor of the Invincible Anodyne, the premier treatment for sore eyes (and yes that is how he always introduces himself, despite Esca's efforts to restraint the overacting) I remember reading Sutcliff as a young boy -- I remember the book was about a young slave boy? But I could be wrong. If you are going to the Lake District have fun -- drive carefully the roads are narrow and the hospital is probably outside the golden rule The aspect ratio problem is not quite as I've set out above. The film seems to have been shot at 1.66:1 - so already less widescreen than a 16:9 TV. So that would explain why one ends up with black bars left and right rather than top and bottom. I'd still question why they chose to lose so much top and bottom by zooming in further than required. And then, comparing it with earlier DVD releases, those are different again: in those, the film appears additionally, to have been squashed. I'll post again when I've sorted out exactly what's happened.... hopefully linking to some example stills from each version. So ordered the Blu-Ray of the 40th Anniversary edition which claims to have been 'digitally restored'. I don't want to be entirely negative: the film itself is, of course, as faithful and charming as ever, and it's great to see it in such high resolution for the first time. And in widescreen - almost - and here comes the rub... ...BUT: The film plays at full screen on a 16:9 1080p TV. This means it's playing at an aspect ratio of 1.78 - i.e. with no black bars top and bottom. Since it was shot in the (usual) cinema AR of 1.66 this means it's been cropped left and right... ...except it's WORSE: Comparing it with an old VHS I have, which had been panned and scanned for broadcast on TV back in the days when they were all 4:3, the Blu-ray (and presumably DVD) on this addition has ALSO lost content top and bottom. It looks very like someone has taken a copy which had already been pan & scanned (i.e. cropped left and right) for 4:3 display, and then zoomed a 16:9 rectangle into that to return it to widescreen format - i.e. cropped it again (top and bottom). And THEN, because presumably they could see they were losing so much, they didn't dare to push it to full wide-screen 16:9 (and lose even more top and bottom) and so have left it with (admittedly quite small) black bars left and right. Nonetheless, this is absolutely the WORST of all possible combinations of choices. Insult is added to injury by the fact that the blu-ray box states the AR to be 1.66:1 - i.e. as originally shot for cinema. Which it palpably isn't! Has anyone else noticed this, or have more information? It seems such a pity. I wonder if there is now anyway to see the film as originally shot (short of persuading a cinema to screen a print that hasn't been mucked around with)? Despite all this I'm sure the blu-ray will enhance a weekend at Holly Howe, but Jibbooms and Bobstays - who were the tame galoots who arsed up the Blu-ray authoring to such an extent? DUFFERS. You should be DROWNED. Or hanged in chains at Execution Dock. The only reason you won't be is we're all too nice around here. *Very* much a pity that it was a suspended sentence. I'd have much rather seen a couple hundred hours of community service, at the very least. Alex http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-friday-edition-1.4071260/british-ex-bodybuilder-convicted-of-killing-rare-butterfly-1.4068416 Rose Macauley (Seen on Lakeland Cam today The Swashbuckling History of Women Pirates Less likely during WWI. The 4 cruisers in Australian waters in 1914 (The Australia Station was transferred to RAN control in 1911, and phased out in 1913) were 2 new "Town" Class Australian cruisers HMAS Sydney & Melbourne, "Challenger" Class HMAS Encounter and "Perlorus" class HMAS Pioneer (both transferred to Australia in 1914). Now Ted could have been a "loaner" RN officer to Australia or New Zealand, but all those ships were scrapped in Australia after 1918, and only three made it out of the Indian or Pacific during the war. All in all, I favour a prewar meeting I know we think of ships and their crews being fully employed in wartime, but they still spent a lot of time in port undergoing routine maintenance and allowing plenty of shore-going opportunities for the officers and men. Short fig-leaves? (Sorry.) Sorry if I'm forgetting something obvious but do the books say the GA disapproved of Bob? Perhaps when Molly married Bob she "married beneath her" into a family that was not in the local gentry, and this was the reason for the Great-Aunt’s disapproval of Bob? I have a couple of examples several generations back in my family; one marrying the family maid and another remarrying to the family groom. Even if there were what the local library calls YA or Young Adult books in the thirties, I don’t think child readers of the series would have wanted the later ones to become YA books about the four "elders" (John & Susan plus Nancy & Peggy). Moving on to the the 2016 film. I found it very difficult to watch end to end, because there were so many times when I just wanted to stop, not because the story departed so much from the original, but because, again and again, the film seemed to be diverging from the spirit of Ransome's book. In the end I did seeing the film in its entirety, but only by seeing it in three or four separate sessions. There is a good review of the 2016 film on the video blog Projector which I thought was very even-handed. Compare that music of Eshkeri's (plagiarised or not, which is another issue) with the music -- and especially its use of shanties -- composed by Wilfred Josephs for the 1974 version. The first four I picked because they all had reputations as destroyer officers and Ted was serving in a destroyer in Malta (as a Commander in Command?) As both Mouthbatten and Cunningham were high fliers, who were both ultimately made First Sea Lord, it looks as if 40 was an approximate age for officers to be promoted Captain during the "between the Wars" period. This would be his approximate age at the time of WD and SW, giving a birth date of 1892 give or take a year or so. This does raise the question of what post Captain Walker would be taking up. The main Naval establishment in the area was the Boys Training establishment, HMS Ganges, but that would have been under the command of a fairly senior Captain. Could he have been in a post planning potential sites for wartime bases in the event of hostilities? Coastal forces were based around several of the Essex estuaries and the RN Patrol Service depot established at a holiday camp in Great Yarmouth. It could be that Ted and Mary met in England. Perhaps she returned to UK to England for some reason; possibly family or educational. I believe the RN frowned on junior officers marrying too soon. That was the case. I think the suggestion was that officers should not marry until they were senior Lieutenants. Knowing how poor the pay scales were most probably could not afford a wife and family! Ransome's friend, John Masefield, played an important role in the process whereby the shanty did not die, but evolved and moved from the deck of a ship to the floor of a pub or concert hall. In 1996, I acted as the Refy's minder at the International Festival of the Sea in Bristol, which was attended by some 100 artists from all over the world. Here, I had the privilege of meeting the remarkable ex Royal Navy submariner and shantyman Tom Lewis, an acquaintance that was renewed in Poland at the Iława shanty festival a few months later. Imagine my amazement to discover that Ilan Eshkeri, the composer of the music to the new S&A film, 'borrowed' Tom's Sailor's Prayer and that this 'borrowing' took place without any credit to Tom whatsoever. And yes, that's impossibly wild speculation, but since the thought occured to me... Alex I suppose I always imagined that Bob and Jim were school friends. Bob came home with Jim on holiday, where Jim introduced him to his sister, Molly, who was enough of a tomboy to join them on their Matterhorn Expedition (Nancy and Peggy must have gotten it from both sides) --and things progressed from there. Might that push everyone's ages up a few years, which would fit more with Commander Walker's career? Could the Oxford boat race clues be shuffled around to make that fit? Alex And there are no clues as to who is the older, Molly or Jim? Probably Molly? John Walker is supposed to be about 12, so Mary could be 32 to 34. But Ted Walker who is a Commodore or Captain is rather older than Mary. On Beatles help Album the semaphore spells NUJ As I see it, that age fits well with his general demeanor, too. Alex Only noted your posting today when looking back for something. Did actually remember the 50th of Donald Campbell, and the BBC News film; was interested to see how the children's programme 'Blue Peter' covered it as they were following Campbell's attempt and had had him on the programme shortly beforehand. The name was probably carved prior to 1901, memories of exact dates in childhood can be unreliable, but it could be the same year they climbed the Matterhorn. Is it reasonable to think of CF as ten in that year, but perhaps younger? Oxford won the Boat Race in 1905, and then annually from 1909 to 13. If the information in ML is taken as correct, then CF was up during at least one of those years. 1905 seems too early, so 1909 onwards could be a good bet. As CF “chucked Oxford before Oxford made up its mind to chuck him”, he probably left at the end of his first or second year, possibly after very poor exam results. So he could have gone up in 1907 or as late as 1912. The later dates seem less likely based on his carving and mountain climbing dates. Based on this flimsy evidence I suggest that Master James Turner was born in 1890, give or take a year. Placing his age as about 40 in S&A. Mrs Blackett appears to have had a lot less faith in her harum-sacrum daughters. Mrs Blackett appears to have had a lot less faith in her harum-sacrum daughters. The marmalade always predisposed me in favour of Oxford, though it's not actually why I ended up there. Oh, and OUP had a great range of children's books. I always felt slightly sorry for Missee Lee, denied the opportunity to follow her scholarly ambitions and having to return as a reluctant pirate. I do wonder if AR had trouble with what to do with his characters when they got older, the plots would need more than just sailing and camping. The best way to release heat from the skin is with cool water. Ice and ice water are too harsh and may further aggravate already damaged skin. Cool water helps to gently remove heat from the area. To learn more about the personalized care provided by our doctors using state-of-the-art equipment and technology, please visit our medical services section. Although in MASH - the US Doctors ally against the UK dr who gave everyone a grain of morphine and a cuppa. OS grid reference TQ265855 WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT WITH VEGEMITE LEFT IN THE SUN FOR 3 WEEKS IN THE DESERT Another bit of medical misinformation comes in Winter Holiday when the doctor recommends that you rub frostbite with snow. Incidentally, I see that it also has the BBFC 'PG' symbols, i.e. that Parental Guidance is needed for viewing by a child under 12, and a warning of "mild threat, infrequent mild violence". I've decided to approach it like Peter Duck or Missee Lee as a great made up tale created by the adventure loving kids as an adventure story on the lake. One does just wonder: a fancy-free Jim Turner in his houseboat and the lively Australian Mary Walker with her husband on the other side of the world. Mrs Blackett and the girls were terrible - any mother and 2 daughters from a competent English Boarding School Upper form would have been better speakers Mrs Blackett and the girls were terrible - any mother and 2 daughters from a competent English Boarding School Upper form would have been better speakers I get more irritated each time I see it, though I liked the shopkeeper's insinuation that Captain Flint might have a woman in Leningrad; presumably the scriptwriter had done some research into AR's personal life. At least it was a less deafening experience than Beauty and the Beast in the cinema this afternoon. I got the S and A DVD fro England, you cannot play it in a DVD player, but a computer will play it ok. I watched it without trouble on a Dell Computer. It was quite cheap from Amazon UK - less than taking my daughters to a movie. My real bully beef is the Scottish Writer made the mother Scottish - there are many female Australian Actors in the UK who could have played that part with more verve and style than the actor used. One is not supposed to use a word like Frump on this august board so I shall not, but... John As for the DVD, for some fantastic reason, a DVD that works in England does not necessarily work in the USA. This S&A movie is a British product, available in the British DVD, but as for it ever making it across The Pond to be available in USA compatible format DVD, perhaps that is a long wait. British Adult actors, I can hear and understand them, such as "FOLYE'S WAR" (an excellent police mystery TV series) It is the YOUNGER set like in Harry Potter and now in S&A that fail to land properly on my ears. The version I was watching was on YOUTUBE, and as someone pointed out, it was probably an illegal copy, with poor reproduction of the sound which would garble the words even more. I did see a TRAILER version on YOUTUBE, and it being official, that sound seemed to be proper, and glory be, I was ABLE to HEAR them considerably better (if not perfectly). The lost of understanding therefore I believe to be the poor quality of the sound reproduction, but, that is all I had access to. My VCR cassette tape (this goes back quite some years) of the 1974 version was quite understandable for the most part. Meanwhile, this new S&A is just not within my grasp. Humph... In many ways, it may be modern, better acting. Although I always thought that Nancy would be more likely to used middle class "received pronunciation" than the regional accent she appears (from the trailer) to have been given in the film. As for rapid cross-cutting, that's the modern fashion. It probably started in Hollywood. Maybe in Hollywood, but really, I suspect that it's from TV and video games. For contemporary children, not for the likes of us. The transfer to YouTube is technically incompetent and, illegal to boot. I have seen the film courtesy of iTunes, Apple's platform for selling digital content. The sound is somewhat better than on YouTube. The other problems remain. Time to reread the book! Perhaps the process of transferring the video from one medium to another caused the quality of the sound to become a bit damaged. I saw a YOUTUBE version. This problem did not seem to hurt the 1974 version on YOUTUBE however. The sound this time seemed to be just a NOISE, and it is quite natural to say that "A NOISE ANNOYS". I also noticed in this new version that the camera action was very much UP CLOSE with very brief snap shifting quickly to the next glimpse. I was seemingly always shifting my point of view to the next point of interest, without the time it takes to discover just what that point might be, only to have the scene flip again. It was irritating. In real life, we quite often have out eyes flicking back at forth, from one point of interest to another with only brief moments on any one point, but for the camera to act like my eye movement was tiresome and irritating. I'll not be making the mistake of trying to view this new version any time soon. Much better to go read the book. That has always been a delightful experience. Dave Thewlis Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ] "There is something gypsyish about coffee-stalls, something very delightful. Since those days I've known many ... but there is none I have loved so well as this small untidy box on the Embankment. That was a joyous night when for the first time the keeper of the stall recognised my face and honoured me with talk as a regular customer. More famous men have seldom made me prouder. It meant something, this vanity of being able to add "Evening, Bill!" to my order of coffee and cake. Coffee and cake cost a penny each and are very good. The coffee is not too hot to drink, and the cake would satisfy an ogre." ...Or a Roger, I suppose. But here's a thing: the Japanese artist mentioned later in the book is Yoshio Markino. And here's his painting of a (the?) coffee-stall, on the Embankment, dating to about the same time. I'd like to think it's not a coincidence. Andy [ Image ]
posted via 212.219.3.8 user Duncan.
I do not remember seeing it on my sailing on Windermere. I do not remember seeing it on my sailing on Windermere. I was checking the passage in S&A when Titty and Roger land on Cormorant Island to search for the "pirates' treasure" and was surprised to find the island was mainly covered in large rocks, and it was difficult to find a safe landing place. It is long time since I read the book, but in my mind Cormorant Island was mainly shingle and small pebbles. I wonder what else I've had wrong all these years? [ Image ]
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
Just my guess. It's really too bad; as a character in her own right she has a lot to offer. She --and we, as readers-- got shorted as a lot of potential was ignored or set aside for story clarity. On the other hand, anyone writing S&A fan-fic has Peggy available as an open door into some very good stories. Alex AR was clearly fond of Titty as a character as she does go through a number of events that could be said to be 'life changing'. Perhaps if AR already had as a goal to find a conslusion for Disk, the the GN plot offered a better opportunity. Still, CN was shaping up to be the ultimate synthesis of the series (or perhaps he was balking at so obvious a completion?) However, I think Alex's ideas have strong merit, with regard to the graduation to adulthood. Maybe it doesn't matter whether it is meta fiction or not. I wonder if AR set out to make a deliberate choice on this matter, or fell in a natural storytelling habit/pattern through which these sort of plots naturally occur to one? AR did once say, about writing, "stick in a brat, and the others gain independence at once." Perhaps it is silly to start hunting around for other 'graduation's, but I couldn't help thinking of Titty's dowsing. She definitely grows up a bit, but not really into an adult. I suppose there are several other similar times in her life: being left alone on the island (nearly calling Mother back), the voodoo wax Great Aunt, the final mapping task in SW... These are all tiny examples of her making herself be more mature. So not a 'graduation', but just a tangent my brain ran away with. My feeling is that though GN does allow Dick to make the move towards adulthood (and Titty as well, together in the final pages) the arguments for it being a metafiction along with PD and ML are strong. I do think AR wanted a way of bringing things to a close, and if you ignore some aspects of the plot and even the writing he does so quite effectively. In that light, a while back I hypothesized that PM was a similar effort by AR to provide a similar rite of passage for Nancy, as she assumes more of the role and responsibility of a woman in that era and culture. Some people here thought that hypothesis had merit, which pleases me, though I would hardly deem my speculation canon. Those were both conclusions for the Swallows (particularly John) and the Amazons respectively. Aside from ML (unequivocally fantasy-based), they take much less active roles in the series after their "graduations", leaving the stories driven more by the younger characters and the Ds. Building on those thoughts, was GN? meant to be yet another of these conclusions for AR? An attempt to give Dick the same sort of "graduation" into adulthood? What would be more relevant for the character than to make an enduring scientific discovery? And yet it had to be in keeping with the accidental/inadvertant nature of the trials in WD and PM and, further, for the sake of plausibility, couldn't be too grand a discovery --something that re-wrote archeology, or minerology, or something that brought Dick (inter)national acclaim. It had to be important but understated; a proof of the character's character and a validation of the character's relevance within their world. Does GN? fall into is-it-real-or-is-it-Peter-Duck? uncertainty because AR had to walk a fine line between an adventure that was plausible for his young, largely average characters and giving Dick a relevant rite of passage --which, for a scientific discovery, required something beyond what an average youth might experience? It must thus, by its nature, touch on science that will affect a greater sphere than just the characters, and thereby be a story that stretches our willing suspension of disbelief beyond so much of the preceeding series. So was GN? his conclusion for Dick just as WD was for John and (arguably) PM was for Nancy, and are the elements necessary to that goal why GN? reads a bit more like fantasy? Alex Life of a Mountain: a year on Blencathra is a sequel to the previous simlar film about Scafell Pike, which I think was discussed on here. I've forgotten how to put more than one clickable link in a post so you'll have to copy and paste this one: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08f1cc0 The Lake District: A Wild Year also covered a one-year period and focussed on a sheep farm, including the rescue of a cragfast sheep, and some natural history - the programme website is linked below: I strongly recommend visiting the Roald Dahl museum (Buckinghamshire, UK) if you can. Fascinating for adults and kids. [ Image ]
posted via 81.156.117.125 user Magnus.
When you say "the mother" do you mean the mother of Deedre, er, Diedre, er, Deidre, er, you know, that girl? :) I still think he should have had Kilwillie marry the mother John [ Image ]
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
That reminded me of a well-known line from Douglas Adams: "He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea." Where did you find it, and how do I get plans? I need to build myself one. Alex Doesn't it just? Oh, indeed. I though of it as a splendid conceptual parallel. But not Liptons. Here's a photo of his wonderful writing-chair, which will amuse and interest his fans. [ Image ]
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
Everything in SA goes better with a cup of tea. As Ed so wonderful post points to the all consuming presence of iced Tea in the South -- terrible stuff, worse than the worst cup of tea stewed for 2 day and then strained through old socks. Everyone around me drinks it. I finished the movie, actually it left me feeling upbeat. The boat scene was interesting - the only funny thing in the end was the slow take off speed -- that was rigged, the rest was suitably scary, although one must remember the boats had a hull speed of about 5 knots. Why the heck did they not borrow two unstayed boats, take 2 phone calls and a couple of quid? I will watch it again -- I beleive it is the 75th anniverary of the SS Politician. Long live CM. I'd have thought that at the time, clean water would have been crucial, what with surrounding farming, and the lakes being such convenient sinks for sewage, and tea would have been a solution. As it is now with roadside tea sellers in India, where water borne diseases are very common. Clean water and plumbing (no foul arrows or slings please) is an important consideration at the time and really up to to that point in time and one must say in Flint now. National Geographic once noted that the Japanese/Chinese workers died at a much lower rate on the railroad construction across America than the Irish - drank tea instead of water. The latest NG includes a good article on why beer is better than water if you have a contaminated supply and it is impossible to tell contamination until you are sick or dead. In Oz in the 60's milk and 6 sugars - stuff it - just give me the sugar Ed - I love your post -- well done old bean. What is one man's midden is another man's archeological treasure. John To this day I like tea with milk (NOT iced tea of course) even though I have always preferred my coffee black Otherwise we'd have the books dealing with constantly boiling water and then leaving it to cool somewhere. Or adding a few drops of bleach. Finding milk sources is also documented by AR in 'Racundra's First Cruise', and the 'Third' book too. Sounds revolting :) I seem to recall Susan was slightly shamed of the shortcut of using Force (with milk) rather than making porridge. In job assignment overseas that took me to London (the IBM offices there) I noticed the drink dispenser in those offices offered only one thing, tea, and the milk came with it with no option to the contrary. I once spoke to one of the IBM gentlemen working there about the tea and asked him why is there milk in this tea, wo which he responded, "To drink tea, without milk, would be terribly uncivilized." Well, that explains that... It reminded me that in our beloved Ransome stories, it is of primary importance that a local source of milk be found so they could have their tea. Sometimes the tea would be used in their cereal "Force" but mostly it was for the tea. There were a few exceptional moments when for some reason they had to take the tea without the milk, but they seemed to brave through with no loss of life resulting. Observing this custom was just one of the many rewards of reading Ransome's so very realistic stories. As a reader, I felt I was a part of the party; I was there with them. The language was a bit different, but then that was just part of the adventure, exploring those tid bits of differences in vocabulary and in the spelling. Some words needed help from the Tarboard members to understand, and I am grateful for their explanations. I never would have understood what "MIDDEN" was without someone's definition. That word was used in describing the GA, as: "Girt auld hen 'at wants to be cock o' t' midden." (PM CH6) There were dialect words, like "YIN" (Jacky talk) meaning "one." It was a fascinating education I got from those books, and not just how to sail. There are many that can say they learned to sail just from reading these books, and I am glad to among them. Building a campfire, hanging a pot over it, signalling, Never tried guddling for fish, but an interesting idea that is. Tried to use a devining rod but nothing happened. Sigh... At least I tried. With my daughter living next door, I get to enjoy a "Ransome Moment" when I see a light in a bedroom window, flashing Morse, to which I immediately respond. Oh, there is the cell phone of course, but somehow Morse made it very special. It brings back that magical moment when Nancy happened to see, far away at the northern end of the lake, the flashing of the letters, "NP" and she understood. Now that was communication. When I read that moment, I feel like cheering with both arms raised high, as if celebrating the making of a Touchdown (American Football.) But then, that is what Reading these Stories does; it makes me want to cheer - and give thanks for giving me such delights. I need to pour more tea into the ice tray to prepare more cubes. This glass here just finished that last lot. So, to my fellow Ransome world adventurers, I lift my glass and say, "CHEERS" Ed Kiser, Kentucky USA [ kisered@aol.com ] John ...and some time earlier after the 1953 flooding the sea walls were raised and reinforced with concrete slabs. The top end of the creek was cut off by the realigned sea wall. I also found a half-hour documentary by John Sergeant on YouTube about 'Swallows and Amazons' itself in the BBC's 'Secret Life of Books' series. It contains quite a bit about Ransome himself as well as the book, and includes conversations with Geraint Lewis and Christina Hardyment (with both of whom I'd corresponded but never actually met). Yes, I saw it on transmission and enjoyed it, although I suspect that as I live in London, the real places are really just down the road. But I find the best exploration is Google Street View. Not everywhere is covered, of course, but for instance Bank Ground Farm (Holly Howe) and Lanehead (the Collingwood home) are literally neighbours. I never realised that until I "looked" at them. You can imagine AR walking across the intervening field to propose to successive Collingwood daughters. The transformation of Lanehead into a local council centre means you need a bit of imagination to work your way back to the '30s, but it's very doable. And if you look up "Low Ludderburn, Cartmel Fell" you can get to the wiggle in the lane where AR and Evgenia lived while he wrote the earlier books, look into the window of his "office" in the converted barn, see the wooden garage that they built for Rattletrap. It's powerfully evocative. John For the Ransome fan that does not live in England, our chances to see the REAL places where his characters have as a playground are rare and never. You Englanders can view these places in person with a comparative minimum of travel efforts to do so. For that, us foreigners can feel a bit of, well, let's call it "aw shucks..." For the Lake District Ransome stories, he created an environment that was quite a bit re-arranged from the actual locations in the real world. The places we know and love from his stories may have real places in his mind, but the actual locations did get a bit of shifting. So "the Lake" of Ransome's stories does not really exist but does share some similarities with Coniston and Windemere. However, in the Broads stories of Coot Club and Big Six, and the North Sea tales of We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea and Secret Water, he managed to maintain a much more realistic "map" that closely resembles the actual geography of the regions. To us foreigners, it is quite a delight to be able to "visit" (vicariously) these three locations and see the "real" places mentioned in his stories. Through the magic of the internet, and of video cameras, we now have that chance to "visit" those places that Ransome made so dear to us all. On YOUTUBE, there is a BBC DOCUMENTARY that takes us to all three of these locations to see the REAL thing. As a foreigner (in the USA) I am grateful for this opportunity to get that first hand viewing of the actual places. Click on this link, and sit back, and enjoy the trip to Ransome Land, made to be REAL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLjkfU1KziY&index=9&list=PLfmDakLYDgMzjztSuegZCfltsssiVPHga Hope you enjoyed your "trip"... It was humorous Thoughts? A Hullabaloo, "Jerry," was played by Julian Fellowes, who some years later, was the author of the "Downton Abbey" hit series on TV. As much as I enjoyed that series, I wonder if my delight with it would have been altered by knowing it was written by a Hullabaloo. But really, it wasn't; it was written by the actor who played the role of a Hullabaloo. The young boy, "Pete," was played by Jake Coppard, who died in 1986 at age 15, about two years after making his "Coot Club" and "Big Six" appearances. We see these people as Ransome Characters, and somehow we feel we "know" them. Then comes the realization that the actor playing that role is his own person totally unrelated to the character that we see in the movie. It is sometimes a bit of surprise to find out things about these REAL people with lives of their own. Too bad about "Pete" - there was no indication in the article as to the cause of death. All too young to have life cut so short. Roads around the building, in Hall Brow, were sealed off and an explosion carried out at 08:00 GMT. The force blamed "an internal communications error" and apologised to the owner. Cumbria Police said other officers on duty were not aware colleagues had parked the car outside the station after helping its owner, who had been taken ill. Insp Ashley Bennett said: "We have made contact with the owner of the vehicle, explained the situation and have apologised to him. "The officers who dealt with this morning's incident did so with public safety in mind and followed the appropriate procedures in respect to an unoccupied suspicious vehicle. "The constabulary will review this incident and will take on board any learning." Which lake is in the movie? Greenock is the birthplace of the script writer in Scotland so the change in Mrs Walker is obvious, the writer has not done a film for 12 years and average ratings on the films is 6.6. So at average. Only 90 running minutes and assuming 20-60 words per minute you are limited to 7000 words, so you have to take 3/4 of the book out. If you want the full book need a 5 hour movie like King Lear. Lake has been bastardized and the map is really weird. What lake was it? I cannot see why they mixed stuff up - charcoal burners, that story about lighting fire is just weird and the original better. Snake in hand -- weird as well Old Billy was in his 80s. For the life of me I cannot see why even with the interesting changes and I have no great problem with the spy bit, AR probably did spy in some ways they did not stick to book bits -- Kids being kids is really Billy Bunterish and the overboard scene - pure farce. Mrs Jackson would not be miscast in Taming of the Shrew and why did Mr Jackson have a truck - more likely a cart. Amazon's - a random pair of English girls from a random boarding school would have been better. I loved Titty and Roger was ok for his age. So the author needed a good kick in the pants from someone who has some film experience and can understand how to portray AR elements without being childish. Mrs. Walker smoking -- I bloody doubt it The travelling north wasted 16 good minutes, 2 minutes could have introduced Cpn Flint and spys, More after watching the end tonight. I actually liked most of it - I hate the two mothers -- makes me think of a love in in the 60's and Scotland in 1890. I am not a sailor, so I may be completely wrong here, but it seems to me that to navigate two small sailing boats, using wind alone (no engines or oars), into the correct position on the lake, and then maintain station, keeping the rope taut, would take some time, depending on the wind conditions (in the film, there didn't seem to be any wind at all). I’m guessing but I would have thought at least 5-10 minutes. In the film, the time from the moment ‘Nancy’ throws the rope to ‘John’ to the moment the rope is caught on the undercarriage is 30 seconds (I have timed it). Surely this would not be possible? By the way, I realise that film action is often time-condensed, but the problem here is that the simultaneous events aboard the plane are in real time. And by the way again, it looks to me as though ‘Nancy’ used a slip-knot to attach the rope to Amazon’s stem, so she was able to cast it off, but ‘John’ used a fixed knot, so he had to cut the rope with his pen-knife. Two references to the word "SHIED" - ML and PP, but no "HIED". At least, none in my TXT copies that I typed in myself, which makes that source subject to typo errors not found in the original books. There were those moments that I felt I had found an error, and corrected it in my version. Wish now I had left it alone, but that is the value of hind-sight. I can be as critical as the next boatswain, but if you look at the statistics the film achieved an 8.7 from Under 18 girls, granted a small set of numbers and one would normally question the statistical validity, but it is an indicator that perhaps the movie could reach a subset of girls who are not always shown in the best light in movies, I will let my 9 and 12 year old watch the DVD I just got and I will let you know. Of course one could argue that effectively Nancy has more Y chromosome than John. (Personal and controversial opinion) John 7.9 – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Now for the ratings of some classic films: 7.8 – Mary Poppins And now for the IMDb rating of Swallows and Amazons (2016): 6.3! As far as I can see, the film was reviewed, as it should have been, by professional film critics with weekly columns in their newspapers, whose job it is to review what they see as films, not primarily as adaptations of source material that is not in their area of expertise. Even a film critic who happened to be an AR enthusiast would still be expected to review SA as a film in its own right and judge it accordingly, though he/she might comment on its faithfulness as an adaptation. If such faithfulness had been the basis for judging the various film versions of The 39 Steps, 1 or 2 out of 5 might have been about right. On that professional basis, 3/5 seems a reasonable score to have given it, though it goes without saying that the earlier film was a much more faithful adaptation. I stumbled across the word hied - several times at the weekend in 3 different books, I have seen it before but not that regularly - Ed is in hied in the AR books, I do not recall it - but I am not going to read them all - each author used to express speed John As I said, it needs to be a professional review --Amazon.com reviews don't count-- to survive on Wiki. I haven't yet figured out a good way to cite AR forums to illustrate that devoted fans were not impressed. I'm embarrassed for the BBC, that they allowed it to happen. I've only seen the YouTube teaser, and I'm still embarassed for them. Alex A good review from a BBC source is going to be unlikely as it was their film! On Amazon the vast majority of the 100 or so reviews are 5 out of 5, and it seems that reflects the view of the media. Many of them reviewing the film as a stand alone production with no reference to its source material. I just read the Wiki page on the movie, and the "Critical Reception" section is apallingly one-sided. Enough so to get me angry. Someone --me, I guess, unless someone else would (please) volunteer-- needs to paste in a couple reviews more in line with the general consensus of AR fans such as we here. The reviews need to be able to be cited; i.e. our commentary probably won't do, so someplace reputable(?) like BBC needs to be the source. Assistance, please? Alex 1. I always wondered as to your general location in England Hmm... 'A drone a day keeps the natives away.' Some of the quotes: Daddy's first draft "UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES CAN YOU CHILDREN SAIL ALONE IN A SMALL BOAT TO AN UNKNOWN ISLAND. LOVE, DADDY" (John Lambert) The Ross Cossar let the action proceed a bit further before bringing matters to a shocking end: For reference, to reef my gaff-rigged sloop, I take up on the topping lift to carry the weight of the boom, ease the throat halyard and make the tack pendant, ease the peak and make the clew pendant, then make fast the nettles along the boom. Sweat up the halyards and away we go. From the sounds of it, Swallow is the same as my sloop. Goblin, with her roller-reefing boom, was different, of course. Any other instances of reefing in the books, to use as reference? As often as Knight appears in AR, I'd be interested in what other examples provide. Alex If asked I would have said I saw Swallows and Amazons earlier than 1988, but that date fits in with the period when I had the time and money to go to the theatre regularly. Incidentally I also Daisy Pulls It Off, also at the Nuffield, which I think was before it transferred to the West End. It really is a good book, though he does get one thing "wrong"(?): in describing how to reef, he takes down the clew first, then the tack. Perhaps this reverse order is something peculiar to the traditional English cutter rig, where the main is loose footed and the tack left running so that it can be triced up? Either way, John gets it right in S&A, for Swallow: tack, then clew, then the nettles along the boom. Alex I think I have a pair up in the the "chandlery" section of my shop. I haven't yet figured out how to post a photo to this forum, but if someone can explain it to me, I'll provide an illustration. Allan, I'll give fair warning so you can close your eyes. Alex Alex Alex Dave I would have kept the programme for several years (as you do) but probably threw it out prior to a house move. From what I remember it was pretty faithful in following the book within the constraints of a two hour theatre performance. The boats were mounted on a revolve and sailing was simulated by them rotating as if on a roundabout. No feathered headdresses just red stocking caps. Does anyone have any information of it? But sorry, I don't have a picture of moused sister-hooks and nor can I find one on the web. For those who really want to know though, you just bring the hooks together and clap a strong seizing (using the word loosely) around the shanks below the eyes. While "Knight on Sailing" was certainly stated by AR as being used by John, nowhere in that book (as far as I can tell, and I have two editions as well as access to Tim's on-line version) is there any mention of sister-hooks. "Hotted up" was a phrase commonly used by my parents and others I knew of their generation. ousing and its application to sisterhooks can be found in CHAPTER XVI - GLOSSARY OF NAUTICAL TERMS [ Image ]
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
There is no single sensible answer to this question. It's impossible to count the number of words in a language, because it's so hard to decide what actually counts as a word. Is dog one word, or two (a noun meaning 'a kind of animal', and a verb meaning 'to follow persistently')? If we count it as two, then do we count inflections separately too (e.g. dogs = plural noun, dogs = present tense of the verb). Is dog-tired a word, or just two other words joined together? Is hot dog really two words, since it might also be written as hot-dog or even hotdog? It's also difficult to decide what counts as 'English'. What about medical and scientific terms? Latin words used in law, French words used in cooking, German words used in academic writing, Japanese words used in martial arts? Do you count Scots dialect? Teenage slang? Abbreviations? The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries. Over half of these words are nouns, about a quarter adjectives, and about a seventh verbs; the rest is made up of exclamations, conjunctions, prepositions, suffixes, etc. And these figures don't take account of entries with senses for different word classes (such as noun and adjective). This suggests that there are, at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary not covered by the OED, or words not yet added to the published dictionary, of which perhaps 20 per cent are no longer in current use. If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million. Thus we can only wonder at the great words we learned from AR, I still get chipped for using AR expressions and being asked -- where did that come from and I just look and them and think Pudding Faces. Academe has the exact opposite of a ship and it is a vey poor thing indeed During this process I cam across Ramanujan paper on Highly Composite Numbers, the sort of Bletchley Park cross Dick stuff you could really grow to love, although as Hardy said it was of little relevance, one does not do math or read AR for relevance one does it for fun. I read the paper and was struck by the idea at the beginning of how he would count the prime components, I do not have anything like the skills that man had, but when I saw the answer I went damn that is simple. I then thought I could code it and check the answers, the paper notes that using a pencil and paper in 1915 Ramanujan missed only 2 of the highly composite numbers, literally numbers in the thousands and tens of thousands. One must ask if Ramanujan had been alive in 1941 would he have been at Bletchley and would he have solved those problems faster. During this time of writing I did not have use the unmentionable device once, but I wish Ed and I could visit WI together and like little boys take a swim in the lake. Now where is my book on plumbing. Even if Allan is nuturing his sense of mystery, you need to find a photo of sisterhooks that have been properly moused, Mike. Alex Alex Thanks, Dave. :) Out of deference to your susceptibilities, Allan, I won't enlarge on sister-hooks any further here. However, anyone interested in seeing what they look like can click on the link for a picture. As far as I can make out, sister-hooks were not in fact used on either Amazon or Swallow, and there's only that one mention of them anywhere in the books. However, I am resolved never to spoil the mystery by ever learning what "mouse your sisterhooks" means (although it's apparently important.) There are 469 times that expression is used in the Ransome 12. I do not know if that is still in current usage, or is this just a sample of the 1930's, or is that today still in popular usage. In my reading of these books, the "I say" expression was very much a standout as being not the way I would say things. Then there was the spellings that my American spell checker kept harassing me about as I typed these texts into my computer. Another surprise of language usage differences came early in S&A as Roger ran up to the others while waving the telegram, and John questions him, saying, "DESPATCHES?" I never would have said that, and I would have spelled it as "DIS..." But this was part of the fun, the mystery, the joy of deciphering these expressions as being different from what I was used to. It was an Education, one that introduced me to some terms a sailor would know, but that I had to learn about, such as my feeling of success when I finally understood what the "Painter" was, that it had nothing to do with smearing stuff on the side of a house. A "Sheet" is not necessarily just what one spreads on a bed. A "Traveler" has nothing to do with someone on vacation. Then the truly foreign words of "pintle and gudgeon" both of which upset my American Spell checker. Reading Ransome has been an educational pleasure, showing me new places, new ideas, and a play world of fantasy that was made out to be so real He triggered my interest in signalling, a learned skill that gave me a leadership position in my group of Boy Scouts. For all he brought into my life, I am truly grateful. Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ] Alan Hakim, Mike Field, David Bamford: 100% yes. If something in the books makes you uncomfortable, learn from it and carry on. Alex Exactly. That's why some words used by, inter alia, AR in the 1930s, words that are no longer acceptable in public speech, should nevertheless remain in the texts. Some people in the past have thought that bowdlerised versions of AR should be published to suit today's tastes and preferences. This was discussed here a short while ago, with some bowdlerised examples produced to show how ridiculous the whole idea really is. The books are the books. If you don't like parts of them, don't alter them, just don't read them. [Steps down off soap-box] Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ] He also failed to get recognition from the mathematicians he contracted in England before he hit on Hardy. I don't think their identities have ever been published. The over analysis of Titty and dowsing bothered me as well, especially as I am able to dowse and fully understand the stress it can cause that AR describes very well. Julian Lovelock has also deconstructed the Titty dowsing episode, and describes it as “more than a hint of the beginnings of Titty’s sexual awareness”. Titty was about ten in ‘Pigeon Post’ and that statement makes me uneasy. I feel it was unwise to include it. It strikes me that Titty’s distress was simply that of a child discovering that she had an irrational ‘gift’, i.e. water divining, but not feeling able to cope with it. The rationale seems to be to protect the sport of angling and the rights of fishing licence ownsers rather than for any fish protection reasons. I think what's illegal is not ticling as a method of fishing, but the fact that the fishing rights on the river belong to somebody else. Yes, taking fish from water belonging to someone else is poaching. I think what's illegal is not ticling as a method of fishing, but the fact that the fishing rights on the river belong to somebody else. So we have an accident, is WS, we have the anchor lost. We have two, although 3 for a short while, people alone, and drifting through space, trying to work out how to manage, think WS and John and Susan getting to sea and safety. Did not PD say something about shores being dangerous? There is the events to be dealt with, the kitten, being run down and one sees the same minor happenings in the Hollywood movie. They overcome adversity. The ends are similar, everyone is safe and LHEA - think Cinderella. So all the way through the movie, I had a good idea of the next stage as it was so close to WS. Instead of saving a drowning kitty, she saves the lost spaceman, etc... I was just a bit intrigued as to why the lost couple did not have a couple of children and wake a few more up to make a village. Sensible thing to so and make for a sequel. The interesting ethical issues in both are evident, do you leave an untrained or missing crew and wander off, in WS the Captain should never have left the boat - but that is just a personal opinion. Interesting movie. I purchased Swallows and Amazons DVD - had to get it from the UK Amazon, about 15 USD including postage. John In Passengers, the basic story is the old Swiss Family Robinson, with the castaways on a 100 year voyage to a new world. It is all automated and everyone is in hibernation. The ship runs into a meteor storm and a large one makes it through the "magnetic/electric" shield protecting the ship and damages one of the reactors. The ship is almost self healing, but not quite. In the energy blackout - a Robinson Crusoe person is woken up and is then stranded on the ship alone except for a robotic bar man, (best actor in the group by the way). May I join the club? We often decant the purchases into a packet/container that makes less of a racket. My friend related a conversation he recently had when he took his 7 year old to the cinema... Employee: "There's your tickets, do you want to buy any popcorn?" Funny that two Guardian writers had such problems. I was reading Vernon Coleman's Doctor books, and Thumper is arrested by the Water Bailiff for ticking fish in Devon. When did it become illegal, why would anyone say this is illegal -- man against fish -- is there no fun anymore. Interestingly Coleman mentions Buchan, but not AR. No real kids in his books. He is not as good as AR - funny but not AR's hidden humour, nor his writing skills although they both wrote for the Guardian. John We have to take the youngest child and then one of the friends so they are balanced so to speak. 4 tickets is about 20 bucks then popcorn, four drinks, and 2 candy make about 29.50, then the running around and petrol let us call it 50 bucks. My elder daughters certainly need pushing to read the books that I decide are good for them. They read for at least an hour every day, of their own choice, but they point blank refuse to let me suggest a title. Every so often I put my foot down, they begrudgingly read an award-winner, and later tell me they loved it. It is also a chapter of victory where John managed a victory for his crew knowing his boat well and the routes he was willing to choose. There are moments in these Ransome stories that seemed to be a Grand Event that made me want to stand up and cheer with arms raised in celebration. Here are but a few of those moments; there are others. In Pigeon Post, Roger comes to the realization that the piece of quartz he had just hammered loose from the wall had a glint of metal. He knew that he had found what they had all been looking for. He had really done it. In We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea, there were so many moments of stress, of real fear of very real dangers. It was no made up child's game they were playing, like the Amazons pretending to be pirates. This was serious business, a struggle to remain alive. Things began looking up when the Pilot came on board, but a lot of questions as to how to make the next move, and how to pay for the Pilot and the telegram, different kinds of stress, but serious concerns. Then John happened to look up to that steamer next to them and suddenly recognized DADDY. Then, he was gone. So near, yet another failure. Then came that wondrous moment of Victory, as they heard the sound of a motorboat coming up behind them, and suddenly, they saw...DADDY. The shift in emotion was fantastic. Susan had to hide back in the cabin to manage her tears, but tears of relief, not of fear. The emotions of that moment completely turned around. In Peter Duck, of course the moment of Victory was after the stress of the storm, the loss of their water supply, only to suddenly discover the treasure they had come so far to find. This emotional joy was somewhat restrained when they found that it was not gold picecs of eight which any respectable Pirate would have buried, but some pearls, some of questionable value. But they had found what they had come looking for. Winter Holiday had that moment of emotional cheering on my part because it involved communication via code, that is, Morse Code. Nancy was recovering from her illness and was walking about to get her legs back in working order again. There was some stress as to the missing D's with even the Natives getting stirred up in the search for those missing two. But Nancy happened to look far away, to the north, and saw another light, below those of the village beyond, but a light that seemed to be blinking. She looked again, and realized that was CODE. She spelled out the letters, "NP" and realized what it meant, that the D's were at the North Pole. This last Victory Moment was of special importance to me because it was Winter Holiday that triggered my desire to become familiar with CODE, Morse and Semaphore. My Ransome friends were actually using that. I learned it, and suggested to my Boy Scout Troup that we all should learn signalling. The Scoutmaster suggested that I teach my friends. For the nerd kid who was always the last chosen for the team, it suddenly put me into a leadership position among my peers. Those guys seemed to take to this project rather well. We did quite a bit of practicing from one end of a field to another. It was a social victory for me. When ever signalling was used by my Ransome friends, it quickly got my attention, as in PP, John and Roger signalling with flashing torch back to the base camp as the two boys prepared to spend the night in the gulch, keeping watch. In Winter Holiday, there was that flurry of semaphore with Nancy (face like a pumpkin) in her window, with that delightful moment of realization as to what "SMT" meant. (Shiver my Timbers). Another moment that could have been a rather exciting victory of the art of signalling was mentioned in Swallowdale, but they never actually tried to get the idea to really work, and that was from the top of the Lookout Rock, they could see Holly Howe and mentioned the possibility of signalling to Mom back there from that rock, but they never made that effort. I always regretted that failure as it would have been quite a success to communicate across such a distance. This event was of course before Winter Holiday, so signalling at that time was not all that important to them. Signalling was just another one of those features that made reading Ransome such an educational process. When I got my sailboat, I rigged it and sailed it having read nothing other than Ransome as to "how to" make it work, and did quite well. In the Scouts, I could build a campfire and hang a pot over the flame, because I had seen Susan do it and I had learned from her. It has been a learning experience to have those books a part of my growing up, and still a constant companion on into my retirement years. These books are among my prize possessions. Thanks, AR... Ya dun Good... Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA ( kisered@aol.com ) Here (far Northern California) a daily matinee costs about $15 for two adults. Less serious answer, if it gets her reading any AR then why not? (Good choice to start with I have to say as its my favourite!) Over Christmas I offered my 11 year old daughter 10 dollars to read Winter Holiday. My wife told her that was bribery and she could not accept the money. It costs me 50 to take her to the flicks, it saved me 40 -- is this ethical John In Reply to: Re: Character ages (was: schools) posted by Magnus Smith on January 04, 2017 at 09:23:35: Roger Wardale quotes a list of ages made by AR for his own reference when writing PM, which is set in "first fortnight of summer hols 1933". Chronologically it is 3 years after SA. WR to AR, this (S 14, J 15) not possible S&A takes place on August. John is flush because he has birthday money from "just before they came to the lake" (June-July?) But later Susan states that her birthday is on New Years Day So if John is Twelve, Susan is Ten & five-eights. He enjoyed it again, but with the SA dodecateuch looking down on me from the bookshelf with half-a-dozen other AR related volumes, I found it a pretty miserable experience, especially the treatment of the Blacketts. The scenes left out of the final cut mostly deserved to be, in particular ones with CF holding forth about German rearmament, but the one of the two mothers together was not without merit, although of course it is not in the book. My youngest has had the same size hoofs for two or three years at Primary school, which has saved me a fortune in Clarks. Her elder siblings cost me a heck of a lot more. So in this one area, at least, I am prepared to say that AR made no error. My mother went to what I believe was a fairly good private school, which taught no science until about age 14 when biology was introduced. As far as I could gather there were no chemistry or physics lessons as such. If Dick showed an early interest in sciences could he have gone to school that had a strong scientific leaning? I too have always assumed that John was a "Pubs" entry to Dartmouth. The book "Dartmouth" by Evan Davies and Eric Grove, states: I have assumed that Molly was older than Jim because her memories of the Great Frost of the 1890s seem better remembered and more "adult" However I think we have to face up to the fact that the evidence on characters' ages and sizes is not entrely consistent. For example in PM Dot has the same size "hoofs" as Peggy, whereas in S&A Peggy is the same size as John. In PM, Dick has done qualitative analysis in chemistry at school, which I imagine would not be in a School Certificate course (the then equivalent of the later O levels/GCSE), so I guess that suggests an age of 16+. On relative ages John is generally taken as older than Susan; he was based on Taqui the eldest Altounyan child according to Hugh Brogan, as Roger could not be the only boy in S&A. And is Molly Blackett older than Captain Flint? Not stated definitely re John or Molly that I can recall. This is all I can find, and it makes it clear that the D's are both "youngsters", but not which of them is the eldest... WH: Actually CC is only the Easter after WH By WH, Susan is just 12. Dorothea probably a year younger, so Dick could be only 10. Hugh Brogan says somewhere that Dick reflects Arthur’s scientific experience (although AR dropped out of studying chemistry at Yorkshire College) and that Arthur and a friend had trouble disposing of some nitroglycerine they made. Mind you he seems pretty advanced for ten or eleven or even twelve in Pigeon Post. I certainly wasn't taught any chemistry until I was thirteen. In chapter 1 of PM (pp. 9-10 in the Cape hardback) it is stated that, before leaving on her cruise, Mrs Blackett visited Nancy and Peggy at their school. So they were at a boarding school and both at the same one. From the first paragraph of chapter 2 of the same book we know that Dorothea was seen off by her mother at Euston station, London, whereas Dick joined the train at Crewe. There has been speculation that he was at Shrewsbury public school. I'd like to see it in part because it apparently shows the beautiful countryside that I generally otherwise only see through Lakeland Cam. I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to separate it from AR's work and enjoy the efforts of a film maker to tell a story. And if any youth picked up real AR books this summer because they saw this movie then I think that is all good. http://held-to-ransome.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/a-1-minute-review-of-swallows-and.html My wife, for some (inexplicable and quite frankly shocking) reason, has never read Ransome, but she'd clearly listened to my early December wailing and gnashing of teeth. She HAS, however, read plenty of C.S.Lewis. So, at the time, I'd asked her how she'd feel if the books she'd loved as a girl were to be turned into some action-adventure CGI Big Music outing. Done and dusted in 97 minutes. I think the message hit home. And on this note ... I had not read the Narnia books as a young 'un, so we read them out loud to each other together, chapter-by-talking-lion-chapter. As she now 'owes me one', which Ransome novel would the members of Tarboard consider to be the best to undergo this treatment? I have some thoughts, but would love to hear other suggestions. Andy Perhaps Slater Bob's Gold Mine Ride would be fun though a bit scary. The would have to be a Knickerbocker breaker! "Octopus Lagoon" ride, the "Crab Island" experience, "Ice sled" ride The decision was made by Tendring District Council back in September, a PDF can be seen here http://tdcdemocracy.tendringdc.gov.uk/documents/d153/Printed%20decision%202716%20Proposed%20Road%20Naming%20and%20Numbering%20-%20Arthur%20Ransome%20Way%20Kirby%20RoadWalton-on.pdf?T=5 Curiously, the document refers to it being the old Naze Marine Holiday Park which is further towards the Naze and still in business! This combined volume is published by the Arthur Ransome Trust (ART). If anyone’s interested, you can order the book at the ART online shop (not a bad Christmas Present?) That's a perfectly reasonable position to adopt. I read the books- have only seen the 1974 Whatham film, which I thought was excellent. But my main "vision" of the stories comes from my ancient impressions from the books. This certainly should have been a well loved oft repeated phrase found somewhere in a RANSOME book, but such is not the case. I quote from "WIND IN TH$ WILLOWS" - `Nice? It's the only thing,' said the Water Rat solemnly, as he Our beloved Ransome characters would certainly have agreed with such a claim. And as for seeing the DVD of that movie, I am glad the technology used in that offering is for the UK, but NOT acceptable in machines in the USA. So I am spared the dismay of warping of the story I knew of my childhood friends. Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ] Note how Ransome gives very few physical descriptions allowing us to have our own ideas of a character. Hear, hear! Perhaps the greatest treasure of all is simply finding the pleasure that messing about in boats is all about. ...it should be borne in mind that “Swallows & Amazons” is not a play – it is a novel, which is a very different animal. With a play, be it Shakespeare or whoever, all you need do is stick to the script, and then you can do what you like with the setting, the costumes, have women playing male roles etc etc, but it is considered a no-no to interfere with the script written by the playwright. With a novel, the whole book is in effect the “script” and therefore you should be faithful to it. A “new Nancy interpretation” is, to my mind, a perversion of what Ransome intended. He did not write Nancy as a “sulky pre-teenager” and therefore you should not portray Nancy as such. The fact that it may appeal more to present-day children (and thereby increase box-office appeal) is to my mind irrelevant. I am not concerned with film-maker’s profits. The book is the book, and it is what it is. Making a film from it by condensing and abridging material as deemed useful is one thing -- wilfully adding spurious material for whatever reason is something else altogether (and also is something up with which I steadfastly refuse to put). What WILL bring me pleasure, though, is thousands of other people watching the film and enjoying it on their own level. It is great that lots more people are now aware of Ransome's tales. I'm pretty sure there's no danger of anyone gifting it to me this Christmas! A very merry festive season to you all. Here's to a great 2017 full of people sailing, fishing, camping, exploring, playing, pretending, and maybe finding treasure... Andy I was in two minds about it, I avoided buying it on DVD but no doubt someone in the family will buy it for me for Christmas. From all I've read and the clips and photos I've seen I have this feeling that I will end up with a response like yours. Aw, shucks... Bucephalus is actually a Ralph Stanley design, not a Herreshoff, but I think that's a pretty good pedigree, too. Alex Not strictly relevant, but this reminds me so vividly of my nephew-by-marriage, Nick, who as a young lad crewed as sailmaster in "Merit", in two successive Whitbread races to New Zealand. He had no sense of comfort whatsoever, used to sleep on the floor next to the kitchen in his mother's flat, and on "Merit" slept in the sail locker. He'd monkey up into the rigging with his little hand held sewing machine to repair torn sections... Utterly mad. They did all right in the monohull class. He now has his own business (Europsails, in Geneva) and makes sail sets for others, so the Whitbread connections paid off well. He also brought a wife back from New Zealand, and before that seems to have sampled all the girls on the PacRim (well he was very beautiful, as well as a sailor in a foreign port, and these things count). I might also add that his sloop Bucephalus, to which Foal is the tender, has a great pedigree. She is one of my all-time favourite boats. Alex can correct me here, but I believe she's a Herreshoff design, being 19' on deck and drawing 3'-3". I love her perfectly-balanced gaff rig. And she's also perfectly-named, as you'll remember that the original Bucephalus was the horse ridden by the first Alexander-the-Great. [ Image ]
posted via 124.171.166.234 user mikefield.
We don't have TV, and the powers that be have decided in their wisdom that the Beeb's iPlayer does not work outside the UK – an own goal for the UK's foreign office in my humble view. Having got that off my chest, I did contrive to watch the programme and greatly enjoyed it, particularly the Broads and East Coast sections. Yes it was the same "Wood Rose", though looking at the planking it's probably time she was fitted with new ribs, if not more! I usually had 3 crew members when hiring one of the 2-berth "Hustlers" and arranged for an extra mattress and bedding. The smallest crew member got to choose where to sleep – on the floor of the main cabin or in the sail locker (which on the "Hustlers is quite spacious) forward of the mast. The sail locker was the favourite, except when sailing at the end of March/beginning of April when it was terribly cold. The Hunter fleet is immaculately maintained and the "Hustler" sail locker definitely does not smell! I've been interested in folding dinghies ever since reading GN?, and since towing a dinghy in a 19' sloop has serious drawbacks, I finally decided to build one. I very much wanted to build a Berthon, even contacting the company to see if they had plans --they don't, their modern business is in yacht services, but they're *very* pleasant-- or something like the Nautiraid "Coracle", which is as close as you can get to one of the old Berthons today. No plans exist for something that complex, and a Nautiraid is beyond my budget, but the Wooden Widgets "Fliptail" looked good, so I went with that. I modified it quite a bit from the original, but I'm pretty pleased with how it came out --and for those wondering, it's nowhere near as tippy as Mac's. My narrative of the build is at the link below if anyone wants to follow suit, and I went into a bit more detail on the build on the WoodenBoat Forum (where our Mike Field came up with some good ideas for further mods). I can recommend the project wholeheartedly. Alex Alex Other authorities have different rules and requirements. Most rivers and canals are controlled by the Canal and River Trust, whereas the rivers Thames and Medway are controlled by the Environment Agency. I think boats on the lakes of the Lake District are registered with the local authority (council). So all in all it depends on where you are. What's the law over there, for what needs visible numbers? Here in the US, what boats are and aren't required to be registered varies from state to state: in Maine, my 19' sloop wasn't required to be registered because she doesn't have an engine (no engine, no reg, no size limit); in Washington State, anything over 16' on deck is required to be registered whether it has an engine or not. (Wasn't THAT a mess, sorting it out when I moved from one to the other!) Then there are nationally registered "documented" vessels, above five tons net, that must display a name and port of hail, but don't display any numbers. And commercial fishing vessels must display their fishing license as well as any registration numbers, but that's different. But if a boat is required to be registered, you're in serious trouble if you don't display your bow numbers and a valid annual "tag" that shows you've paid your registration fee. For reference, here's my sloop's version: https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8597/28812989774_1815ebc92c_b.jpg The first two letters are the state (WN is Washington; adding to the confusion, they don't necessarily correspond to the state's general useage two-letter abbreviation, where Washington is WA); then a sequence of numbers and letters unique to the boat (in Washington, four numbers and two letters; in Maine, typically four numbers and one letter); then the self-adhesive, reflective state "tag" that indicates your wallet has been duly emptied into the state coffers. Should Goblin have displayed registration numbers? Sir Garnet? The Beckfoot launch? Teasel? Swallow and Amazon? Sometimes I see photos of cutters or barges and they have big numbers or letters on their sails, and sometimes numbers on their hulls --and I haven't any idea what I'm looking at. How did things work then, and how do they work now? Alex There were only two proper berths though, so did your parents make you sleep in the sail locker, forward of the mast? It was terribly smelly in there I recall from the one time I peeped in. Cheers The only bit I can think of, which you might have been remembering, was this: That's a good point, keeping them alphabetically distinct. An old and important technique for keeping characters distinct in the reader's head --and, conversely, for linking them where appropriate: e.g. Dick and Dorothea. I had thought to keep Grig and Glut similar to match Dum and Dee, but maybe otherwise would be better. Not sure about using a collective term as a name, though. A boat is an individual. Hmm... Alex Cheers Elver, Grig, and Glass are pretty darn good, too. I might go with Elver, Grig, and Glut, to avoid using a name that's also a commonly used word. Yes, AR could have provided such a list at the beginning, but then he'd have been expected to use the names throughout --else why would he have told us about them? Letting things like that drop away unused is bad form, as a writer. It doesn't add enough richness to the story to warrant the way it slows the story down. That's all just a guess. Yes, he could have done it in a way that wasn't disasterous: "They watched the dinghies pass, two ahead of Goblin, one astern, spooling out wakes straight enough John could find no fault in them. The trick is, could he have set it up so that the opportunity to see and note the dinghies' names significantly added to the story, rather than just slowing it down? He had a lot to do, to get the Swallows gloomy, then put right, then on their way out to Secret Water, all of which was mostly preamble to the main storyline, so it needed to move as quickly as possible. Later, with each of Eels in their own boat, there was no advantage in using boat names as shorthand to refer to a collection of people, so he may have decided it wasn't worth the complexity. And I could have all of that completely wrong, but I'm 700,000 words into a nine-book / 1m+ word fantasy series I'm writing, with over 450 named characters, so the principles of not confusing my (future) readers, and keeping the story moving forward, have become very important to me. Alex Moray, Conger, and Electric! I like those names. But I prefer Bangate, Warmint and Chimbley. If you can recall 'warmints' without looking it up you win 100 points. Some leases, especially of agricultural cottages in the 19th century could be tied to a given number of generations of a single family, in Hardy's novels a three life lease which expires when the third person dies, is typical. Alex How would such a 999-year lease play out, in an inheritace? Would it be essentially as if the Turners had owned Beckfoot outright, and one of the kids (assuming James) would have inherited it, or is it more complex? I've always loved the idea of a peppercorn rent. Alex Surely Ransome didn't dismiss these craft and let them go unnamed?! So many other pages are riddled with the carefully-italicised Wizard and Firefly. Then there's Lapwing, Speedy and Goblin. I just find it odd. The Eel's dinghies even remain unnamed in the scene where six craft all raft up, and we learn who is sitting with who etc. This contains my second-favourite quote of all time, said by Roger: "Here the fleet hogged." In Thomas Hardy there is a family which leased a farm for three generations and the drama in part turns on the death of the last leaseholder and the eviction of the family. Alex Alex There seems to be no direct evidence of ownership, but Mrs Blackett certainly arranges the upkeep and Captain Flint has a study and a bedroom for whenever he is there. What if he *wasn't* disinherited: he *did* inherit Beckfoot, but since he spends his time off adventuring, why wouldn't he hand over the keys to Beckfoot to his sister, whom he obviously loves, and her husband, whom it seems he thought very highly of? Yes, as the heir apparent he had taken over a big chunk of the household real estate with his study, but they're newly married and on their way toward a family, and he's still enough of a kid to enjoy living aboard his houseboat, so it only makes sense that Molly and Bob have the house to raise their family in. Later on, when his nieces have turned into a proper pair of hoydens (in the modern complimentary useage, please), it remains convenient to use the houseboat just to have a little peace. Besides, when he admits it to himself, it's fun being the piratical uncle who lives on a houseboat. Just my two cents. Alex There are some players which can play different regions but they tend to be more expensive. Are Canada and the U.S. the same code area? Can't remember. Still no reports of a cinematic release here in Canada. Usually films are released simultaneously in the US and Canada, anything of interest from south of the border? Did they? Possibly only Grandmother Turner died young and Captain von Trapp brought in Sister Maria to raise his children* He survives until 1916/17, when with Jim still in parts foreign and unknown, and the birth of Babe Ruth, he writes a new will. * Sorry. wrong story there Tedder is treated with respect if not a bit of fear and as a definite authority figure, no mocking or even teasing him. And it is not just the D&Gs whose social position might mean that they would be more intimidated, Tom and the Ds also respect him, even while wondering if he was the villain who cast off the boats. Sammy's a classic music hall character, isn't he? The light relief. Gentle mockery of authority (but never questioning authority itself, nor society as it existed; AR may have admired Lenin but not in the Lakes). Whatever, I still see Sammy as essentially a comic character. It is probably a reflection of how the local constable was thought of and treated in the time AR was writing about. I must take issue with the comment "He knows Nancy misbehaves...", she certainly, as we would say today, pushes the boundaries (in WH and PM in particular) but I don't think she ever 'misbehaves'. “His mother used to be mother’s nurse, and she was our nurse too when we were very young. He’s our policeman. He isn’t afraid of anybody except his mother … and us, of course.” The explanation of the bond between the two families doesn't seem to explain to me why a grown adult would cease doing his job. He knows Nancy misbehaves, so he's hardly got any reassurances that her friend (John) is innocent. I find that attending the annual 'Swamazons' race, run by the Old Gaffers Association, from Walton & Frinton Yacht Club is the best way. The club is open to all race entrants (a small fee to enter) and you get to see lots of beautiful old dinghies, plus safety boat cover as you race round the island. If you are a member of a sailing club, a courtesy email to W&FYC will probably grant you permission to use their facilities as a visitor, for one day. You can only launch between mid and high tide though. NOTE THAT THE CAR PARK NEAR THE CLUB WILL FLOOD AT HIGH TIDE! ASK WHERE IS SAFE TO PARK! I have paid to launch a dinghy from Titchmarsh Marina too, which costs a little more than feels suitable (in my opinion). I suppose it is more geared up for yachts. There is a concrete slipway so you can launch at any state of the tide. The gates close at 5pm which might cut short your visit if intending to tow your dinghy away and the end of the day. Sounds like you had a good trip, I assume you're aware that to cross the Red Sea you have to have permission? Sorry I can't help you with the sailing questions, I'm someone will! Assuming that by "within the story" you're referring to physical position in the book, rather than the map being an object that is encountered by the characters in the story, such maps seem to be the rule rather than the exception. My copy of S&A has a map of Wild Cat Island facing the first page of text, so part of the "front matter" but not strictly part of the endpapers. PD has a map of Crab Island in amongst the text. CC has a map of the River Bure in amongst the text. WD has a chart of approches to Harwich in amongst the text. B6 has a map of the Horning/Ranworth area in amongst the text. ML has a map of the Three Islands, supposedly found aboard the Shining Moon, in amongst the text. PM has a map of the area round Beckfoot in amongst the text. GN has "Mac's chart of the cove" in amongst the text. It looks like an AR original to me. Lettering and tree style matches the usual endpaper maps. As I commented before in relation to CC, I have never in any of my readings of AR over fifty odd years found the books to be humorous. Yes there are occasional comic passages but these have always struck me as slightly laboured, and not of much importance. Nor in all the books recounting the creation of the books have I noticed any reference to the 'comedy' nature of them. Am I alone in this? He describes the book as a "...comic melodrama..." (p92) and later states "Then the comedy of Chapter 23, 'William's Heroic Moment'..." (p99). In my many readings of CC I've never found it 'comic'. I well remember reading it the first time and being impressed by how, thanks to William, they are able to get supplies between the two boats and the method used (once again AR explaining how things work.) The story of the unwanted visit to a grumpy author (turkish slipper incident) is probably cited as an example of AR grumpiness. Worse is the documented fact that he wrote to a headmistress in Suffolk asking her to make the school children play quietly so they would not disturb his nearby home. But... He invited George and Josephone Russell (teenagers) to crew his yacht on many occasions, he insisted small children start with cake when they visited his house for tea (leave bread to the end), and Dick/Desmond Kesall seem to have good memories of AR too; they never said he was a grump. Those are just a few examples I can think of. As for Tabitha, it is said that Ivy dictated all the letters! Whilst Ivy probably did make matters worse, I think it fair to say AR was half to blame. Though in those days fathers did not have great relationships with daughters anyway. The era of "seen and not heard" was still upon the UK. According to books I have read, "Dor-Dor" wrote to her and tried to keep close, but his poor relationship with Ivy Walker put the lid on that one. Oh certainly. I think that he wrote into her something of what he would have liked to experience with his daughter Tabitha. I'm as down on pop psychology as the next fellow (but isn't it fun?), however in this case his failure to keep a good relationship with his daughter must have been one of the catastrophes of his life, and at first creating Titty and later and more explicitly Dot, must have been cathartic for him, in the same way that writing the books themselves must have been a relief, along with the tension, and the Critic on the Hearth. I know I'm repeating myself here, but I have always (since I was old enough to think in those terms) believed that the Callums are, between them, a combined self-portrait of AR. Dick the obsessive, scientific man, as AR was when young, and Dot a gentle satire of the Writer My muso friend and Powell co-appreciator is John Perry, lead guitarist with "The Only Ones" and, earlier, if you're aware of the Bristol scene, "The Rat Bites from Hell". Very off topic, can I be nosey and ask who the woman was? I cannot recall a recent passing of one that would fit your description. 68 years after first having Swallowdale read to me in a freezing cold (they all were) Victorian house, I "carry" them on an iPad Mini, that lives permanently in my pocket, and read them in bursts, favourite bits. PM tops, followed by WH and parts of WD. This is interspersed with my favourite "grown up" books, Anthony Powell's "Dance to the music of time". While the boys’ shirts feature motifs like ‘Desert adventure awaits’, ‘Hero’ and ‘Think outside the box’, the girls’ tops say ‘Hey!’, ‘Beautiful’ and ‘I feel fabulous.’ "It’s unfair because everyone thinks girls should just be pretty and boys should just be adventurous." Daisy then fills her arms with hangers from the boys’ section and puts them on the girls’ racks. Owen said: Stephen Spurrier’s endpapers still adorn S&A – I wonder why they were never replaced? This made me go check my shelves. The Puffin paperbacks of the 70s definitely had a re-drawn map, not Spurrier's, and the odd thing is that I don't think it is an AR map either! The way in which woods are depicted with little trees are very Spurrier-like, totally different to the woods AR draws in the Swallowdale map (curvy shapes to denote multiple trees at once). The second map which shows just Wild Cat Island has also been given the same treatment. They are both neater and sparser than Spurrier, though the lettering is not AR, and the compass rose is not how either of them would draw it. Who is this mystery cartographer? The book's credits do not name him/her. It happened between 1966 and 1970 (Puffin only) according to the books I can lay my hands on. I suppose that would have eaten into AR's royalties! One assumes AR earned more once Spurrier/Webb were abolished. Cheers It would be nice to read the hardbacks all the time but too heavy for reading in bed! This year I've read all of them as you would carry out academic reading, noting references, how characters are built up, pointers to how they will be once the books are over. Both ways change my view of a some of them, WDMTGTS and PM in particular. Did you find that 'Gollum' reference as insulting as I did? Or do you happen to know this JG person, and it was more of a private joke between you? I suspect they are evaluating how well it did and the reaction in the UK and Ireland before deciding when and how extensively to release it here. They may decide to go straight to DVD if the omens are not good. Even if it does get released here it may only be in a few cinemas not widespread. I suspect I may end up seeing it on a Region 2 DVD import played on my computer! Perhaps I was lucky, I grew up in the countryside and just did stuff (though admittedly not camping or sailing.) The idea of it all being formalised (D of E, Guides, Scouts etc) would have been totally off-putting. One of the great delights of AR's works is that the children have their adventures with almost no adult interference or supervision, and the few adults involved let them get on with it (yes, adults arrange things in the background but this is, thankfully, minimal.) AR seemed to understand this, and had an empathy with children when he became an adult. Like a sort of Duke of Edinburgh's Award? I think it should be borne in mind that “Swallows & Amazons” is not a play – it is a novel, which is a very different animal. With a play, be it Shakespeare or whoever, all you need do is stick to the script, and then you can do what you like with the setting, the costumes, have women playing male roles etc etc, but it is considered a no-no to interfere with the script written by the playwright. With a novel, the whole book is in effect the “script” and therefore you should be faithful to it. A “new Nancy interpretation” is, to my mind, a perversion of what Ransome intended. He did not write Nancy as a “sulky pre-teenager” and therefore you should not portray Nancy as such. The fact that it may appeal more to present-day children (and thereby increase box-office appeal) is to my mind irrelevant. I am not concerned with film-maker’s profits. And I am not concerned with the idea that such a portrayal will generate interest in the original book – it may do or it may not do, but Ransome’s work is not a religion (though heaven knows, people have behaved as if it is) There is no divine duty on us to spread it at all costs, other than by simply encouraging people to read the books. Those books are there, in print, with their own particular magic, for people who want them and that is how it should stay. If no one wants them any more, then that would be very sad, but, well, that's just too bad. I think there will always be readers of Ransome, but I like the idea of the books being a perpetual semi-secret cult, going from age to age, each age finding what they want in them, without “re-interpretation”. Is that the definition of a B Grade film? "... [the] characters were changed to suit modern adult ideas of childhood - no longer are the Walkers the capable mutually supportive team who know how to avoid the dangers of jibing when sailing, how to cook over an open fire, how to fish and prepare their catch etc - now they bicker, whinge and blame each other when things go wrong. Only Tatty (Titty) comes near the original and even she screams unnecessarily! Nancy (wouldn't children understand the "pirates are ruthless" joke these days?) has been turned into a sulky pre-teenager instead of a feisty Amazon ..." A couple of quotes. "Having never read the book and despite having bought a copy to do so before watching the film, my daughter grabbed the book off me and avidly read it before I had chance!" "I now need to revisit the lakes and remind my children adventures don't start on your phone! My daughter who had read the book also loved the film." https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Utter-My-Word-Collection/dp/B002SK5K2I As I said, though, my copy is a 1983 hard-cover. The introduction commences -- Readers who have never heard the radio programme in which these stories were first brought forth are due a word of explanation. and concludes -- ... for a great many years now we have been faced each week with the agony of having to knock out a reasonably coherent story based upon a given quotation -- however unpromising the quotation's syllables appeared at first sight. In the body, the authors mention that in the very first show the two quotations used were "Let not poor Nellie starve", and "Dead, dead, and never called me Mother!", and I guess that's what you might have been remembering. All in all, I think my omnibus volume is the one you've been thinking of. (My copy looks like this one, a 1984 reprint, but without the white pull-quote or logo at the bottom.) On the flyleaf, books already having been published are shown as -- You Can't Have Your Kayak And Heat It -- 1973 and also The "My Word" Stories, 1976, incorporating the first two above. My (1983) version purports to contain the stories from all four books above, and lists them in the Contents pages under those book titles. The page count is 397 pages. The contents for each book listed in my copy amount to, respectively, 31, 28, 30, and 30 stories. Most stories run onto three pages. But nowhere in the book is the 'Kayak' shown. :-( Perhaps The Utterly Complete "My Word" Stories is a still-later version, with yet more stories? Where are the spies? :( I've always found it odd that his story about not having your kayak and heating it was used as the title of the Complete Collection of My Word stories, and yet that particular story was not included in the book.... I agree with JG that the reference here to Swallows & Amazons is ironic, but this usage is not new - it has gone into the modern language. I know of a married couple who split up - they had children, and they were both remarried to people who also had children from previous marriages (this situation is by no means unique). About two years ago one of the mothers described to me the awkward confusion at holiday weekends, when she hardly knew which child was which and groups of siblings were bussed all over the place and hurriedly handed over in doorways because their parent did not want to meet a former spouse. She sighed and said "It's hardly Swallows and Amazons, is it?" AR's comments on his grandfathers in Chapter 1 of his Autobiography are affectionate but critical. Perhaps he didn't see them as great role models, though the Australian connection on his mother's side is interesting. NB: Canada regards the Northwest Passage as Canadian waters, though the United States regards it as international waters, and did not seek permission for sending the Coastguard supply ship “Polar Sea” through it in 1985. Well, as a digression, a pleasant one. Don't you think that maybe it's just shorthand for "left to their own devices"? If so, it's probably a tribute to the reach of AR's stories that they finish up in a reviewer's kitbag? In a positive preview in The Sunday Times Culture magazine Victoria Segal says of the main character who wants to bring up her children as she was "That means being yelled at in a speeding car before being dumped on their grandmother's doorstep, just like they do in Swallows and Amazons." It also made me think that there are no mention of any grandparents in the books, just aunts and uncles. "No Right Tern"?
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
message 43667 - 08/18/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Clarification: Re: BELLS
Where did you find it? I've been unable to locate the thing anywhere and it looks as though it's the MacOS equivalent of a daemon - which gets us into complicated stuff.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43666 - 08/18/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Clarification: Re: BELLS
Never mind: Found the app itself and dumped it.
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
message 43665 - 08/17/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Clarification: Re: BELLS
No luck here, either: it installed, and worked for a few hours, but then it stopped bothering to chime unless I asked for a "test" (possible on the 10.11 control panel). But it didn't then resume chiming by the clock.
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
message 43664 - 08/17/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Clarification: Re: BELLS
Well...it turns out it does install correctly but not as an app, rather as a sort of system service. And the only place it appears is in the System Preferences pane at the very bottom (that's where the controls for it are). But it is running and it marks the time correctly.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43663 - 08/17/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: BELLS
It doesn't install correctly on MacOS 10.12.6 either. More specifically, it appears to install correctly and claims a successful installation, but once done you cannot find the application anywhere.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43662 - 08/16/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: BELLS
Thanks Jon. I've installed it, and will report back on how well it works. It's a pretty old app, so there's no telling how well it'll play with my OS10.11.
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
message 43661 - 08/16/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: BELLS
The Mac version is here. More info about the various versions is here. However, the Forum has a report about it failing to install correctly on MacOS 10.5.8. The report is several years old, and hasn't been responded to. All links will open in (one) new tab/window.
posted via 71.81.246.204 user Jon.
message 43660 - 08/16/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: BELLS
Looking into it. A friend who is quite nautical has such an app on his iPhone for sure and I'm going to get that link as well.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43659 - 08/15/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: BELLS
Does anyone know if there's a Ship's Bells app for Mac computers? I couldn't find one specifically for that in their App Store, but I may not be searching correctly.
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
message 43658 - 08/15/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: BELLS
Off-topic, I know, but when I got my current PC I insisted on buying a USB plug-in floppy disk drive, which I can now use with any computer.
posted via 121.45.192.118 user mikefield.
message 43657 - 08/15/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Hullabaloos
... and I've just been reading Wardale's 'Ransome on the Broads', in which he says a boat full of trippers was cast of at Yarmouth in 2012.
posted via 121.45.192.118 user mikefield.
message 43656 - 08/15/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: BELLS
"OTOH, it rather reminds me of a former colleague, whose ring tone for his wife was "General Quarters"."
posted via 73.254.139.107 user Pitsligo.
message 43655 - 08/15/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: BELLS
Yes, there's one for Android; it's mentioned on the Ship's Clock home page. I don't see mention of the iPhone app there, however.
posted via 71.81.246.204 user Jon.
message 43654 - 08/15/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: BELLS
A two-edged sword for your family and friends, but you can also get a Ships Bell app for the iPhone (and presumably for Android as well). Perhaps we should put links on ATR for those?
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43653 - 08/14/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Hullabaloos
From a report in the UK Sunday Times last week end it seems all those things that AR was aiming his criticism of in his portrayal of the Hullabaloos in CC is once again a problem on the Norfolk Broads.
posted via 95.150.14.189 user MTD.
message 43652 - 08/14/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: BELLS
Nothing to do with Bells (or AR really) but good to read you are still on XP Ed, same here (and very occasionally the A: drive), perhaps it is something to with those of us that have been involved with computers from the pre-PC days (that is PC as in IBM - I don't mean 'political correctness' or 'Intercontinental Ballistic Missile')
posted via 95.150.14.189 user MTD.
message 43651 - 08/14/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: BELLS
You can also open the ShipsClock folder on your menu and run ShipsClockConfig, which will let you start/stop the service, set the desired volume and set a "quiet" period if you don't want it going off at all hours (and half hours) of the day and night. According to the notes on SourceForge, the current version (the .msi installer package) runs on all versions of Windows up to 7.0.
posted via 71.81.246.204 user Jon.
message 43650 - 08/14/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: BELLS
It'll install under Windows 10 (I'm on the Creator's Update) if you right-click on the installer package and choose "Troubleshoot compatibility". Then you will need to either restart your computer or start Task Manager and go to the "Services" tab where you can start "Ships Clock". If it'll run on 10, it should run on earlier Windows versions using the same basic approach (run the installer in "Compatibility Mode"). I'll give it a go on Win 7 when I get the chance (busy editing two videos, one a time-lapse).
posted via 71.81.246.204 user Jon.
message 43649 - 08/14/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: BELLS
Welcome to The Anachronisms Club, Ed.
posted via 121.45.192.118 user mikefield.
message 43648 - 08/14/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: BELLS
SHIP'S TIME
with the Swallows's Father, who was an officer in the Royal Navy.
"Four bells of the middle watch," said Captain John, who had
looked at the chronometer with his pocket torch and had just
put it into ship's time for himself.
there were some things these Amazons did not know.
become familiar with the concept of telling time with bells.]
---------- SDCH33.TXT
We'll bring our own rations. This is just in case you might
all be exploring if you didn't know we were coming. Expect
us about eight bells of the forenoon watch (John knows
when).
with the concept of bells telling time.]
Nancy threw the core of her apple into the camp fire and asked
Captain John to look at his chronometer, it was already past
eight bells, and it was clear that even if Captain Nancy and Mate
Peggy ran the whole way home, they had not the smallest chance
of being back for tea.
Nancy's cheerful voice changed suddenly. "The great-aunt
won't be saying how good we are if we're a minute late for
supper. Come on, Peggy. What's the time, John?"
It was far too serious for that.
---------- PDCH36.TXT
away round to the north-west, and at eight bells, when Titty, and
But Captain Flint was up again at seven bells, and so were all the
"Three bells," he said to himself, and then, as Bill looked up from his
When Nancy struck eight bells, one two, one two, one two, one two,
---------- GNCH1.TXT
"Two bells! Five o'clock. Tea!" called Nancy, almost as if she wanted
"Four bells," said John, rubbing his eyes. "I thought we were starting
---------- MLCH1.TXT
Nancy'll take over at eight bells. They'd better be getting some sleep
that makes the computer announce the time on the hour and half hour be
the ringing of a bell tone.
available some time ago. Operating systems have progressed to where
sometimes the older apps will not be accepted by the newer Windows, saying
that "The application is not compatible with the Operating System". As
for me personally, I still use Windows XP, and that is old enough to
be able to run easily the offerings of ATR website. The XP system is no
longer "supported" but for me, it is the one that still works, and runs
the stuff I want to run. I would have rephrased that error message to say
that "The Operating System is no longer compatible with your application."
play my 78 RPM records?" Or where to play my 8-track tapes, or even my
tape cassettes or my VHS home videos (such players are becoming rather rare).
boot a DOS DISKETTE, where I truly feel comfortable with understanding how
to do the things I want to do. I keep several back up copies of that boot
disk, because after all, that is over 30 years old, an anachronism.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky, USA [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43647 - 08/12/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: S&A 2016 film in New Zealand plus trailer
Have seen the 2016 S&A film which was quite good; there was some clapping at the end. Set in Summer 1935, and Ted (Daddy) was in Hong Kong. Titty is Tatty and Susan (but not Tatty) wears shorts.
posted via 203.96.139.112 user hugo.
message 43646 - 08/11/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Charcoal-burning to make fireworks to damage houseboat roofs
An interesting history of the manufacture of gunpowder, starting with a drawing of charcoal-burners' mounds. (That's the AR connection....)
posted via 121.45.192.118 user mikefield.
message 43645 - 08/10/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: S&A dustjacket change?
That was quite radical back then!
posted via 95.150.197.139 user MTD.
message 43644 - 08/10/17
From: Paul Crisp, subject: Re: S&A dustjacket change?
Cape did in the merest understated way 'promote' the first film on their hardback edition of S & A. I have a 1982 edition and on the dust jacket under ARTHUR RANSOME is printed 'now filmed by Richard Pilbrow'
posted via 86.151.254.248 user Paul_Crisp.
message 43643 - 08/10/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: S&A dustjacket change? - Correction
Apologies, I didn't dig far enough. The book icon in the Kindle library is indeed (now) a picture from the new film. But when you actually load the book, the cover page is the familiar dust jacket (with "80th Anniversary Edition") on the cover.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43642 - 08/09/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: S&A dustjacket change?
Its unusual for hardbacks to be used in a promotional way when there is a film or television adaptation (I have no 'inside' knowledge on this, just observation over the years.)
posted via 95.149.130.44 user MTD.
message 43641 - 08/09/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: S&A dustjacket change?
I went into Foyles bookshop on Waterloo station last summer, when the film came out, to see if they had any promotion going. At first I thought there was none. Then I realised the table beside me had a large pile of new paperbacks, with the cover carrying the picture from the film poster.
I haven't seen any hardback updated like that, but I haven't been looking lately.
posted via 82.145.210.242 user awhakim.
message 43640 - 08/09/17
From: Paul Crisp, subject: Railway to Rio
For those of you who are reading Pigeon Post this summer and have wondered about the railway journey to Rio, this month's Steam Days magazine has an article about the branch from Oxenholme to Windermere, illustrated with period photographs including pre-1923. After noticing the cover, I looked through a copy at my village newsagents and was impressed - I might even buy a copy!
posted via 86.151.254.248 user Paul_Crisp.
message 43639 - 08/07/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: S&A 2016 film in New Zealand plus trailer
Judging by Ed's comments here regarding that film, it sounds like it's "Lucky you" as well....
posted via 121.45.192.118 user mikefield.
message 43638 - 08/07/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: "burghers of Carlisle"
OOPS - how did that other stuff get in there.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43637 - 08/07/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: "burghers of Carlisle"
http://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworsehttp://www.bartleby.com/41/570.html
SWALLOWDALE QUOTE:
'And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle'
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43636 - 08/07/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: S&A dustjacket change?
I just went to Amazon.co.uk and searched for "Swallows and Amazons" under "Books"; nothing printed that came up used the 2016 movie picture that showed on the Kindle listing. There were several different images that turned up, and none were the classic Cape image sets. Interestingly, one, a 1993 hardback, showed a photo from the '70s movie as the cover, and two DVDs, both ostensibly 2016 releases, showed the two different movies. The Jonathan Cape site was no help at all. The audio recording of SA had a cover in the style of the classic Cape covers, but with totally different and unrelated pictures (assorted etchings of marine and avian wildlife, and a sidewheeler strongly resembling the SS Savannah of 1819!).
posted via 71.81.246.204 user Jon.
message 43635 - 08/07/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: S&A dustjacket change?
The TWELVE are a set. There is reason to feature a certain style of dust cover on each book that claims it is a member of that set. For SA to come up with a movie commercial violates this membership concept. The "SUSAN and JOHN" on that movie are more in loco parentis than the elder siblings of Titty and Roger, and are definitely not the ones i grew up with and have been close friends with for the rest of my life. The result is repulsive and makes me glad I have the three sets of the older style collection, including one set with the art work of those first editions.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43634 - 08/07/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: S&A dustjacket change?
A few years ago I acquired all of the SA books as Kindle editions while visiting the U.K. The entries in the Kindle library are of course the familiar dust jackets -- or were. Not so long ago I noticed that the first volume, S&A itself, no longer had the familiar dust jacket; the file had been updated to now have a picture from the 2016 movie. I'm not thrilled -- regardless of the merits or lack thereof of the film, I liked the original dust jacket and rather resent this.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43633 - 08/07/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: S&A 2016 film in New Zealand plus trailer
Lucky you! It still has not made it to Canada
posted via 184.151.37.159 user rlcossar.
message 43632 - 08/04/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Re-reading 'the twelve' after a decade-long gap
I remember 'The Log From The Sea Of Cortez' as being a thoroughly good read -- although, like you, it must be thirty years or more since I read it. I think it was in that book that there was a wonderful account of why you wouldn't try sailing a cat-boat anywhere, because you'd only ever go downwind until you fetched up on a lee shore and had to be towed off....
posted via 121.45.192.118 user mikefield.
message 43631 - 08/04/17
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: Re-reading 'the twelve' after a decade-long gap
May I join your 'Occasional Bibliophiles' group, please? I have a number of books which I haven't read for many years, The Twelve among them. There are the Complete Sherlock Holmes, for example, and many books of poetry. My current read is John Steinbeck's 'Log of the Sea of Cortez, which I am re-reading after some thirty or more years, and I can't remember any of it. Yes, I would say that 'resting' books increases my enjoyment of them. At this rate I have enough to keep me going until I 'finish my innings' (so to speak).
David
posted via 120.148.68.224 user David.
message 43630 - 08/04/17
From: John Wilson, subject: S&A 2016 film in New Zealand plus trailer
The 2016 film is on at the current New Zealanfd International Film Festival, and the website has a trailer for the film on it.
posted via 203.96.137.78 user hugo.
message 43629 - 08/03/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Food and drink in Swallows and Amazons
This link is of course for amazon.co.uk. The book is available on amazon.com in the U.S. (and there's a cross-link on the upper right of the page on amazon.co.uk if you're in the U.S.), In the U.S. it's $2.99 (or free with Kindle Unlimited -- which is only free for 30 days).
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43628 - 08/03/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Food and drink in Swallows and Amazons
Thanks Magnus
posted via 2.31.100.178 user MTD.
message 43627 - 08/03/17
From: Robin Selby, subject: Re: Food and drink in Swallows and Amazons
Thanks for providing the link. I haven't attempted anything as controversial as the recipe for bunloaf - that's over my pay grade.
posted via 86.173.173.117 user RobinSelby.
message 43626 - 08/03/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Food and drink in Swallows and Amazons
I found the link.
message 43625 - 08/02/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Food and drink in Swallows and Amazons
Interesting Robin - could we have a link?
posted via 2.31.100.178 user MTD.
message 43624 - 08/02/17
From: Robin Selby, subject: Food and drink in Swallows and Amazons
Ransome devotees may be interested to know that I have published an article on Kindle called ‘Food and drink in Swallows and Amazons’. It answers vexed questions such as how much corned beef did the explorers consume during the series, and looks at the way in which Ransome used meals to structure the books. Awards are given for Best Meal and Best Breakfast. The text is supported by detailed statistical appendices. I trust that Dick would approve of them.
posted via 86.181.147.102 user RobinSelby.
message 43623 - 08/02/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Re-reading 'the twelve' after a decade-long gap
Nothing weird about this. I was given all 12 in JC hardback starting with WH in 1948, when I was four. WD was given to me when. I was six, and it is fair to assume that a lot of the early gifts were read to me! They have been prominent on my shelves ever since
posted via 88.110.81.179 user Mike_Jones.
message 43622 - 08/01/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Re-reading 'the twelve' after a decade-long gap
A complete weirdo? Not at all!
posted via 95.149.130.2 user MTD.
message 43621 - 08/01/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Re-reading 'the twelve' after a decade-long gap
Every once in a while (as in a few years) I get an urge to read some of them. I try to pick different ones as I won't get through all 12 each time I decide to read any of the. Right now I'm introducing an elderly friend to them and he is reading them as e-books. He likes the ones with more adult themes like WDMTGTS.
posted via 184.151.37.236 user rlcossar.
message 43620 - 08/01/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: Re-reading 'the twelve' after a decade-long gap
After a decade of so of going without, I, too, felt it was time to re-read the Ransome tales and renew my childhood friendships with those people. I was amazed how quickly I was able to finish a book, just several hours. It was not re-reading, it was scanning and turning pages, reminding me of what was happening without going into detail. This led me to an alternative procedure: TYPE the stories to a computer .TXT file. It forced me to avoid skimming, but to look at every word, every punctuation mark, note any spelling difference from my American spell checker and the British style of Ransome (ignored up to then). It also got me to notice some errors in the books. This time, I came across parts that I did not remember, that perhaps on previous readings I had just skipped over the descriptions and got onto the actions. There was "newness" in this project that made it a delightful adventure of discovery, much to my pleasure. It also provided me with a computer readable source to search for words or phrases to enhance my relationship with these childhood friends. It was a grand adventure, well worth the efforts, presenting me with a renewal of those adventures that continue to be dear to me even after all these years.
Total so far from Tony Richards Lakeland Camera is 23 GIG of photos.
Not that Ransome's word descriptions needed any further enhancements, but those photos do help make it all so real.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43619 - 08/01/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Re-reading 'the twelve' after a decade-long gap
If you are a complete weirdo, then I am quite similar. While my books did not sit completely unopened on the shelves as I occasionally took them down to check some reference or passage, I did not read them completely through for many years until this spring.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
message 43618 - 08/01/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Re-reading 'the twelve' after a decade-long gap
I agree totally with Magnus about the pitfalls of repeated reading of the 12. What I would recommend is to create a 10-year cycle and read one book each year, with two occasionally. I've been doing this for 30 years now and the stories always seem fresh, to the extent that I often can't remember what happens next. (This is also one of the very few advantages of old age.)
posted via 81.129.95.99 user Peter_H.
message 43617 - 08/01/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re-reading 'the twelve' after a decade-long gap
Most of you Tarboarders enjoy re-reading Ransome's S&A books over and over, I am sure. I had to stop doing it though, as I got to a point where every word became too familiar, and I was longing for the deeper enjoyment which comes from reading a book with fresh eyes.
1) Am I a complete weirdo?
2) Could you ever take such a break?
3) Do you predict success or failure?
4) Will any place/time suffice, or must I find the perfect moment and the perfect location to heighten my pleasure?
5) Binge on them all quickly, or spread out over a number of years?
posted via 31.51.234.7 user Magnus.
message 43616 - 07/29/17
From: Paul Crisp, subject: Re: TARS Literary Weekend
Alan,
Ironically, I read your posting about twenty minutes after my late-night (11.30 pm) return from the final recce for the Literary Weekend up in Edinburgh. Whether or not others have read what you had written and were stirred into action, but suddenly we've taken three more bookings since last night; people might not be posting on Tarboard, but they are reacting to messages such as yours! See you in Edinburgh,
posted via 81.151.141.22 user Paul_Crisp.
message 43615 - 07/28/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: TARS Literary Weekend
No I won't be going ( the only event I crossed the ocean for was the 10th AGM) though I'm sure it would be interesting. I'm currently introducing S&A to an older friend who is reading books voraciously in his late years and we have two copies as prizes for an upcoming family day at our yacht club
posted via 184.151.37.235 user rlcossar.
message 43614 - 07/28/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: TARS Literary Weekend
TarBoard has always (or at least it seems that way) to exhibit periods, sometimes long ones, of apparent dormancy. Only to wake up when somebody posts something that provokes comments. I once spent a few months keeping track of the lulls between posting spurts (several years ago) and they lasted up to 2-3 weeks on occasion.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43613 - 07/28/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: TARS Literary Weekend
Man: I have been in Italy and the internet here is like way slow.
posted via 137.204.150.33 user Mcneacail.
message 43612 - 07/27/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: TARS Literary Weekend
Well, there's your answer, Alan....
posted via 124.171.131.251 user mikefield.
message 43611 - 07/27/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: TARS Literary Weekend
Is Tarboard dead? Nothing for over a week. Over on the Arthur Ransome Facebook pages, people are asking whether members are going to the weekend in Edinburgh (Sept 1-3). So I thought I would ask here, by way of a test for signs of life.
posted via 82.145.210.244 user awhakim.
message 43610 - 07/17/17
From: Mike Jones , subject: Country Life Magazine 12 July
A pleasant article about a sail on the Nancy Blackett with background on AR and a piece about Sophie Neville.
posted via 82.132.227.140 user Mike_Jones.
message 43609 - 07/17/17
From: Mike Jones , subject: Country Life Magazine 12 July
A pleasant article about a sail on the Nancy Blackett with background on AR and a piece about Sophie Neville.
posted via 82.132.227.140 user Mike_Jones.
message 43608 - 07/15/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: The Explorers
Yes, I noted that one too, Ross, and had the same thought. Then I wondered if perhaps there was enough greenery close to the bridge to screen the explorers properly. But I do agree that it's a pretty likely candidate for the prototype.
posted via 124.171.131.251 user mikefield.
message 43607 - 07/15/17
From: Ross, subject: The Explorers
There is a photo on todays Lakeland Cam that reminded me immediately of the illustration from Swallowdale. Its a low stone bridge that Titty and Roger likely went under to avoid crossing the road.
posted via 184.151.36.131 user rlcossar.
message 43606 - 07/14/17
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Canada's 150th Anniversary
Did AR ever visit North or South America? I'm not sure he ever did.
posted via 90.255.61.166 user PeterC.
message 43605 - 07/14/17
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: World Hetitage site.
if they're inaccessible/impenetrable, how do they kow that they're worth designating?
posted via 90.255.61.166 user PeterC.
message 43604 - 07/14/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Canada's 150th Anniversary
No Yukon. Closest you get is Alaska mentioned in both WH and PP.
posted via 31.51.234.7 user Magnus.
message 43603 - 07/13/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Canada's 150th Anniversary
Wasn't there mention of the Yukon in WH? Or perhaps PP? Though maybe that was in reference to what's now Alaska. Can't recall; may be imagining it anyway.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43602 - 07/12/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: World Hetitage site.
Inaccessible Island, near Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic, was so named when it was first discovered and it was found to be impossible to climb the high cliffs and get access to the interior. Since then people have managed to get up them and found the smallest non-flying bird the Inaccessible Island rail.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
message 43601 - 07/11/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: World Hetitage site.
If in Scotland - obvious answer
if in Wales -- see if it has been mined
posted via 137.204.150.12 user Mcneacail.
message 43600 - 07/10/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: World Hetitage site.
There are quite a few 'tracts of countryside' on the UK part of the World Heritage List.
posted via 109.180.191.50 user eclrh.
message 43599 - 07/10/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: World Hetitage site.
It is not a tract of countryside it is the only tract of countryside worth anything.
posted via 137.204.150.35 user Mcneacail.
message 43598 - 07/09/17
From: Jock, subject: Re: World Hetitage site.
There are quite a few 'tracts of countryside' on the UK part of the World Heritage List.
posted via 178.43.134.194 user Jock.
message 43597 - 07/09/17
From: Owen Roberts, subject: World Hetitage site.
UNESCO awards the "Lake District" World Heritage site status.
I wonder how much the influence of AR and other authors have contributed to this award?
In the UK, awards have been made to mines, bridges, stone and brick artefacts - rare for tract of countryside to be included.
posted via 51.6.241.58 user OwenRoberts.
message 43596 - 07/08/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Beckfoot Plumbing
I agree entirely with Adam's comments.
posted via 124.171.200.16 user mikefield.
message 43595 - 07/08/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Beckfoot Plumbing
You must remember that (apart from the piracy) ML reflects AR's own experiences of China in 1927. The country may well have changed in the 13 years since, though he would have had no first-hand knowledge.
In any case, ML is notionally set in about 1932, only five years after his journey there.
posted via 82.145.211.187 user awhakim.
message 43594 - 07/08/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Beckfoot Plumbing
Buchan was a slightly older generation from Ransome, he also wrote about more cosmopolitan surroundings (Fosse manor excluded) as such he reflected the casual racism and anti-Semitism of discourse in his time. How much was personal (he was an avid Zionist for example) and how much putting attitudes on his characters which he did not wholly espouse is hard to say.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
message 43593 - 07/08/17
From: john nichols, subject: Beckfoot Plumbing
So I am reading John Buchan's The Three Hostages in an Italian Café and I come across his description of a ram needed for his house in the Cotswalds to supplement the well.
posted via 137.204.150.34 user Mcneacail.
message 43592 - 07/07/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Canada's 150th Anniversary
Kayaks are not considered to be a sort of canoe in Canadian English, they are a separate type of watercraft, just as rowing boats are not canoes (except at Beckfoot of course).
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
message 43591 - 07/07/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Canada's 150th Anniversary
Reading the words "Canadian canoe" now strikes me as looking odd. Here, of course, we just call them canoes
posted via 86.145.168.104 user MartinH.
message 43590 - 07/06/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Canada's 150th Anniversary
Reading the words "Canadian canoe" now strikes me as looking odd. Here, of course, we just call them canoes.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
message 43589 - 07/06/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Canada's 150th Anniversary
The best mention you're gonna get is chapter 3 of Coot Club:
posted via 31.51.234.7 user Magnus.
message 43588 - 07/04/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Canada's 150th Anniversary
Belated thanks for the good wishes. I don't think AR ever wrote anything specifically about Canada, not even in Winter Holiday or Pigeon Post with the gold prospecting both of which could have had a Canadian connection.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
message 43587 - 07/03/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Canada's 150th Anniversary
As one of those Cannucks, thanks eh!
posted via 184.151.37.94 user rlcossar.
message 43586 - 07/02/17
From: David Bamford, subject: Canada's 150th Anniversary
best wishes to all our Canadian friends on this significant anniversary for Canada.
David
posted via 110.144.4.9 user David.
message 43585 - 06/25/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: S&A 2016 film releasing in the US
Currently there are no plans for any Canadian theatrical release. Ias ked about it and got this response.
Taylor Devorsky
Marketing and Outreach Assistant
Samuel Goldwyn Films
8675 Washington Blvd, STE 203
Culver City, CA 90232
T: 310-237-6876
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
message 43584 - 06/23/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: S&A 2016 film releasing in the US
It's apparently a VERY LIMITED screening. Elizabeth Jolley tracked down their distributor and got this response on the full schedule:
Bellingham, WA: Pickford Film Center
Cape Cod, MA: Wellfleet Cinemas
Mystic, CT: Mystic Luxury Cinemas
Seattle, WA: SIFF Film Center
New Haven, CT: Ciné 4
Pasadena, CA: Laemmle Playhouse*
Portland, OR: Clinton Street Theater*
Lambertville, NJ: ACME Screening Room
Boston, MA: Apple Cinemas Cambridge*
Columbus, OH: Gateway Film Center*
San Francisco, CA: Presidio Theatre*
Plainville, CT: AMC Plainville 20
Londonderry, NH: AMC Classic Londonderry 10
St Petersburg, FL: AMC Sundial 20
Washington, D.C: AMC Loews Rio 18
Best,
Taylor Devorsky
Marketing and Outreach Assistant
Samuel Goldwyn Films
8675 Washington Blvd, STE 203
Culver City, CA 90232
T: 310-237-6876
Whether the 7/14 showings will run for a full week, or only the one day, I don't know.
posted via 73.173.62.89 user Jon.
message 43583 - 06/22/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: S&A 2016 film releasing in the US
I'm looking forward to this. It may not stick to the original plot perfectly but it doesn't seem too far off a story the children may have concocted around a camp fire in the likes of Peter Duck.
posted via 184.151.36.113 user rlcossar.
message 43582 - 06/22/17
From: Jon, subject: S&A 2016 film releasing in the US
Samuel Goldwyn Films contacted Robin Marshall to let him know that they will be releasing the latest S&A film this summer. Web page here. The message, passed on via Simon Horn of TARS-Canada, mentioned it releasing in St. Petersburg, FL on July 14; I expect that will be the general release date, but they don't mention locations or dates on the web page.
posted via 160.111.250.108 user Jon.
message 43581 - 06/21/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: Answers found in P&M
The last time the Blacketts' schooling was discussed was in December 2016
posted via 109.180.191.50 user eclrh.
message 43580 - 06/21/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: The two Billies - Charcoal burners.
Maybe the metal container is a development since AR's youth.
posted via 109.180.191.50 user eclrh.
message 43579 - 06/21/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Answers found in P&M
Going to school 'locally' does not preclude boarding. When I was at boarding school in the 50s and 60s, many of the pupils lived within Twenty minutes by car.
posted via 88.110.76.119 user Mike_Jones.
message 43578 - 06/21/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: The two Billies - Charcoal burners.
where AR got his reference from to use in the book
posted via 81.129.127.148 user Peter_H.
message 43577 - 06/20/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Answers found in P&M
The last time the Blacketts' schooling was discussed was in December 2016 and the first poster said that he had assumed that the Blacketts went to school locally. Admittedly most people in that thread thought that they were boarders, but there you are. So not necessarily a settled question in some minds.
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
message 43576 - 06/20/17
From: Glen Jansen, subject: Re: The two Billies - Charcoal burners.
Thank you Robert, yes I must admit that I thought so too. This was a technique used in the Wyre Forest, Worcestershire, - perhaps it was also used in the Lake District as well. Not quite sure where AR got his reference from to use in the book.
posted via 81.170.14.53 user Worldofmouth.
message 43575 - 06/20/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: Answers found in P&M
I'm surprised to see AQ regarding these questions as newly settled. I thought they'd both been settled at least once before.
posted via 109.180.191.50 user eclrh.
message 43574 - 06/20/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: The two Billies - Charcoal burners.
Over the decades I've seen three or four items on TV about charcoal burning, but your video is the first in which they set fire to the wood in the open, then cover it with earth as in the book. The others all used large cylindrical metal containers.
posted via 109.180.191.50 user eclrh.
message 43573 - 06/20/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Walker family 'schoolroom'
I have assumed that a room was set aside for the young Walkers who were not yet of an age to go to boarding school, say seven or eight. So it would have been a constant feature of their accommodation wherever they were stationed.
posted via 88.110.76.119 user Mike_Jones.
message 43572 - 06/19/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Walker family 'schoolroom'
This talk of the Blackett's school arrangements has reminded me of something I do not understand about the Walker family.
A few minutes later Captain John was lying flat on his stomach on the ground with the guide-book and its map open before him. ...
“There isn’t room to do it here really properly,” he said, “but this is a sketch chart and we’ll do a good one after we get home.”
“A huge one,” said Roger, “like daddy’s chart of the China Seas.”
“And we’ll hang it up on the schoolroom wall to show where we’ve been,” said Susan.
A moment later Captain Flint walked into the firelight. He carried a large cage wrapped up in a blue cloth cover. ...
[label reads] “From Captain Flint to the able-seaman who saved his Life.”
“But I didn’t save your life,” said Titty.
“I didn’t write life. I wrote Life,” said Captain Flint. “Mixed Moss. It’s the same thing.”
“Thank you very much indeed,” said Titty. “I’ll hang it up in the schoolroom, ready for the parrot.”
posted via 81.129.149.32 user Magnus.
message 43571 - 06/19/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: Answers found in P&M
Later in PM (Chapter 3) Nancy says: "last time she was here (i.e. SD), Uncle Jim told Mother she ''must never have the G.A. here again except in term time. And Mother said she never would". Also indicating that the Amazons went (together) to a boarding school.
posted via 202.154.144.216 user hugo.
message 43570 - 06/19/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
Magnus asks, Who can name a book that deceives the reader as to a lead character's sex?
posted via 109.150.84.197 user MartinH.
message 43569 - 06/19/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: Answers found in P&M
I think the evidence for the Amazons attending boarding school's been around longer than that. In SA, Peggy and Susan speak of going to school at the end of the summer in much the same terms; in WH, the quarantine papers for all three families were pretty much the same; and in SW, Mrs. Blackett was coming down to London to "scrub and holystone" the Amazons to get them ready for school. If they were day students, she wouldn't need to meet them in London for that.
posted via 73.173.62.89 user Jon.
message 43568 - 06/18/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Answers found in P&M
The first I believe was common knowledge.
posted via 184.151.36.113 user rlcossar.
message 43567 - 06/18/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Answers found in P&M
A recent reading of "The Picts and the Martyrs" has given me what I consider to be definitive answers to a couple of issues which have been discussed here a number of times. The first is the question of where do the Ds live?
posted via 173.32.120.207 user Adam.
message 43566 - 06/18/17
From: Glen Jansen, subject: The two Billies - Charcoal burners.
I was recently in Bewdley museum in Worcestershire, and as part of their display on charcoal burning in the Wyre Forest, showed this short video of charcoal burners. I was struck as to how similar it was to the description by AR in S&A. I hope you enjoy this.
posted via 81.170.11.232 user Worldofmouth.
message 43565 - 06/17/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: Grand Aunts??
The OED entry for grand-aunt (which it hyphenates) says it is much rarer than great-aunt, but is commoner in Irish English than in other varieties.
posted via 109.180.191.155 user eclrh.
message 43564 - 06/17/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Grand Aunts??
GRAND AUNTS is an answer in today's Times Crossword. The clue includes the phrase "intimidates relatives", which argues at least a subliminal acquaintance with AR on the compiler's part, but I don't think I have ever come across Grand Aunts. I think Great Aunts should rise up in protest.
posted via 88.110.89.9 user Mike_Jones.
message 43563 - 06/17/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Grand Aunts??
GRAND AUNTS is an answer in today's Times Crossword. The clue includes the phrase "intimidates relatives", which argues at least a subliminal acquaintance with AR on the compiler's part, but I don't think I have ever come across Grand Aunts. I think Great Aunts should rise up in protest.
posted via 88.110.89.9 user Mike_Jones.
message 43562 - 06/16/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
Perhaps it is a British thing, as being American, most of these authors mentioned in this topic I have never heard of. I did read Secret Garden and the Alice In Wonderland and Through the looking Glass, but those others are just unknowns to me. However, my older sister had quite a collection of the Nancy Drew series, which I enjoyed every one.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43561 - 06/16/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
Perhaps it is a British thing, as being American, most of these authors mentioned in this topic I have never heard of. I did read Secret Garden and the Alice In Wonderland and Through the looking Glass, but those others are just unknowns to me. However, my older sister had quite a collection of the Nancy Drew series, which I enjoyed every one.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43560 - 06/16/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Death od Margaret Sanders
Thanks for sharing this bit of Ransome related info. I hope that kids are signing out those books
posted via 184.151.37.53 user rlcossar.
message 43559 - 06/14/17
From: Methersgate, subject: Re: Lottie blossom 1 looking for new owner.
I would just like to say that she is a very nice boat and has been kept that way by her expert owners, so a very nice "buy" for someone.
posted via 109.158.29.95 user Methersgate.
message 43558 - 06/14/17
From: Methersgate, subject: Re: Swallowdale - Explanation - a copy that has it...
My copy has the Clifford Webb illistrations and has the following dates:
Reprinted July 1932
Reprinted August 1932
posted via 109.158.29.95 user Methersgate.
message 43557 - 06/14/17
From: Methersgate, subject: The Secret Garden
My father was born in 1903 and "The Secret Garden" was the favourite book of his sickly childhood (he spent quite a time in an isolation hospital with diptheria).
posted via 109.158.29.95 user Methersgate.
message 43556 - 06/14/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
Magnus asks, Who can name a book that deceives the reader as to a lead character's sex?
In an adult book, Rose Macaulay's The Towers of Trebizond takes great care to be ambiguous about the gender of the lead character, Laurie, until the very end. Modern commentators don't come to it with fresh eyes, and tend to give the game away.
If you think you don't know the book, it has one of the most famous opening sentences in literature: "Take my camel, dear", said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.
posted via 82.145.211.186 user awhakim.
message 43555 - 06/14/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Death od Margaret Sanders
Some of you may have known Margaret Sanders, brother of John Sanders who married "The Ship's Baby". I have heard that she died recently, though I don't know the exact date.
Margaret was a supporter of the legacy of Ransome and the S&A books and, about 14 years ago, provided a full set of the books to our local primary school.
posted via 109.150.84.197 user MartinH.
message 43554 - 06/14/17
From: Duncan, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
Yes - I think that's always a good idea.
Having said that Secret Garden was always "up there" with my favourite books as a child and I never thought of it as a "girl's book".
posted via 212.219.3.100 user Duncan.
message 43553 - 06/11/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
Edith Nesbit, who I believe Ransome admired. had a mixed family as leads in most of her children's books.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43552 - 06/11/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
I notice that all of us who have contributed to this thread thus far are male. In our exchange, we all seem to agree that the gender of the lead character doesn't make much difference to any of us, personally, and we've seen a fair bit to indicate it might not make *much* difference at all so long as the story itself is engaging.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43551 - 06/11/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
I can think of pre AR/EB books with more the one lead character, but they tend to be all boys or all girls, e.g Little Women, written by a woman, and The Coral Island, written by a man.
posted via 92.18.209.175 user Mike_Jones.
message 43550 - 06/11/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
"She has expressed concern that boys are not inclined to read books that have a lead girl."
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43549 - 06/11/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
...can there really be ‘female’ and ‘male’ books?
Who can name a book that deceives the reader as to a lead character's sex? I recall that the last page of "The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler" (1977 Carnegie medal winner) reveals the trick the author has been running throughout the book. Most people assume it is a stereotypical naughty schoolboy, not a tomboy.
posted via 31.48.241.183 user Magnus.
message 43548 - 06/11/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
This maybe slightly ‘off-topic’ with regard to AR but can there really be ‘female’ and ‘male’ books?
posted via 2.30.78.183 user MTD.
message 43547 - 06/10/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: Copyright on AR's works
The Godine Ransomes have the same illustrations as the JC Ransomes. Spelling, too.
posted via 73.173.62.89 user Jon.
message 43546 - 06/10/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
Yes, My 13/14 year old daughter loves the Alex Rider series, and the Percy Jackson series. She has no problems with a male lead and action/adventure.
All grown men should try a 'chick flick' book once or twice. They are a very interesting insight into the secret world of women. Will make your eyebrows rise! (And you may well groan, of course.)
posted via 31.48.241.183 user Magnus.
message 43545 - 06/09/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: Copyright on AR's works
In Australia and New Zealand books published simultaneously in America and Britain were only available from the British publishers until this cozy agreement was deemed uncompetitive. Part of rules allowing parallel importing, although this can cause problems with electronic items under guarantee where (quite fairly?) the authorised importer does not feel obliged to honour the guarantee. And allowing multizone DVD players means that DVDs can be imported by local suppliers like "The Warehouse" and played in New Zealand.
posted via 202.154.145.223 user hugo.
message 43544 - 06/09/17
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
I had heard of Anne of Green Gables, Katie and what she did, Little Women, and Noel Streatfeild's ballet books, but it never occurred to me to read any of them. But how many girl contemporaries of mine used to read Biggles?
I don't think that my sister read my Biggles books, but Anne, my (Swiss) wife, who was one of a family of four sisters, told me that they all read Biggles books.
posted via 90.255.37.238 user PeterC.
message 43543 - 06/09/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
As for the issue of boys being 'put off' I think it is far more complex than just saying its becasue there is no male lead.
posted via 86.189.206.87 user MartinH.
message 43542 - 06/08/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
I agree. I too had never thought of lead characters in AR's books. Pretty well all the children have their moments of "leadership", and the books are the richer for it.
posted via 88.110.92.1 user Mike_Jones.
message 43541 - 06/08/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
When I first read AR it never occured to me that there were single lead characters at all, and now all these years later realise this is one of his many strengths as a writer.
posted via 95.150.15.77 user MTD.
message 43540 - 06/08/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
Does Lauren Child feel equally strongly about the possibility that girls feel the same way about books with a lead boy? Thinking of my own childhood, I had heard of Anne of Green Gables, Katie and what she did, Little Women, and Noel Streatfeild's ballet books, but it never occurred to me to read any of them. But how many girl contemporaries of mine used to read Biggles?
posted via 88.110.92.1 user Mike_Jones.
message 43539 - 06/08/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
I know "Secret Garden" was one of my favorites while growing up, as were the "Borrower" books, with Arrietty in the lead. The only other book from my youth (that I remember) with a female lead was "From The Mixed-up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler", but I think I'm comfortable saying that had I been handed any given story, the protagonist's gender wouldn't have mattered so long as s/he was admirable and it was a good story.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43538 - 06/08/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
I believe that Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" books are popular with boys as well as girls despite one of the main child characters being female.
Going back to John Wilson's post on 25 great girl characters video 9http://www.tarboard.net/tarboard/messages/43509.htm) I find that I had read about half of the books mentioned, some I hadn't because I was too old!
I suspect that good literate children's books will appeal regardless of whether the main character is a hero or a heroine.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43537 - 06/08/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Do boys read girls books?
I believe that Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" books are popular with boys as well as girls despite one of the main child characters being female.
Going back to John Wilson's post on 25 great girl characters video 9http://www.tarboard.net/tarboard/messages/43509.htm) I find that I had read about half of the books mentioned, some I hadn't because I was too old!
I suspect that good literate children's books will appeal regardless of whether the main character is a hero or a heroine.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43536 - 06/08/17
From: andy clayton, subject: Do boys read girls books?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40185267
Lauren Child, who writes Charlie and Lola stories, has become the new Children's Laureate. She has expressed concern that boys are not inclined to read books that have a lead girl. Ransome changed the gender of Taqui Altounyan to John Walker to improve the balance of S&A but there is still a preponderance of females in the series. Certainly the leaders, or the ones who narrate the viewpoint are often the girl characters. Did this affect the interest of any of the male readers here? I am thinking not at all or they still wouldn't be reading them today. Thoughts?
posted via 46.208.204.1 user cousin_jack.
message 43535 - 06/06/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Copyright on AR's works
In Canada, as a relic of Empire and Commonwealth, most British authored books are usually first published by British publishers using British editions rather than American publishers using American editions. Sometimes American editions are imported and so you can compare the two in bookstores, for example the Red Fox and Godine editions of Ransome's works.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43534 - 06/05/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: Copyright on AR's works
While the expiry of copyright on AR’s works in Britain is from 1 January 2038, in Canada, New Zealand and a number of other countries it is “Life + 50” (not 70) years or from 1 January 2018. But I do not propose to reprint "Swallows and Amazons" next year (relief all round!). In America as the series were published before 1978 the rule is 95 years from date of publication, and the copyright on "Swallows and Amazons" will expire in 2025 or 2026, and later for other books in the series. I do not know whether it is 95 years from the exact date or (like current copyright) from the beginning of the next year i.e. 1 January 2026 (obviously preferable, in view of the difficulty sometimes in establishing the exact date of publication or of author’s death). This would depend on the date of publication in America (and perhaps Canada?) I suppose. I noticed in a biography of Ngaio Marsh that some of her crime novels in the 1930s to 1950s were published in different years in Britain and America (sometimes later but in some cases earlier, e.g. "Spinsters in Jeopardy" in 1953 by Little Brown, Boston, and in 1954 by Collins, London).
message 43533 - 06/03/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: My politics is fishing
Thanks, Woll. I realise now that several of the messages you refer to were removed before I read them - hence my puzzlement.
posted via 5.81.1.61 user Peter_H.
message 43532 - 06/03/17
From: Woll, subject: Re: My politics is fishing
The messages that were removed from the "Copyright on AR's works" conversation, contained political opinions not relevant to a discussion on copyright in relation to AR's works, or TarBoard. The other messages in the conversation remain in place.
posted via 87.112.221.8 user Woll.
message 43531 - 06/02/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: My politics is fishing
Thanks again, Adam. :)
posted via 124.171.165.188 user mikefield.
message 43530 - 06/02/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: My politics is fishing
Sorry Adam, but I don't understand how discussing the international aspects of copyright law has necessarily to be 'political'. As I saw it, the argument was in essence whether, from the Ransome point of view, it might have been better to have aligned our copyright laws with those of the USA and Canada (both mainly English-speaking) rather than with the laws of the European countries (all non-English speaking and therefore, with one or two exceptions, not really interested in Ransome's works). Copyright is complex and by its nature arouses international issues - these should not be confused with politics. AR's 'fishing' answer was given to Sir Basil Thomson, Head of Scotland Yard, when AR was in real danger of being arrested as a spy - rather a different matter altogether.
posted via 5.81.1.61 user Peter_H.
message 43528 - 06/01/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: My politics is fishing
Fair cop, guv'nor. You got us bang to rights. P C Tedder would be proud of you.
posted via 92.18.210.27 user Mike_Jones.
message 43527 - 06/01/17
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: My politics is fishing
Thank you.
posted via 90.255.37.238 user PeterC.
message 43526 - 06/01/17
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: My politics is fishing
Thank you.
posted via 90.255.37.238 user PeterC.
message 43525 - 06/01/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: My politics is fishing
I would ask you all to review the TarBoard Terms and Conditions of Use, especially No.6 "Whilst encouraging a wide range of views, we will consider removing any content that other users might find offensive, threatening or merely annoying."
message 43518 - 05/31/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: Copyright on AR's works
The copyright on Arthur Ransome’s works published before 1923 has expired in America. While America now has the "Life + 70y" rule for works published from 1978, his works from 1923 would come under different rules in America (depending on year of publication not of death, and sometimes whether the copyright had been renewed).
Re Ngaio Marsh, she was still producing plays by the Canterbury University Drama Society in the 1960s when I was a student there, and I was in the crowd scenes as a Roman for her last production, of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
posted via 202.154.149.1 user hugo.
message 43517 - 05/31/17
From: Paul Crisp, subject: Re: Copyright on AR's works
There can be changes to copyright, but in Britain it took a Prime Minister to achieve it. The book in question is "Peter Pan" the gift of the rights by J. M. Barrie to Great Ormond Street Hospital for children has proved to be "a significant source of income". The rights should have expired in 1987, fifty years after Barrie's death, but a change to the Copyright Designs & Patent Act ensured that in the UK the hospital will always continue to enjoy the income. If you want to find out more, go on the hospital website (www.gosh.org/about-us/peter-pan/copyright
posted via 86.157.210.139 user Paul_Crisp.
message 43515 - 05/31/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Copyright on AR's works
I had heard that copyright is 'renewed' when a work is republished, hence the new editions of S&A out a few years ago will overrride the "70 years from author's death" rule. Can any experts say if this is correct?
posted via 86.163.162.89 user Magnus.
message 43514 - 05/30/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Copyright on AR's works
Thanks Adam. I don't expect to be around by then....
posted via 124.171.211.235 user mikefield.
message 43513 - 05/30/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Copyright on AR's works
Copyright law is very complicated and also varies between different legal jurisdictions.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43512 - 05/30/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Copyright on AR's works
This thread is prompted by comments on the 'Swallowdale - Explanation' thread below.
posted via 124.171.211.235 user mikefield.
message 43511 - 05/30/17
From: Jock, subject: Re: The 25 greatest fictional girl characters
A great list, even if the Blackett sisters are only placed at no. 14, and they miss out Sally Lockhart, one of my own favourites.
posted via 178.43.119.39 user Jock.
message 43510 - 05/30/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Swallowdale - Explanation
For ATR to post Their Own Story would of course require permission from the Arthur Ransome Literary Executors (ARLE) as it is presumably still under copyright and part of AR's Literary Estate.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43509 - 05/30/17
From: John Wilson, subject: The 25 greatest fictional girl characters
An Auckland father and his eldest (11) daughter have rated the 25 greatest girl fictional characters, including the Blackett sisters! Recommended reading includes Swallows and Amazons, Winter Holiday and Coot Club.
message 43508 - 05/29/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Swallowdale - Explanation
Owen, I'm sure people would love to read your article if you care to post it.
posted via 124.171.211.235 user mikefield.
message 43507 - 05/28/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Swallowdale - Explanation
Thanks to both Owen and Mike Field for reminding me of the obvious places I should have had a look at first!
posted via 95.150.76.111 user MTD.
message 43506 - 05/28/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Swallowdale - Explanation
Count me as "interested", please.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43505 - 05/28/17
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Re: Swallowdale - Explanation
For those who were members of TARS, I wrote an article on this topic in 2007. These pages appeared in the 1st, 2nd and I think 3rd impressions. They disappeared thereafter.
This was all tied up with AR wanting readers to buy books in chronological order, an idea that was firmly sat on by Cape.
SD was a mess from the date point of view, I suspect AR lost track of the dates through his constant redrafts and pressure to complete in time for the novel to be published by Christmas. There were also many references to PD although the novel was published after SD.
Perhaps, if anyone is interested, I could republish the article on ATR. Although out of courtesy I would want to let TARS/MM know that I was so doing.
posted via 143.159.28.254 user OwenRoberts.
message 43504 - 05/28/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Swallowdale - Explanation
I seem to remember that Hugh Brogan quoted it. Anyhow, I've kept a copy from somewhere. I'll be happy to scan it if anyone wants it.
posted via 124.171.211.235 user mikefield.
message 43503 - 05/28/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Swallowdale - Explanation
Thanks Dave, where I should have looked!
posted via 95.150.76.111 user MTD.
message 43502 - 05/28/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Swallowdale - Explanation
VERY cool!
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43501 - 05/28/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
And there are many reasons to not buy a Kindle! ;-)
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43500 - 05/28/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Swallowdale - Explanation
According to Wayne Hammond's Bibliography of AR, that note was in the first edition (1931) (referenced as "the author's note") bur later omitted. It didn't appear in the first U.S. edition (1932).
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43499 - 05/28/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Swallowdale - Explanation
I recently acquired a copy of SD from August 1932, my previously oldest copy was from 1936. I was surprised to see a page before the book proper begins entitled
"SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS"
posted via 95.150.76.111 user MTD.
message 43498 - 05/26/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Ah. You might well be right at that, Alex. I know that that was one of my reasons for not buying a Kindle, anyway....
posted via 124.171.211.235 user mikefield.
message 43497 - 05/26/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Yes, the Kindle can run anything you like --*IF* you convert it to .mobi. So can any e-reader --Nook, Kobo, etc.-- run anything you like, so long as you convert it to a file format it understands. (I think the exception to this is .pdf, which most e-readers can run innately.) That's what your "free bit of software" is doing: converting a file to a format your e-reader can read. And yes, they're generally wonderful and easy to use. My personal favorite, of those bits of software, is Calibre (also free), since I can use it to edit the ebook at the same time. Potentially, I could even use Calibre to add in the missing ML postscript.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43496 - 05/25/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
The Kindle can load anything you like, if you run it through a free bit of software first. I've taken all sorts of file formats, from other 'locked down' ebook publishers, run them through a (legal) converter, and transferred them to my Kindle with the USB cable.
message 43495 - 05/25/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
IIRC, it was that Amazon sold all their ebooks in .azw, which is .mobi with DRM (much to the annoyance of publishers, the retailer is who enables DRM), and only the Kindle can read .azw. So (initially) to read ebooks bought on Amazon, you need a Kindle, and if you bought a Kindle, and built a nice .azw-format library, it is with Kindle that you are stuck.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43494 - 05/25/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
... except that I think Kindle originally only used its own format because it hoped people would therefore have to buy its e-book readers or not read anything much. What an invitation to the competition.
posted via 124.171.196.222 user mikefield.
message 43493 - 05/25/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Ebook sales have been flattening dramatically over the last couple years --this has been quite the subject of discussion amongst writers and publishers-- so a decision may have been made at Godine, based on the sales performance of the earlier books, to not release the later books as ebooks.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43492 - 05/25/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Pretty much every publisher releases their ebooks for both Kindle (.mobi, .azw) and Nook, etc. (.epub). Doing otherwise would limit their potential market.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43491 - 05/25/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
For quite a while they didn't have the rights to publish some of the later books at all, though I guess now they have done all of them? This could be related to that earlier issue.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43490 - 05/24/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
They've been out for a few years; I really need to write Godine and ask why they don't make the rest of the series available on ebook.
posted via 164.39.226.33 user Jon.
message 43489 - 05/24/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Words are fine; images of course are still the scans; since Godine uses the JC as their basis they look OK too.
posted via 164.39.226.33 user Jon.
message 43488 - 05/24/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Kobo uses epub format so I assume that they now publish in several different formats.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43487 - 05/24/17
From: d, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
So are they .mobi (Kindle format)? Or is RH publishing multiple e-formats?
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43486 - 05/24/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
My ebooks were bought in Canada from Kobo and are published by Random House, who are now owners of Jonathan Cape.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43485 - 05/23/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Adam, do you have the Kindle editions or the Godine? I would guess Kindle since you have the ML flaw but it would be really curious if the Godine books have the same problem. That's assuming ML is available in the Godine releases of course, which I don't know.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43484 - 05/22/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
How do the US ebooks look, in terms of good reproductions from the printed version? A lot of times an e-publisher will just scan a printed version and use OCR to transition the text to .epub. This is a far cry from ideal.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43483 - 05/22/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
I recently found myself with a surfeit of Chapters gift cards a few months ago so decided to splurge on the complete set of ebooks for my Kobo to go with my Puffin paperbacks and my Cape hardbacks.
I just checked and the Missee Lee postscript is still missing from my version too.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43482 - 05/22/17
From: dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Thanks, Jon, I didn't realize that; did this happen recently?
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43481 - 05/21/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
In the US, SA, SD, WH, PD, WD and PM are available in epub through Barnes & Noble Nook. To get the rest of them available in the US, I guess we need to badger David Godine (whose brand is on the US ebook editions).
posted via 195.162.103.82 user Jon.
message 43480 - 05/21/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Are the ARs available as ebooks? I know they weren't for quite a while.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43479 - 05/21/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
I'm glad Magnus said that, about the paperbacks being so big. My sense was that the Capes weren't that thick, but not having Puffins to measure against, I decided I must be delusional. The Capes aren't that much thicker than the Godines --and hardbacks are so much nicer!
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43478 - 05/20/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
I'm not sure it would be heresy, but it just isn't the same as reading a physical book, the interaction with the pages and so on.
posted via 95.149.130.83 user MTD.
message 43477 - 05/19/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
You could have a lending library with your sister mailing different editions to and from ports of call.
posted via 184.151.37.19 user rlcossar.
message 43476 - 05/19/17
From: Patrick Fox, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Would it be heresy to suggest a Kindle? Plus a solar charger, since I imagine you won't have power on board. I've found a solar to USB charger very effective at keeping phones etc charged on several small boat cruising / camping trips, and a B&W kindle is much less demanding on power.
Patrick
posted via 185.58.164.43 user PJF.
message 43475 - 05/19/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
The new editions are ENORMOUS compared to the old ones. A 2015 paperback is thicker than a 1930s hardback! I don't know if it was a deliberate choice by the publisher to make the books look good value for money. I think it is the margins which do it. And the slightly larger type.
posted via 81.156.113.180 user Magnus.
message 43474 - 05/18/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Thank you all.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43473 - 05/18/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Colouring Illustrations
I was brought up not to deface books, so it never occurred to me to colour in the pictures in the SA series. Now of course, with photocopying facilities being run of the mill, children could well enjoy colouring in enlarged AR drawings. And why not?
posted via 88.110.83.219 user Mike_Jones.
message 43472 - 05/18/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
I have seven of the books in Puffin, bought in the early or middle 1980s. They are about 7+1/8" tall (varying by a millimetre or so) by about 4+3/8" (varying similarly) by about 7/8" thick.
posted via 109.180.195.92 user eclrh.
message 43471 - 05/18/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Colouring Illustrations
Yes, Amazon Publications did an S&A Colouring Book in 2005. It was called Vol.1 with a view to a second one for the Broads. But it sold very sluggishly, and we eventually in 2015 reduced the price (cheaper by the dozen) to clear the shelf space. All gone now, but I was able to get one last year as a present for a young friend in Australia. A great success, too!
It's worth quoting the blurb:
Many of us who read the Swallows and Amazons books as children took crayons or paints and coloured our favourite illustrations. Perhaps others, who would have liked to do so, did not try for fear of spoiling their books. Sharp-eyed viewers of the Ransome Remembered video will have spotted that the Altounyan children coloured their pictures too.
With permission from the Literary Executors we have reproduced twelve pages of illustrations for you to colour or simply frame. We would like to make it clear that the choice is not that of the Amazon Publications team. Instead we went to two young Tars, and have listened to their advice.
Do you remember the wonderful colourists who brought the Rupert Bear Annuals to life? Here is your chance to follow their example. Pencil crayons, watercolours, felt pens - the choice is yours.
I periodically come across copies with crayon colouring; nothing as good as the "Russell Lodge" water colours. But those pictures are crying out for the reader to join in.
posted via 82.145.211.214 user awhakim.
message 43470 - 05/18/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Colouring Illustrations
You may recall that the covers of the old Puffin paperback series had AR drawings which had been professionally coloured in. On the whole I liked these, except that for some reason on both the Big Six and Picts & Martyrs covers Dorothea was shown wearing a lurid pink frock. On the Pigeon Post cover, Susan and Titty were also shown in pink frocks. Why the artist didn't simply use white, I don't know.
posted via 31.51.45.174 user Peter_H.
message 43469 - 05/17/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
First thought Alex, without even measuring the various volumes, is the Puffin editions from the 1960s and 1970s.
posted via 95.146.184.162 user MTD.
message 43468 - 05/17/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Colouring Illustrations
When I was nine I was given a copy of Elleston Trevor's 'The Island of the Pines' for Christmas -- a wonderful book that I read at one sitting after lunch on Christmas Day. (Along with AR's books this is one all my all-time favourites, reread every couple of years.) The book has literally dozens of b&w full-page and in-text illustrations, and I made it my early mission in life to colour them all in with my 'Lakeland' pencils. (That's the AR connection.)
message 43467 - 05/17/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
I think paperbacks would be a better way for you to go, Alex. Keep the good hard-covers for use on land. I've had the full Red Fox paperback set for years, along with my Jonathan Cape series hard-covers. The downside of paperbacks is that the illustrations are pretty small and smudgy.
message 43466 - 05/17/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Overall Dimensions of Different Editions
Here's a question for the collectors: what are the outside (overall) dimensions of the different editions of the books? For instance, Godine's edition is 8" x 5-1/2". Ideally I'd like to know the thicknesses of S&A and WDMTGTS, too --again, Godine's are 15/16" each.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43465 - 05/16/17
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Re: Coloured Illustrations
My daughter was a fanatic colour of book illustrations. I used to take the book into work and make decent copies on parchment paper for her use.
I think TARS through Amazon Publications, used to and maybe still do, a colouring book of some Lakeland illustrations taken from the books.
Did see in a second-hand book shop a copy of S&A, where the chapter header – which repeat up to four times – had all been coloured but the main illustrations left uncoloured. It looked attractive and perhaps I should have purchased it.
Overall, unless the book edition is rare, well executed colouring can add something tote book and even more so if it is done by a faly member
posted via 143.159.28.254 user OwenRoberts.
message 43464 - 05/16/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Coloured Illustrations
I agree Alex about colouring in books, and these were a surprise (I've seen editions for sale on e-bay where some poor colouring in is presented as an advantage!)
posted via 2.28.231.176 user MTD.
message 43463 - 05/16/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Coloured Illustrations
I don't at all approve of coloring in the books, but those *are* surprisingly good. Especially the one of Tom sailing home.
posted via 24.17.137.201 user Pitsligo.
message 43462 - 05/16/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Coloured Illustrations
Recently I acquired a 1st edition of CC, one of the main reasons for me trying to get 1st editions of the twelve is the quality of the illustrations.
posted via 2.28.231.176 user MTD.
message 43461 - 05/16/17
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: Lottie blossom 1 looking for new owner.
Oh, I agree with you Ross. However, I was thinking about the suggestion that the NBT adopt Ragged Robin. I am sure that the NBT has very linited resources with which to maintain Nancy, and would not want to 'Bite off more than they could chew'. I was trying to point out that it is not just the purchase price which has to be considered, but the ongoing maintenance, which is not cheap.
David
posted via 110.144.119.183 user David.
message 43460 - 05/15/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Lottie blossom 1 looking for new owner.
Every hobby has a cost.
posted via 184.151.37.107 user rlcossar.
message 43459 - 05/15/17
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: Lottie blossom 1 looking for new owner.
The problem with adopting a beautiful and well-cared-for yacht is that you also adopt the ongoing and recurrent maintenance expenses. As if the eye-watering cost of antifouling paint wasn't enough, the cost of mooring/marina and insurance is sure to bring on cardiac problems! How do I know this? Don't ask!
David
posted via 110.144.119.183 user David.
message 43458 - 05/14/17
From: Andy, subject: Re: Lottie blossom 1 looking for new owner.
£15000. If only my lottery ticket had worked... is this possibly an option for the Nancy Blackett Trust?
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
message 43457 - 05/12/17
From: Ted_Evans, subject: Lottie blossom 1 looking for new owner.
Lottie Blossom 1 (aka Ragged Robin III), Hillyard 6 tonner, owned by Arthur & Evgenia in 1952, is for sale due to age and infirmity of current owners.
message 43456 - 05/09/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: The Amazons 2017
Thanks Paul. I'd noticed a BBC report about them -
posted via 2.28.82.25 user MTD.
message 43455 - 05/09/17
From: Andy, subject: Re: AR Betting Club
:)
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
message 43454 - 05/09/17
From: Paul Crisp, subject: The Amazons 2017
Whilst in Suffolk at the weekend, I picked up the latest edition of ‘Bounce’, which describes itself as East Anglia’s leading independent lifestyle magazine. The cover picture was of a group called The Amazons. According to the article about them, they “are tipped to be one of 2017’s biggest breakthrough rock acts”. They release an eponymous debut album later this month (you can hear some of it on their website) and have had a recent tour. When asked why they chose the name The Amazons, the reply was “There’s a book by Arthur Ransome called ‘Swallows and Amazons’; it was a movie set in the Lake District in the 1920s – it’s the most inoffensive, bordering on dull, super not rock n roll book.”
posted via 86.144.170.253 user Paul_Crisp.
message 43453 - 05/07/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: AR Betting Club
Following our success in the Grand National, bets were placed today on a horse called "Mr Lupton" in the 2.55 race at Newmarket. It won at 10-1. (Arthur Lupton was a nephew of Arthur Ransome.)
posted via 81.132.174.53 user Peter_H.
message 43452 - 05/06/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
I've just realised another literary connection is in the Harry Potter books. The explanation of the term is most interesting...I think AR would have approved!
posted via 81.156.112.7 user Magnus.
message 43451 - 05/04/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
Curiously, the political meaning came up in Double Jeopardy today, asking about the "Never Blaine" Republicans in 1884.
posted via 73.173.62.89 user Jon.
message 43450 - 05/03/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: 2017 Appeal for funding TarBoard and All Things Ransome
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Appeal so far. We have raised enough money to cover next year's expenses. If you donated, you will be getting an individual acknowledgement.
The links on TarBoard and All Things Ransome will stay active for the next two weeks for anyone else. Donations can be accepted at any time by going to the link below.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43449 - 05/02/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
"Muggle-Wump" is used in Roald Dahl's book The Twits. That is the only literary connection I can think of.
message 43448 - 05/01/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
Yes, Boris did go to Eton.
posted via 88.110.70.198 user Mike_Jones.
message 43447 - 05/01/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
I think Boris went to Eton. By a supreme irony, some years ago our TV ran a play about his youth at Oxford, and filmed it at Harrow School.
posted via 141.0.14.145 user awhakim.
message 43446 - 05/01/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
I couldn't get that either, perhaps as Johnson went to such a school (I don't know where he went) he wouldn't read books that featured them.
posted via 95.146.63.150 user MTD.
message 43445 - 05/01/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
Since Hogwarts is a sort of Eton (albeit for girls as well as boys), I fail to see how Johnson could have been too posh for it.
posted via 88.110.70.198 user Mike_Jones.
message 43444 - 04/30/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
The original letter writer in the 'i' commented that Johnson was of course too old to have picked it up from Rowling (and too posh!), so it seems to some that AR's books are for the 'posh'.
posted via 95.146.63.129 user MTD.
message 43443 - 04/30/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
Many thanks Ed. Such a great resource for us all!
posted via 95.146.63.129 user MTD.
message 43442 - 04/30/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
Since the word's Algonquin in origin (title of a tribal leader), and used (historically) in American politics, I'd be surprised if it was used anywhere in The Twelve. I wouldn't be surprised if AR knew the word, but I could only (remotely) imagine it being used (by Capt. Flint) in ML or GN. The letter-writer must have been engaging in "Alternative Facts" :{)#
posted via 73.173.62.89 user Jon.
message 43441 - 04/30/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
Strictly irrelevant on this forum, but according to chapter 4 of the first Harry Potter book, one of Albus Dumbledore's titles is Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards.
posted via 109.180.74.119 user eclrh.
message 43440 - 04/30/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: Search Question for Ed Kiser
"MUGWUMP" - Scan produced NOTHING. "MUG" - plenty of tea drunk from a MUG. If that word is in any of those twelve books, I would love to hear about that, as it would mean that I have a TYPO and did not spell it right, so my search would not have found it. Tried "WUMP" and again, nothing.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43439 - 04/30/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Search Question for Ed Kiser
Ed - as you may know here in the UK we have an election coming up in June, and the word 'mugwump' has been used and much argument over its meaning and origin.
posted via 95.146.63.129 user MTD.
message 43438 - 04/25/17
From: Duncan, subject: Re: 1974 film 40th Anniversary Edition - Aspect Ratio
I hadn't noticed that - will have to look back at it.
posted via 212.219.3.100 user Duncan.
message 43437 - 04/24/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: 1974 film, Aspect Ratio - it's more complicated!
I was completely lost by your film comments on all the ratios etc.. but it was like reading a physics textbook for the first time and wondering if it would ever make sense. A few pictures would help.
message 43436 - 04/23/17
From: Allan_Lang, subject: Re: Movie "The Eagle"
To draw the coincidence out. There was a better, faithful production of Eagle of the 9th in the 70s (BBC TV 1977) which was completely satisfying.
posted via 101.178.163.14 user Allan_Lang.
message 43435 - 04/22/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: 1974 film, Aspect Ratio - it's more complicated!
I was completely lost by your film comments on all the ratios etc.. but it was like reading a physics textbook for the first time and wondering if it would ever make sense. A few pictures would help.
posted via 50.24.59.133 user Mcneacail.
message 43434 - 04/22/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: 1974 film, Aspect Ratio - it's more complicated!
I have played my video tape version on my TV. It sets automatically to 'wide', which distorts everything sideways to fill the screen. But if I set the TV ratio to 1.66:1, it shows perfectly, with of course black edges. Is this impossible to achieve with your Blu-Ray?
The tape was the 'double bill' of The Railway Children and S & A.
posted via 141.0.15.33 user awhakim.
message 43433 - 04/22/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: 2014 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
Noticing that the film The Eagle, starring Channng Tatum as Marcus Flavius Aquila, is on UK TV later today, I am reminded that AR is not the only children's author to suffer at be hands of film-makers; Rosemary Sutcliff is also a victim, as are devotees of her The Eagle of the Ninth.
posted via 92.18.219.95 user Mike_Jones.
message 43432 - 04/22/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: 2014 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
Noticing that the film The Eagle, starring Channng Tatum as Marcus Flavius Aquila, is on UK TV later today, I am reminded that AR is not the only children's author to suffer at be hands of film-makers; Rosemary Sutcliff is also a victim, as are devotees of her The Eagle of the Ninth.
posted via 92.18.219.95 user Mike_Jones.
message 43431 - 04/21/17
From: John Richardson, subject: 1974 film, Aspect Ratio - it's more complicated!
OK, just setting off for Holly Howe!
posted via 80.5.128.85 user Cantabrigian.
message 43430 - 04/20/17
From: John Richardson, subject: 1974 film 40th Anniversary Edition - Aspect Ratio
Going up to the Lakes for a long weekend, and staying at Holly Howe. Thought I'd take the 1974 film with me, to continue the initiation of a friend into all things Ransome - (she's been very good and read S&A and Swallowdale already....)
posted via 80.5.128.85 user Cantabrigian.
message 43429 - 04/16/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: A New Jemmerling?
Sounds like the fellow Hulme was actually acting very Dick-as-Big-Six-ish, stalking the guy and building a case. That's an accomplishment on its own.
posted via 24.17.138.45 user Pitsligo.
message 43428 - 04/16/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: A New Jemmerling?
Indeed. Rather a pity it was only a suspended sentence, I thought.
posted via 124.171.148.51 user mikefield.
message 43427 - 04/15/17
From: Ross, subject: A New Jemmerling?
A story from Britain about a butterfly collector. Where was Dick when he was needed?
posted via 184.151.36.184 user rlcossar.
message 43426 - 04/15/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Dot
'Take my camel dear,' said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.
posted via 50.24.59.133 user Mcneacail.
message 43425 - 04/13/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: 2017 Appeal for funding TarBoard and All Things Ransome
Supported
posted via 184.151.37.224 user rlcossar.
message 43424 - 04/12/17
From: dave Thewlis, subject: A new book about women pirates
Just published at the beginning of this month. Here's a Smithsonian article - an interview with the author and a link to the book on Amazon:
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43423 - 04/12/17
From: Peter Wagner, subject: Re: 2017 Appeal for funding TarBoard and All Things Ransome
Done. Thanks for all your efforts. Keep up the good work.
posted via 94.250.228.202 user PeterW.
message 43422 - 04/12/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: 2017 Appeal for funding TarBoard and All Things Ransome
Done. Worth every piece of eight!
posted via 88.110.73.4 user Mike_Jones.
message 43421 - 04/11/17
From: Allan_Lang, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
Quite possible for Ted and Mary to meet before, or even during, the early years of WW1. There were 9 cruisers on the Australian station in 1910. These had reduced to 4 in 1914, plus another 3 forming the New Zealand Division of the RN.
There were 9 Cruisers on the Australian Station in 1910, but they had all returned to England by 1913 (or would never return, being scrapped in Australia)
The NZ Ships were 2 more "Pelorus": Psyche & Pyramus and the NZ operated "Pearl" class Philomel (as a training ship)
Philomel, which served the early war years in the Mediterranean.
Sydney & Melbourne, which didn't reach English waters until late 1916, which is getting perilously close to John's presumed conception.
posted via 101.178.163.206 user Allan_Lang.
message 43420 - 04/11/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
" since Adam was in short pants" Oh, I am sure its been longer than that, I am really not that old.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43419 - 04/11/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
Quite possible for Ted and Mary to meet before, or even during, the early years of WW1. There were 9 cruisers on the Australian station in 1910. These had reduced to 4 in 1914, plus another 3 forming the New Zealand Division of the RN.
posted via 86.150.244.36 user MartinH.
message 43418 - 04/10/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: 2017 Appeal for funding TarBoard and All Things Ransome
Done! And I echo Mike Field.
posted via 95.146.63.38 user MTD.
message 43417 - 04/10/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: Bob Blackett was Captain Flint's Age
I had in mind the "candle-grease incident" in SD where Titty hears that the Great-Aunt "made mother cry" and Jim said "Bob would have liked them as they are". I think that Molly and Bob would both get the blame for their wild girls. Though if the Blackett family was local, they might have been mentioned occasionally in other books as they would be uncles or aunts to the Amazons? But perhaps one uncle was enough.
posted via 203.96.138.35 user hugo.
message 43416 - 04/10/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: 2017 Appeal for funding TarBoard and All Things Ransome
Done. And thanks to Adam and everyone else concerned for their ongoing work in keeping these sites running for us.
posted via 124.171.148.51 user mikefield.
message 43415 - 04/10/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
"...since Adam was in short pants"
posted via 124.171.148.51 user mikefield.
message 43414 - 04/10/17
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
With Germany holding a large colony in New Guinea, I would be very surprised if there were no RN activity around our shores. Also, Fremantle has been a strong RAN base, serving the Indian Ocean, since Adam was in short pants.
posted via 121.213.0.220 user David.
message 43413 - 04/10/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
Perhaps Mary's father was working in England and had brought his family over (some sort of post at the High Commission?). They stayed when war broke out and the dashing young First Lieutenant saw her as good breeding material at a thé dansant at the Ritz. Such a good breeder that after five children Ted's only hope of effective birth control was a posting to Hong Kong.
posted via 88.110.73.4 user Mike_Jones.
message 43412 - 04/10/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: Bob Blackett was Captain Flint's Age
Perhaps when Molly married Bob she "married beneath her" into a family that was not in the local gentry, and this was the reason for the Great-Aunt’s disapproval of Bob?
posted via 109.180.74.119 user eclrh.
message 43411 - 04/10/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: 2017 Appeal for funding TarBoard and All Things Ransome
Last year we were able to use our saved funds to avoid asking TarBoard and All Things Ransome users to contribute. However, we have used up our reserves and so we must come back and ask for your financial assistance again this year.
We are holding a limited time appeal for funds to maintain our All Things Ransome and TarBoard website domains alive and to pay the operating expenses to our website hosting service while still leaving us with a reserve to cover any future payments. Our accounts are available for inspection on the All Things Ransome site.
This year we are again asking you to generously donate a few pounds, dollars, or any other currency to keep the bank accounts topped up so we can keep All Things Ransome and TarBoard going.
Once more we are using PayPal this allows you to pay over the internet through your PayPal account or by credit card through PayPal. There are no additional fees to you, the site is secure and we will not keep any records of your details to maintain your privacy. To make a payment, please use this Appeal link which can also be found on the All Things Ransome site and the main page of TarBoard.
Contributions to the All Things Ransome Association in furtherance of its goals are welcome; please note however that the Association is not tax-exempt or a charitable organization in any jurisdiction.
message 43410 - 04/09/17
From: Allan_Lang, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
That may have been me, but my conclusion was it made Mary almost a decade older, on the basis that AFAIK there were no RN ships visiting Australia during the war years.
But John was clearly born during WWI, so a postwar marriage is out.
Which leaves Ted serving on a RN Cruiser on the Australia Station between 1905 (when the last one arrived) and 1910-1913 (during which time they gradually returned to England).
That leads to an 18 year old Mary meeting and marrying Ted in Sydney during that period. (Later is not possible as c.1914 Ted will be too busy to go camping with Mary before John is born.)
posted via 101.178.163.14 user Allan_Lang.
message 43409 - 04/09/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: Bob Blackett was Captain Flint's Age
Re Bob Blackett and the suggestion that Bob was a school friend of Jim; Mrs Swainson says of the Walkers (SD9) "who are the others ..... they don’t look to me like Blacketts, nor yet like Turners" implying that Bob Blackett was from a local family.
posted via 202.154.149.211 user hugo.
message 43408 - 04/09/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: 2016 Movie
I have wondered (though not when I read it first!) what else John and Nancy discussed when they went off to investigate Leading Lights (SA11)! But although the "elders" in the later books would be well into their teens, the "brats" (to use the term in WH) were not, and the last book GN is largely about the younger ones in the shore party, particularly Dick and Roger!
posted via 202.154.149.211 user hugo.
message 43407 - 04/08/17
From: Jock, subject: Conflicting objectives (was: Ransome, Shanties and Piracy by the BBC)
I understand that Eshkeri and Lewis have now entered into into a post hoc financial arrangement, though, sadly, Lewis's name will not be added to the credits. Yes, I agree with you completely about the music in the 1974 film.
message 43406 - 04/08/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Ransome, Shanties and Piracy by the BBC
A propos of this, 'Grammarly' has just issued a piece about what to do if your work is plagiarised. (I don't know how relevant the strategies might be in this case.)
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43405 - 04/08/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Ransome, Shanties and Piracy by the BBC
Well, I don't know whether I was listening to the Sailor's Prayer on that clip you linked to or not, but I'm afraid I wasn't impressed by it, or at least by the arrangement. If the part of that little snatch I listened to is typical of the music in the rest of the film, then I guess that's another reason I'm not sorry to not have seen it.
message 43404 - 04/08/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
To obtain possible evidence for Ted Walker's age I have checked at what age a number of officers who would have been his approximate contemporaries were promoted Captain.
Phillip Vian 40
Bernard Warburton-Lee 40
Lord Mountbatten 37
Andrew Cunningham 37
Henry Harwood 41
Frederick Wake-Walker 41
posted via 109.150.85.9 user MartinH.
message 43403 - 04/08/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Grand National entry
"Didn't I tell you?" (Pigeon Post, p. 160)
posted via 81.132.174.125 user Peter_H.
message 43402 - 04/08/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Grand National entry
Congratulations to the Tarboard tipster. Arthur's horse won!
posted via 141.0.14.217 user awhakim.
message 43401 - 04/08/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
...there is no reason to assume she's that young; if they met in Australia, it's unlikely there'd be more than a couple of years difference in their ages.
posted via 109.150.85.9 user MartinH.
message 43400 - 04/07/17
From: Jock, subject: Ransome, Shanties and Piracy by the BBC
Ransome's references to sea shanties kindled my lifetime interest in the subject. In 1992, I came across the Polish sea shanty group, the Cztery Refy, in Swanage of all places! I discovered that, while in England sea shanties are usually sung in the back rooms of pubs, in Poland shanties are listened to by hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of people who attend shanty concerts and festivals all around the country.
message 43399 - 04/07/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
For that matter, does that scenario --Bob as Jim's friend, marrying Jim's sister-- parallel a fantasy AR might have had with the Collingwoods, thus placing Nancy and Peggy in the position of AR's fantasy, might-have-been daughters?
posted via 24.17.138.45 user Pitsligo.
message 43398 - 04/07/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
"Molly & Jim Turner and Bob Blackett climbed the Matterhorn in 1901 (SD). Jim would then have been been 11 or so if born in 1890 but I thought perhaps the Turners and Bob were then somewhat older, perhaps teenagers?"
posted via 24.17.138.45 user Pitsligo.
message 43397 - 04/07/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
Ted Walker is a Commander in WD. And the likely youngest during SA for Mary Walker may be 32-34, but there is no reason to assume she's that young; if they met in Australia, it's unlikely there'd be more than a couple of years difference in their ages. And he certainly wouldn't have been on his first cruise when they were married. I believe the RN frowned on junior officers marrying too soon.
posted via 73.173.62.89 user Jon.
message 43396 - 04/07/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
Re Captain Flint’s age, Molly & Jim Turner and Bob Blackett climbed the Matterhorn in 1901 (SD). Jim would then have been been 11 or so if born in 1890 but I thought perhaps the Turners and Bob were then somewhat older, perhaps teenagers?
posted via 203.96.134.67 user hugo.
message 43395 - 04/06/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
National Union of Journalists. I used to be a member. Some of them were a bit weird.
posted via 81.132.174.125 user Peter_H.
message 43394 - 04/06/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
I would put Mrs Walker at about 32 to 34 based on marriage age and children - did someone not once say cold have met when UK Fleet in Australia?
posted via 165.91.13.72 user Mcneacail.
message 43393 - 04/05/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Captain Flint's Age
I *like* that bit of deduction!
posted via 24.17.138.45 user Pitsligo.
message 43392 - 04/05/17
From: Paul Crisp, subject: Re: Donald Campbell anniversary
Thank you for posting this and the link to Stanford's Blue Bird. I had not heard it since singing it at school. His Magnificat in G was always a favourite to sing in the days when I had a voice!
posted via 86.144.212.136 user Paul_Crisp.
message 43391 - 04/05/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Captain Flint's Age
For the sake of something to do I have been pondering on Captain Flint’s age. Of course this is not given in the books, but looking for clues, the only ones I could find were: carving Ben Gunn’s name more than thirty years previously, and Oxford winning the Boat Race when CF grabbed a policeman’s helmet and got himself arrested.
posted via 109.150.85.9 user MartinH.
message 43390 - 04/03/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Susan - Nurse or Torturer?
Scarum, not sacrum! The curse of predictive text!
posted via 88.110.86.69 user Mike_Jones.
message 43389 - 04/02/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Susan - Nurse or Torturer?
As AR points out somewhere, it was because of Susan's reliability that the Swallows were allowed to go off alone and have their adventures. Her treatment of burns and scalds would have accorded with AR's understanding of what that treatment should be.
posted via 88.110.86.69 user Mike_Jones.
message 43388 - 04/02/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Susan - Nurse or Torturer?
As AR points out somewhere, it was because of Susan's reliability that the Swallows were allowed to go off alone and have their adventures. Her treatment of burns and scalds would have accorded with AR's understanding of what that treatment should be.
posted via 88.110.86.69 user Mike_Jones.
message 43387 - 04/02/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Cambridge Bias Due To ML
I think Miss Lee and her father had been salting money away in Swiss bank accounts over the years, and when things turned Maoist in China she turned up in Europe and bought Beckfoot.
posted via 88.110.86.69 user Mike_Jones.
message 43386 - 04/02/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Cambridge Bias Due To ML
It must be that I'm afraid of the school mistress image! She might put me in detention!
posted via 109.155.179.201 user MartinH.
message 43385 - 04/02/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Cambridge Bias Due To ML
WHAT?! This is precisely the reason I cheer for Oxford! I would rather align myself with Captain Flint than Missee Lee. I still see her an an 'enemy'.
posted via 81.156.112.7 user Magnus.
message 43384 - 04/02/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Cambridge Bias Due To ML
I've just been watching the Oxford v Cambridge University boat races, and, as usual, I was cheering for Cambridge. Having attended neither university I can think of no other good reason for this than indoctrination by Missee Lee all those years ago.
posted via 109.155.179.201 user MartinH.
message 43383 - 04/02/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
It seems clear from SA chapter XVI, The Birthday Party, that the two mothers had met for the first time when Mrs. Blackett called on Mrs. Walker at Jacksons farm. Mrs. W describes Mrs. B as jolly, another element missing from the new film.
posted via 88.110.86.69 user Mike_Jones.
message 43382 - 04/02/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Grand National entry
The Grand National race takes place next Saturday (8 April), and one of the fancied horses is called 'One For Arthur', trained by Peter Scudamore and currently 14-1. Worth a small flutter? Grab a chance . . .
posted via 81.132.174.125 user Peter_H.
message 43381 - 04/02/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
I'd forgotten about that!
posted via 95.146.184.239 user MTD.
message 43380 - 04/02/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
Seems a reasonable theory, I've always wondered if the Walker and Blackett/Tuner adults knew each other before the children met.
posted via 95.146.184.239 user MTD.
message 43379 - 04/02/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Susan - Nurse or Torturer?
Standard treatement in my childhood in the 1960s, though I always thought it strange and would make more sense to use something cold!
posted via 95.146.184.239 user MTD.
message 43378 - 04/01/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
A Jim and Mary episode could rank with he missing chapter from GN, in which John and Nancy go off for the day together.
posted via 88.110.86.69 user Mike_Jones.
message 43377 - 04/01/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Susan - Nurse or Torturer?
According to the Dermatology Clinic at UAMS, it is very important to immediately cool the skin after receiving a burn. This helps stop the damage from the burning process. Putting butter or other greasy ointments on a burn may actually make things worse, since the grease will slow the release of heat from the skin. This causes more damage from the retained heat.
posted via 50.24.59.133 user Mcneacail.
message 43376 - 04/01/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Susan - Nurse or Torturer?
The idea of dunking people in salt water after burns dates from the Battle of Britain when I believe they noticed that pilots who were burnt did better if dunked in the channel instead of landed in Hampstead, nothing against Hampstead - not likely to drown except in the tea.
London borough
Camden
Ceremonial county Greater London
Region
London
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town LONDON
Postcode district NW3
Dialling code 020
Police Metropolitan
Fire London
Ambulance London
EU Parliament London
UK Parliament
Hampstead and Kilburn
London Assembly
Barnet and Camde
posted via 50.24.59.133 user Mcneacail.
message 43375 - 04/01/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
One does just wonder: a fancy-free Jim Turner in his houseboat and the lively Australian Mary Walker with her husband on the other side of the world.
posted via 50.24.59.133 user Mcneacail.
message 43374 - 04/01/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: Susan - Nurse or Torturer?
Remember, too, that Mother told Titty (in SA, as Man Friday), “Weren’t you scalded?” said Robinson Crusoe.
“Badly,” said Man Friday, “but I buttered the places that hurt most.”
posted via 69.140.32.156 user Jon.
message 43373 - 04/01/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Susan - Nurse or Torturer?
I believe that was the "correct" treatment for minor burns back in the day. Nowadays it is recognised that cold water on a burn is the best treatment.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43372 - 04/01/17
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Susan - Nurse or Torturer?
Having just listened to PP, and hearing again Susan advise Roger to put butter on a burn, it got me wondering: Is that good medical advice? Wouldn't Roger be frying himself? Are there any other examples of Susan's perhaps dubious medical tips?
posted via 86.152.148.207 user Tiss_Flower.
message 43371 - 03/30/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: DVD regional codes re 2016 S&A movie
PG is a strange category. On Tuesday my 5 and 8 year old grandchildren enjoyed (more than I did) two PG films: SA and Beauty and the Beast. I suppose they both had happy endings!
posted via 88.110.81.30 user Mike_Jones.
message 43370 - 03/30/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: DVD regional codes re 2016 S&A movie
Mine, bought in the UK, specifies: 'Region 2'
posted via 81.132.174.125 user Peter_H.
message 43369 - 03/30/17
From: John Wilson, subject: DVD regional codes re 2016 S&A movie
Re playing DVDs the problem is the DVD zoning (not the format), designed with new-release films in mind. North America (US & Canada) is Region 1 while (Western) Europe is Region 2 etc; some DVDS are multi-zone sometimes called Region 0. You can convert DVD players to multizone. In New Zealand DVD players are (legally) advertised and sold as multizone, and when we got a player which was not multizone some years ago the retailer sent it back to the Auckland distributor for modifying (DVD players and similar items here are generally Japanese brands though possibly made in Malaysia or Thailand etc). While Oz, NZ and Latin America are Region 4, most DVDs sold here are American or British (some of the BBC DVDs of Dad’s Army I have are labelled on the back “Regions 2 + 4”). Can someone say what zones the 2016 S&A movie is for; generally low down on the back of the case).
message 43368 - 03/30/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
See my comments on DVD zoning (as new subject).
posted via 203.96.143.54 user hugo.
message 43367 - 03/29/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
I still want to see the new movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
posted via 184.151.37.97 user rlcossar.
message 43366 - 03/29/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
I wasn't denying Captain Flint his needs, just remarking on the parallel being drawn with AR.
posted via 88.110.81.30 user Mike_Jones.
message 43365 - 03/29/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
One cannot expect Capn Flint to be a monk - one assumes that he had his needs met to use an old English expression.
posted via 128.194.94.56 user Mcneacail.
message 43364 - 03/29/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
One cannot expect Capn Flint to be a monk - one assumes that he had his needs met to use an old English expression.
posted via 128.194.94.56 user Mcneacail.
message 43363 - 03/28/17
From: Mike Jpnes, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
Only one piece of duff casting? I would add Mrs. Blackett to the list for the new film, which I played on DVD for the grandchildren this morning, at their request.
posted via 88.110.83.219 user Mike_Jones.
message 43362 - 03/28/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
John – I agree. A tradition seems to have developed whereby every attempt at a Swallows & Amazons film contains a really duff piece of casting. In the 1974 film (in other respects excellent) it was Ronald Fraser. This time it is Kelly Macdonald. The next filmed attempt is due in 2058 and who will it be? One of the very few compensations of no longer being alive is that I personally will not have to sit through it!
posted via 81.132.174.125 user Peter_H.
message 43361 - 03/28/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
Ed:
posted via 128.194.94.53 user Mcneacail.
message 43360 - 03/27/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
Alan - How well I remember that TV link to permit me to "BE THERE" and never leave Florida. My mode of speech was intentionally kept free of certain heavy local dialect in view of who that audience was. I have done broadcasting on the radio in my younger days, working my way through college, and the guide there was "sound like Walter Cronkite" as that was hopefully a General American dialect, suitable for non-USA ears. I am glad you folks were able to understand me enough to get by, as hopefully that was my deliberate intent.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43359 - 03/27/17
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
The problem may be modern sloppy acting.
posted via 90.254.43.134 user PeterC.
message 43358 - 03/27/17
From: Harry Miller, subject: Re: Bohemia in London
Thanks Andy. I agree. The passage is pure Ransome and the painting is perfect.
posted via 70.54.140.153 user dreadnaught.
message 43357 - 03/27/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
I've now had a look at my DVD, and Ed, you're quite right. The sound quality is very poor, and most characters are doing 'regional' accents, which makes it more difficult. But my 'official' DVD does have subtitles.
posted via 141.0.15.35 user awhakim.
message 43356 - 03/26/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: 2014 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
Ed, Where did you access the newest version? Was it in a movie theater?
posted via 184.151.63.226 user rlcossar.
message 43355 - 03/26/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: 2016 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
"Separated by a common language." But Ed, when you addressed the TARS Literary Weekend audience by video link, we had no difficulty understanding you. The problem may be modern sloppy acting.
I have the official DVD, but haven't watched it yet. Obviously time to get it out and see what it's like. As for rapid cross-cutting, that's the modern fashion. It probably started in Hollywood.
posted via 141.0.15.35 user awhakim.
message 43354 - 03/25/17
From: Jock, subject: Re: 2014 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
Ed, Do you mean the 2016 "Swallows and Amazons"? When I saw this, I had many problems with the new film.
posted via 178.43.117.5 user Jock.
message 43353 - 03/25/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: 2014 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
1974 version of S&A movie was quite understandable. The sound quality of the latest version just "swallowed" the sounds to the level of just noise, with an occasional word slipping by as understandable. Maybe ENGLISH as spoken in the Mother Country has shifted that far during these past few decades. When the 1974 version first came out, I was able to obtain a video TAPE to play on my VCR in a mode compatible with US requirements. That tape is to me a precious possession.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43352 - 03/25/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: 2014 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
Ed, have you seen the 1974 movie of S&A? Were you able to understand that? I haven't seen the new one so I can't do an actual comparison, but it could well be that the 1974 movie holds closer to "BBC" english which isn't terribly difficult for most Americans to understand. If you haven't seen the 1974 version yet, there's a link to it on YouTube from the Media Vault page in All Things Ransome.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43351 - 03/24/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: 2014 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
Sorry 'bout that, I got the gentleman's name incorrectly spelled, as it should have been "GABRIEL WOOLF" - mea culpa. I have all twelve of his recordings, both the early set of cassette tapes, and then a later issue of CD recordings, a valuable part of my Ransome collection. I especially enjoyed his rendition of certain local dialects, like Jacky, or the Eelman, or the Scots in GN?. But all quite understandable. Maybe it is the difference between his words, the words of an adult, and the dialect spoken by the children in S&A.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43350 - 03/24/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: 2014 Movie "Swallows and Amazons"
Being an American, living in Kentucky, I was delighted to finally find an access to view the Movie of S&A 2014. Eager to finally get to see it, I found there was a problem similar to watching the HARRY POTTER movies, in that I only caught a word or two here and there, but mainly, was unable to understand the Accent the characters used, as being so unfamiliar to my own Southern American Dialect. HARRY POTTER on DVD gave me SUBTITLES in ENGLISH, so I was finally able to understand what was happening, but with no convenient translations into ENGLISH, I finally just had to give up on watching S&A as not being able to comprehend their words. If this comes out on DVD, and it has to be the AMERICAN style of DVD encoding, then maybe that will have ENGLISH subtitles, and then I can follow the events. Until such becomes available, and that may be never, I will just have to let this one slide on by, unviewed. Not happy about this, but the words spoken, especially by the children, are just not received. I got left out on this one, much to my disappointment. Harry Potter saved me by giving me subtitles; will S&A eventually do the same? "...a common people, separated only by our common language." Heard that somewhere... Now I understand. It is apparently not all that common after all, but at least, HERE on this Forum, we have the written word, not bothering with differences in pronunciation. I tried to watch, but it just did not work for me. Yet the spoken Ransome books by Wolfe seem to be quite comprehensible and a pleasure to experience.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43349 - 03/23/17
From: Andy, subject: Bohemia in London
I'm re-reading this (I've an October 1907 American edition) and loved the bit on coffee-stalls: it's so Ransome.
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
message 43348 - 03/21/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Islands Re: Not as thought/remembered
Ling Holme is far bigger than I envisage Cormorant Island. A small rocky island with a couple of bleached trees on it (from the cormorant droppings).
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43347 - 03/20/17
From: Duncan, subject: Re: Not as thought/remembered
That's the island that the Altounyans called Cormorant Island. But it's tiny. I don't think it's that much like the description. Most people seemed to think it was Silver Holme on Windermere (which is nothing like Cormorant Island now, but used to be less wooded when the cormorants lived there. I've often wondered about Ling Holme (but only because I'm obsessed with Wild Cat Island being Ramp Holme!!) Obviously that would have needed to be less wooded too! (This picture is Ling Holme by the way)
message 43346 - 03/20/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: Not as thought/remembered
That's because it's on Coniston, just South of Peel Island. Went right by it on the Swallows and Amazons cruise.
posted via 69.140.32.156 user Jon.
message 43345 - 03/20/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Not as thought/remembered
Cormorant Island is always an anomaly -- even as a child it struck me as strange and not real.
posted via 165.91.13.85 user Mcneacail.
message 43344 - 03/20/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Not as thought/remembered
Cormorant Island is always an anomaly -- even as a child it struck me as strange and not real.
posted via 165.91.13.85 user Mcneacail.
message 43343 - 03/18/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Not as thought/remembered
Have you re-read a book and discovered that something is not as you had thought it was?
posted via 81.140.174.146 user MartinH.
message 43342 - 03/08/17
From: David Maxwell, subject: Re: Suzie G. Heel
Thanks to all for the information!
posted via 97.78.238.94 user DavidMaxwell.
message 43341 - 03/08/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Suzie G. Heel
I found a rather sparse genealogy website (which focusses on celebrities) which indicates that Tabitha's daughter from her first marriage to Frederick Lewis, Hazel Vale, was the mother of the author Suzie Heel and the illustrator Sally Stride of the book "Once Upon a Magical Christmas Eve" which has the Ransome relationship on the cover, obviously hoping to cash in.
message 43340 - 03/08/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: Suzie G. Heel
Tabitha married John Lewis a dockworker in 1934; they had a son and daughter. Tabitha fell out with her father in 1942 when she offered to sell him his library of books (inherited from Ivy), and as he did not reply she sold them to a bookseller for the bargain price of £25. He thought that she should have offered them back to him for free! From I think the 2008 biography "The Last Englishman" by Roland Chambers. Not a happy family relationship.
posted via 202.154.145.35 user hugo.
message 43339 - 03/07/17
From: David Maxwell, subject: Suzie G. Heel
I've found an interesting book by a Suzie Heel, a great granddaughter of Arthur Ransome. Did Tabitha get married and have kids? Maybe I'm just forgetting things now but that does not sound familiar to me. Can someone enlighten me on this?
posted via 97.78.238.94 user DavidMaxwell.
message 43338 - 03/06/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands and two more
Three million cheers! Jolly well done, Dave.
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43337 - 03/05/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands and two more
THREE new videos... no idea where that missing "T" got to.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43336 - 03/05/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands and two more
hree new Youtube videos were added to the Media Vault of All Things Ransome today: Britain's Lost Waterlands: Escape to Swallows and Amazons Country; BBC - The Secret Life of Books Series 2 (2015) Part 6: Swallows and Amazons; and the full 1974 film of Swallows and Amazons.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43335 - 03/04/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Heading for the Broads district
Ah but did you get any 'suggestions' from George Owdon?
posted via 86.175.120.123 user Peter_H.
message 43334 - 03/04/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: What about Peggy?
I expect Mike Dennis's assessment is probably pretty accurate: AR needed Nancy to have a "sidekick", to showcase Nancy more clearly. Speaking as a writer myself, AR was also right at the limit of how many characters he could juggle, both in terms of keeping the story moving forward at a good pace and in keeping each character distinct within the all-cast scenes (especially writing with a younger audience in mind, where some subtlety of character must often be sacrificed for clarity). I have my thoughts on how he could have done it, to include a more developed Peggy, and perhaps should have done it, but it's easy (and unfair) to criticise when I'm not the one doing the writing.
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43333 - 03/04/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: What about Peggy?
Good question! It's almost as if AR just needed a contrast to Nancy and nothing more.
posted via 95.149.130.55 user MTD.
message 43332 - 03/04/17
From: Tiss Flower, subject: What about Peggy?
I've always wondered why Peggy never got her moment to shine. She never really emerges from Nancy's shadow, even in WH when she does try to step into her sister's shoes. She seems to be something of an enigma. We know she's capable as she's as good a sailor as Nancy and we know she doesn't like thunderstorms. Otherwise she's the major character we know least about.
posted via 81.132.63.207 user Tiss_Flower.
message 43331 - 03/04/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Rites of Passage: John, Nancy... Dick?
It does seem AR was looking for a way to finish the series, but we know he was running out of ideas. Though CN is interesting it has always struck me as a bit 'forced', whereas GN gave him the chance to end things quite neatly.
posted via 95.149.130.55 user MTD.
message 43330 - 03/04/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Rites of Passage: John, Nancy... Dick?
I remember reading PD and ML as a child and not noticing the 'metafiction' idea, though I was confused by the PD references in SD. It's interesting there is no reference in the other books of how ML came about.
posted via 95.149.130.55 user MTD.
message 43329 - 03/03/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Rites of Passage: John, Nancy... Dick?
It's interesting to contemplate this in light of Coots in the North which Ransome started in the summer of 1943. It's unclear whether he eventually ran out of steam on CN by itself or whether Myles North's plot proposal in 1944 that turned into Great Northern? simply derailed CN (and maybe the Gamekeeper book as well?).
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43328 - 03/03/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Heading for the Broads district
Very many thanks to Peter Duck, who emailed me privately with a whole host of suggestions. :-)
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43327 - 03/03/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Rites of Passage: John, Nancy... Dick?
It is hard for me to comment on this, as the "meta fiction" label on PD, ML and GN was never apparent to me as a child, and I thus find it hard to embrace it now. They are all fiction, and yet so wonderful I don't spend even one second believing it isn't real when I'm reading.
posted via 31.48.241.211 user Magnus.
message 43326 - 03/02/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Rites of Passage: John, Nancy... Dick?
Some very good points Alex.
posted via 95.149.130.55 user MTD.
message 43325 - 03/02/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Rites of Passage: John, Nancy... Dick?
I think it's pretty well accepted that AR wrote WDMTGTS to be John's "graduation" to adulthood, meeting the challenge of taking Goblin across the North Sea. It's quite a rite of passage, and perfectly tailored for John both as we know him *and* as we anticipate his adult career path (in the RN).
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43324 - 02/27/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Heading for the Broads district
... later this year. Also Pin Mill and Secret Water, and catching up with JW of SOS. Anything else we should particularly do/see if we can fit it in?
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43323 - 02/21/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Two Lake District TV documentaries
There is also a programme on BBC4 at 21.00 tonight about the South Downs National Park. It could well include something about Chichester Harbour, where AR kept his boat in his later years.
posted via 141.0.14.72 user awhakim.
message 43322 - 02/21/17
From: Jock, subject: Re: Two Lake District TV documentaries
Sadly, dear Auntie's beeb-player only works if you have a UK IP address.
posted via 178.43.129.210 user Jock.
message 43321 - 02/20/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Two Lake District TV documentaries
In the last week or two there have been not one but two separate documentaries about the Lake District on BBC TV, each one hour long.
message 43320 - 02/15/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Another famous writing chair is that of Roald Dahl. An ancient old thing, with a hole hacked our for his bent spine, tucked into a cold shed full of knick knacks (just as AR liked), a blanket on his knees and a board on his lap.
message 43319 - 02/14/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Apparently the chair is in the Harry Ransom Library (the name provides a tenuous connection with AR if anyone's looking for one) at the University of Texas, Austin. I have no idea how it got there. The makers were stated to be J. Foot & Son, who were then at 171 New Bond Street London, and who were in existence from at least 1901 to 1929.
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43318 - 02/14/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Ah, that takes me back! Them were the days when we had drink and biscuits provided for meetings. Embarrassingly now we point our visitors in the direction of the cafeteria and ask them to purchase their own refreshments.
posted via 86.175.180.84 user MartinH.
message 43317 - 02/14/17
From: Paul Crisp, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
In a BBC radio comedy years back, someone applying for the job of pushing a tea-trolley round a government building was asked whether she had the required BSc in Chemical Engineering for the post.
posted via 86.153.140.208 user Paul_Crisp.
message 43316 - 02/14/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
CM's chair -- find out what museum it is in - we can then measure it.
posted via 128.194.94.27 user Mcneacail.
message 43315 - 02/14/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Back in the 1970s, meetings with civil servants in Sanctuary Buildings, Westminster, often began with a discussion of which hot brown drink had been served. The best clue was the time of day.
posted via 92.18.214.192 user Mike_Jones.
message 43314 - 02/13/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Ah well, I'm glad the chair sparked some interest. I think it's a fascinating article myself, I admit. Anyway, here's a larger version of the picture so you can better see how things work. (Sorry Alex, but I don't have the plans.)
message 43313 - 02/13/17
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
I don't know where Mike finds these things, either; he's a gentleman of infinite resource! I also think that it is a thing of wonder, but just a little too upright for my taste. I'll stick to my recliner, thanks.
David
posted via 121.214.35.6 user David.
message 43312 - 02/13/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
The hot drink machines produced a uniformly foul brown liquid - many believed it made no difference whether you pressed 'tea' or 'coffee'.
posted via 2.31.187.235 user eclrh.
message 43311 - 02/13/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
That chair is insanely awesome!
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43310 - 02/13/17
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Crikey - it looks a bit like Old Sparky.
posted via 90.252.185.154 user PeterC.
message 43309 - 02/13/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Crikey - it looks a bit like Old Sparky.
posted via 86.182.41.52 user Peter_H.
message 43308 - 02/13/17
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands- tea tea tea
Flint -- I was speaking metaphorically -- it is a bad as the 1860's in London
I live in one of the more interesting, liveliest and loveliest bits of London, Peckham (one of the Donald's no-go areas, I think, complete with East End gangster funerals up the road) and it's in Lambeth which in Victorian pre-Bazalgette days was a cholera hot spot, as it drew its water from the Thames directly below the Vauxhall outflow from the City (this is from memory- if anybody wishes to correct the detail, please do).
Now, the water is sweet and cool, much better tasting than it was in the more prosperous South West of London where we used to live.
But I still drink tea from Waitrose Indian Chai bags, with milk, and it reminds me happily of that roadside tea seller in Delhi.
posted via 90.252.185.154 user PeterC.
message 43307 - 02/12/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Seventy-six years now, John. And CM has been gone for forty-five of them.... I have 'Whisky Galore' on tape, and re-watch it regularly.
message 43306 - 02/12/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Flint -- I was speaking metaphorically -- it is a bad as the 1860's in London -- we just kill the children slowly with lead instead of quickly with Cholera. Long live john Snow.
Of course most of it is Lipton's Never in the course of human history, has one man made so much money from losing.'
posted via 50.24.59.133 user Mcneacail.
message 43305 - 02/11/17
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Clean water and plumbing (no foul arrows or slings please) is an important consideration at the time and really up to to that point in time and one must say in Flint now.
In Delhi, I used to get tea from a roadside seller. He had a clay built charcoal fireplace, always lit, with a metal kettle. He added the milk and sugar before putting it on to boil. He would then pour it into unfired clay cups, which would last just long enough for you to drink the tea, but which would collapse into a lump of clay shortly afterwards, and be added to a pile of waste clay nearby. Result; you were assured that the tea was sterile, and that your actual cup was freshly made and free of contamination from previous customers.
It seemed to work; I drank quite a few cups from the particular seller, and had no gut troubles at all.
Flint's lead contamination wouldn't be be fixed by tea drinking, however.
posted via 90.252.185.154 user PeterC.
message 43304 - 02/10/17
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands now tea
A few thoughts on tea.
No machine that uses plastic cups can produce decent tea. Boiling water either melts the cup or makes it sag badly so that the tea spills. Boiling water proof cups for machines can be produced, but the used to cost £1.53 against £0.02 for the standard plastic cup.
The British Army has always produced foul tea. But if you have just completed a route march with a heavy pack – it seemed like nectar. Legend has it that the tea was laced with bromide to restraint the soldier’s sexual ardour. Milk may well have been cooked with the tea to pasteurise it and prevent an outbreak of TB.
IBM tea made in their London offices, which was made in a warmed teapot with boiling water. They used Lyons Orange Label (does anyone remember this?) tea. No tea bags in the pot – a major plus point.
Nowadays the teabag in a mug has become the standard way of tea making in most offices and many homes. A point of difference is to warm the mug over the kettle spout.
Iced tea without milk has been popular for many years. With lemon or lime it does make an excellent drink in warmer weather. Many people use Earl Grey for this type of tea.
Force cereal was discontinued in 2013 after 112 years of production. I did buy it occasionally for its S&A connections, it was a cornflake type of product and may be reintroduced as manufacturers seek to reduce the amount of sugar, salt and artificial colouring in cereals.
posted via 87.113.133.203 user OwenRoberts.
message 43303 - 02/10/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
I must speak up on behalf of the IBM tea drinkers. Most of us were British, with no pretence of being American. The hot drink machines produced a uniformly foul brown liquid - many believed it made no difference whether you pressed 'tea' or 'coffee'. Surprisingly, this was very popular.
Personally, I hardly ever bought the stuff. I called this saving of expense my tax-free income.
posted via 141.0.14.217 user awhakim.
message 43302 - 02/10/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Boiling water:
posted via 128.194.94.60 user Mcneacail.
message 43301 - 02/10/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
British Army, I should have made clear.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43300 - 02/10/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
That's certainly possible. Another data point, I had breakfast once in c. 1962 with a British unit near Hannover on an exercise. Big urns with tea premixed with milk. Perhaps it was an institutional thing.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43299 - 02/09/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Sounds to me Ed as if the IBM people were from the US and trying to be English (in my experience of them it happened quite often!)
posted via 2.31.100.146 user MTD.
message 43298 - 02/09/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
As a child I didn't understand the obsession with tea, but looking back I realise you had to boil the lake water to drink it safely, so you might as well have a cuppa.
posted via 81.156.117.125 user Magnus.
message 43297 - 02/09/17
From: Allan_Lang, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
"Sometimes the tea would be used in their cereal "Force" but mostly it was for the tea."
posted via 101.178.163.14 user Allan_Lang.
message 43296 - 02/09/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
John - Ed here, enjoying a big glass of tea - Very Cold with ICE made by freezing the tea itself, so the melting does not dilute the drink. It has a twist of lemon to spark the flavor, but I dare not foul the drink with any thought of adding "milk" as that would not be my cup of tea.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43295 - 02/09/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
I agree a nice chap, although I once remember a TARS wife who said :: "Old men who enjoy a nice cup of tea." Or in Ed's case possible gatoraide
posted via 165.91.12.98 user Mcneacail.
message 43294 - 02/09/17
From: Jock, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Another documentary, this time by Ben Fogle, covering SA, Coniston, and the making of the first SA film.
posted via 178.43.119.116 user Jock.
message 43293 - 02/08/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Indeed, a thorough gentleman. And his boat Peggy Blackett is almost a dead ringer for Amazon too, so another tick for him. :)
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43292 - 02/08/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Also one of AR's Literary Executors and a trustee of the AR Trust.
posted via 141.0.14.219 user awhakim.
message 43291 - 02/08/17
From: Jock, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands- AR locations
Both the cottage and Quay house were raised up in the 1980/90s
posted via 178.43.119.116 user Jock.
message 43290 - 02/07/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Geraint Lewis - I met him about 15 years ago at Holly Howe when we stayed for a few days, think a youngish Captain Flint with a wife and a boat.
posted via 165.91.12.11 user Mcneacail.
message 43289 - 02/06/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
Thanks very much Ed, that's a wonderful find -- one which I thoroughly enjoyed.
message 43288 - 02/06/17
From: Jon, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands
My only regret is that they didn't call out more specific places; I think I recognized many of the Lakes and Broads locales, but it'd be nice to be sure.
posted via 69.140.32.156 user Jon.
message 43287 - 02/06/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands- AR locations
Unfortunately Witch's Quay no longer looks how it did in AR's day. Both the cottage and Quay house were raised up in the 1980/90s to protect from flooding which altered the appearance of the cottage in particular.
posted via 95.149.55.173 user MTD.
message 43286 - 02/06/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: Constable Sam
Sammy Lewthwaite the policeman is wrong to blame John for the houseboat burglary (as suggested by Jim Turner) in SA. But he was right about the Amazons being connected with the study burglary in PM; and Nancy says he was “quite good for a policeman” when the GA describes Timothy and Sammy asks how she could be sure of the colours of his clothes in the moonlight. The GA had seen Timothy “loitering” near the house during the day, and says that suspicious characters should be locked up before they carry out any housebreaking!
posted via 203.96.130.39 user hugo.
message 43285 - 02/06/17
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Britain's Lost Waterlands- AR locations
Click on this link, and sit back, and enjoy the trip to Ransome Land, made to be REAL.
And actual locations in the stories are best found on the Broads, where the locations are well covered, and at Pin Mill, which has Alma Cottage, the Butt and Oyster and the hard pretty well unchanged from AR's pictures, and to a certain extent Hamford Water, where you can see views around the Wade, and the lane that leads towards Witch's Quay, although not as far as the place itself. It all takes me back.
posted via 90.252.185.154 user PeterC.
message 43284 - 02/05/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Constable Sam
Classed as an act of terrorism - bet the Insurance Co said no
posted via 50.24.59.133 user Mcneacail.
message 43283 - 02/05/17
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: Constable Sam
I can't help but picture the insurance clerk who reads the claim form submitted by the car's owner; "the car was blown up by the police." I'm sure that the police would have to explain to the insurance company, who are know to have no sense of humour when it comes to claims.
David
posted via 120.144.160.247 user David.
message 43282 - 02/05/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Britain's Lost Waterlands
BRITAIN'S LOST WATERLANDS: ESCAPE TO SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS COUNTRY BBC DOCUMENTARY 2016
Ed Kiser, USA, [ kisered@aol.com ]
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43281 - 02/05/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Constable Sam
The incident sounds like something that would happen to Constable Sammy from the SA series.
posted via 50.24.59.133 user Mcneacail.
message 43280 - 02/05/17
From: andy clayton, subject: Re: Ransome Characters played by actors
Even AR had this problem. He developed the S & A characters in his head and his books, then when he went to visit the Altounyans in Syria, he experienced a terrible clash of fiction and reality which led to a falling out with the family. This is a problem, particularly with children who grow and change so fast, but also with friends who are separated for long periods of time. We have to be prepared to renew the friendship.
posted via 80.189.220.32 user cousin_jack.
message 43279 - 02/04/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Film Thoughts
That's an interesting approach, but I wonder whether the problem is really that SA is actually not the best and most adaptable of the books. I think it was Hugh Brogan who suggested that WH was the first of the series to show AR at his best, but film makers have never seen past the brand value of SA. Even the BBC adaptations of CC and BS were branded Swallows and Amazons for Ever!
posted via 88.110.90.72 user Mike_Jones.
message 43278 - 02/04/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Film Thoughts
I'm re-reading Peter Duck right now and though I have not had the opportunity to see this new film yet I'm wondering if people could accept it more if they looked at it as story created by the children. Peter Duck and even Great Northern (which I consider not a made up story) deal with bad people, violence and even guns. It seems to me it might fit the cannon when viewed this way.
posted via 184.151.37.150 user rlcossar.
message 43277 - 02/04/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Ransome Characters played by actors
The actor who played Tom Dudgeon, Henry Dimbleby, is the grandson of one of the UK's most famous broadcasters, Richard Dimbleby. As a BBC correspondent, he reported the D Day landings and made the first radio broadcast from Belsen, and went on to a distinguished TV career. Henry's father and uncle are also well known broadcasters, but he has not followed in their footsteps; he is a food columnist and co-founder of a restaurant chain.
posted via 88.110.90.72 user Mike_Jones.
message 43276 - 02/04/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Ransome Characters played by actors
In looking at the movie, "Coot Club," I discovered a few background facts regarding certain actors.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43275 - 02/03/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Constable Sam
Umm...?
Alex
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43274 - 02/03/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Constable Sam
A bomb squad was called after concerns about an unattended Vauxhall Corsa at Workington police station, Cumbria.
The building was evacuated, a 100m cordon put in place and the vehicle blown up.
posted via 128.194.94.60 user Mcneacail.
message 43273 - 02/02/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: 2016 Film - Climax doubts
Absolutely.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43272 - 02/01/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
I still want a chance to see it here in Canada
posted via 184.151.37.150 user rlcossar.
message 43271 - 02/01/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: 2016 Film - Climax doubts
Mike - in my experience, when things don't match up children are the first to notice!
posted via 81.129.123.43 user Peter_H.
message 43270 - 02/01/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Film Thoughts
Why did they not use the old Swallow that I part own (somehow) -- it does not have shrouds -- real bummer that was.
posted via 128.194.94.26 user Mcneacail.
message 43269 - 02/01/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Film Thoughts
I started watching the film last night on my small computer screen.
My thoughts on the film,
first minute the year is listed as 1935 - makes no difference to the film so why change.
John
posted via 128.194.94.26 user Mcneacail.
message 43268 - 02/01/17
From: Mike Jones , subject: Re: 2016 Film - Climax doubts
It's a children's film. Suspension of disbelief?
posted via 82.132.228.145 user Mike_Jones.
message 43267 - 01/31/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: 2016 Film - Climax doubts
Impossible in the extreme
posted via 50.24.59.133 user Mcneacail.
message 43266 - 01/31/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: 2016 Film - Climax doubts
I have given my opinion on the new film and don’t want to add to it, but I would be interested to know what others thought of the climactic event of the film – the attempt by the crews of ‘Amazon’ and ‘Swallow’ to prevent the aircraft which carries the captured Capn Flint from taking off from the lake. They do this by stretching a rope between the two boats so that it catches on the undercarriage (floats) of the aircraft.
posted via 81.129.123.43 user Peter_H.
message 43265 - 01/31/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
Regarding "HIED".
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43264 - 01/31/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
Anyone who knows Shakespeare's Twelfth Night will remember Olivia saying, "Hie thee, Malvolio" when she wants him to act quickly.
posted via 141.0.14.146 user awhakim.
message 43263 - 01/31/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Rating films (was Contrasting Viewpoint)
Jock:
message 43262 - 01/31/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Rating films (was Contrasting Viewpoint)
Interesting Jock, a quick look at the reviews showed that most of those that liked had not ever read the book. We also have to remember that it is not yet been released in the USA. Anyone know why?
posted via 95.145.229.242 user MTD.
message 43261 - 01/31/17
From: Jock, subject: Rating films (was Contrasting Viewpoint)
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) audience ratings give quite a reasonable indication of audience reaction to a film.
I thought that it would be interesting to see how the new S&A film compared to some other family films.
7.5 – Hugo
7.5 – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
7.2 – The Hunger Games
6.8 – Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
6.8 – Pete's Dragon
6.4 – The BFG (2016)
7.9 – E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
8.0 – The Sound of Music
posted via 178.43.127.230 user Jock.
message 43260 - 01/30/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
Though some of my criticisms of the film were to the way the source material was use, other observations I would have made if I had watched it having never read the book. The main reason in that it was a period piece presented as if it was the present day.
posted via 2.31.100.195 user MTD.
message 43259 - 01/30/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
"Hie" was used in my childhood too, but more with the connotation of "progressing towards" rather than "moving with alacrity".
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43258 - 01/30/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
I certainly agree with the first part of your comment Dave, and I hope you're right about the rest too....
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43257 - 01/30/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
Nor to me, as in "to hie after" something or someone. But I am not sure I've heard it in conversation in America, and I probably learned it from a book at a young age.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43256 - 01/30/17
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
I think that the fact that we, who are familiar with the original story, can watch the 1974 movie with some pleasure forty-three years later is a tribute to that film, and Claude Whatham's skill as a director. The new film, I feel, will sink without trace quite quickly.
posted via 110.148.118.20 user David.
message 43255 - 01/30/17
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
'Hie' is not a new verb to me John. I have always understood it to mean to move with a certain alacrity. I believe that its origin is Scottish, and so it would have been quite appropriate to use it in GN.
posted via 110.148.118.20 user David.
message 43254 - 01/30/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
I have commented on this film twice on Tarboard: after seeing it in the cinema with my eight-year old grandson, and after viewing the DVD at home with my AR library glowering down at me from the shelves. As I said, it worked as a film in the cinema, though some of it jarred, but was a much less happy experience at home.
posted via 92.18.213.247 user Mike_Jones.
message 43253 - 01/30/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
How hard is it to make a good movie from such excellent material?
posted via 128.194.94.27 user Mcneacail.
message 43252 - 01/30/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
A professional negative review would be interesting to see - there must be one somewhere!
posted via 2.28.84.53 user MTD.
message 43251 - 01/30/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
"Don't let someone who has read it review it." Ugh. I suspect you're right, but on the off chance a knowledgeable review has slipped past the movie industry kapos, and someone here knows about it, a link would be appreciated.
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43250 - 01/30/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Contrasting Viewpoint
It does seem Alex that most of the reviews in quality sources rated it 3 or 4 out of 5, but they all seem to use reviewers who were not AR readers. Over the years I've see this with a lot of film adaptations of books - don't let someone who has read it review it!
posted via 2.28.84.53 user MTD.
message 43249 - 01/30/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Contrasting Viewpoint
Could someone point me toward a commercial news outlet's *negative* review of the recent movie?
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43248 - 01/30/17
From: Jock, subject: Re: S & A 2016 Film (Again!)
Having recently watched the film, I found this a very fair review.
posted via 178.43.114.252 user Jock.
message 43247 - 01/29/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: S & A 2016 Film (Again!)
Having at long last watched the film I've posted my review.
posted via 2.28.231.170 user MTD.
message 43246 - 01/27/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Ramanujan (was Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots')
Andy:
2. A drone a day - excellent
3. Further to the comments about the books not starting aka Commander Walker and the no go telegram -- imagine the end of GN and Cpn Flint is talking to Nancy -- you are what?
John
posted via 165.91.13.203 user Mcneacail.
message 43245 - 01/26/17
From: Peter Matthews, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
Thank you Alan and Owen and sorry for not repling sooner but I have been away. 8 weeks certainly explains how they managed to get so much done in the holidays!
posted via 212.42.177.213 user Electronpusher.
message 43244 - 01/26/17
From: Andy, subject: Re: Ramanujan (was Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots')
I'm currently using an MPU6050 with an Arduino to monitor changes in angle over time. While fretting over the code, I have also thought that this is exactly Dick's kind of stuff. If 'born' 95 years later, he'd almost certainly have a home-brewed solar-powered GPS unit on Scarab.
posted via 77.99.248.142 user Andy.
message 43243 - 01/23/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Lovely AR cartoon on ATR
Ha Ha, I'd forgotten that!
posted via 142.176.10.175 user rlcossar.
message 43242 - 01/23/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: S & A Stage Production (not Bristol Old Vic)
True, DPIO also started at the Nuffield. Denise mentioned that explicitly in her talk.
posted via 141.0.14.219 user awhakim.
message 43241 - 01/23/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Lovely AR cartoon on ATR
This cartoon reminds me of a compilation of TarBoard postings entitled "Cut off before their Prime" that was published in the TARS journal Mixed Moss back in Winter 2003.
or
"MAYBE NEXT YEAR BUT ONLY UNDER CLOSE SUPERVISION" (Ian Wright)
"At that moment something glanced off the saucepan with a loud ping. A long arrow with a green feather, stuck quivering in John's chest."
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43240 - 01/22/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Reeflng, was: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Cool: I learn something new every day. Thank you!
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43239 - 01/22/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Having never sailed, let alone reefed, a lug-rigged boat I can't pass comment. However, when reefing the bermudean rig of a Comet or similar the reefing line raises the clew (providing you remembered to slacken off the kicker), then bring the new tack down to the gooseneck while slackening off the halyard. Fasten the reef points (bungee cords in our case), tighten the halyard, and finally the kicker.
posted via 86.129.192.189 user MartinH.
message 43238 - 01/22/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: S & A Stage Production (not Bristol Old Vic)
This will have been the dramatisation by Denise Deegan for the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton at Christmas 1988. Denise before that had a great success with Daisy Pulls It Off, a spoof play based on girls' school stories of the early 20th century. It ran in the London West End for a long time.
posted via 86.129.192.189 user MartinH.
message 43237 - 01/22/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: S & A Stage Production (not Bristol Old Vic)
Thank you Alan, that explains a lot!
posted via 95.150.14.143 user MTD.
message 43236 - 01/22/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Unfortunately, neither the 1919 or the 1938 edition have an illustration.
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43235 - 01/22/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Conveniently, I just last night finished reading my copy of Knight (the 1919 edition, as pictured here). He describes how to mouse sisterhooks, but does not provide an illustration.
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43234 - 01/22/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: S & A Stage Production (not Bristol Old Vic)
This will have been the dramatisation by Denise Deegan for the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton at Christmas 1988. Denise before that had a great success with Daisy Pulls It Off, a spoof play based on girls' school stories of the early 20th century. It ran in the London West End for a long time.
There was another production of S&A a year or two later at Theatr Clwyd, and then Denise came and gave a delightful talk about it all at the TARS Literary Weekend in 1995. If anyone out there is a TARS member, they can get the "Transcripts of the Third Literary Weekend". I'm not going to quote it here: it runs to 11 pages of A4.
Sadly, though there was tremendous enthusiasm at the talk about another adaptation, nothing ever came of it.
(Incidentally, if you do get the transcripts, you'll find other gems such as Publishing Arthur Ransome by Tony Colwell, who looked after the books at Jonathan Cape's for years.)
posted via 141.0.15.34 user awhakim.
message 43233 - 01/22/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: OED
On that note, if you're not familiar with the web cartoon xkcd, and its author, Randall Monroe, check it out. He also put out a book titled "Thing-Explainer", using only the 1000 most common English words to explain such scientific concepts or creations as the Saturn V rocket, Big Bang, etc. It's quite something. Dick would be more eloquent, explaining science, but it gets the point across.
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43232 - 01/22/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Lovely AR cartoon on ATR
Doesn't that just cover it?
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43231 - 01/22/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Lovely AR cartoon on ATR
Mike, as Julia owns the original and refers to it as "her favourite" of the First Drafts, I think it is definitely not recent, but I haven't asked her.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43230 - 01/22/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: S & A Stage Production (not Bristol Old Vic)
Thanks Martin, at least us more to go on.
posted via 95.150.14.143 user MTD.
message 43229 - 01/22/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: S & A Stage Production (not Bristol Old Vic)
This is probably the production of SA I attended at Southampton's Nuffield Theatre in the early 80s. I've tried googling for further information but can't find anything.
posted via 86.129.192.189 user MartinH.
message 43228 - 01/22/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: S & A Stage Production (not Bristol Old Vic)
Re-reading Peter Hunt's 'Approaching Arthur Ransome' he mentions in the preface a stage production of SA in the 1980s, I've tried some Online searches for it with no results.
posted via 95.150.14.143 user MTD.
message 43227 - 01/22/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Lovely AR cartoon on ATR
Could you imagine? Nobody would know who Ransome was today and film makers would be a total loss for creating children's adventure stories
posted via 184.151.36.61 user rlcossar.
message 43226 - 01/22/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Lovely AR cartoon on ATR
Dave - thanks for posting my review and for this cartoon, I'm a bit behind reading the latest Private Eye so had yet to see it!
posted via 95.150.14.143 user MTD.
message 43225 - 01/21/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Lovely AR cartoon on ATR
We've just posted a charming AR cartoon, one of the "First Drafts" series. See http://allthingsransome.net/vault/index.html or you can go directly to the cartoon at: http://allthingsransome.net/vault/First%20Drafts%20Arthur%20Ransome.jpg.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43224 - 01/21/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: OED
Allegedly one can get by with Basic English (either 850 or about 2000 words depending on the source) but I believe several thousand is more realistic. One of the useful things about English is that while it is awfully difficult to master, it is very easy to grasp enough to make yourself understood; one of the reasons English has become so ubiquitous.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43223 - 01/21/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Mike has given permission for us to post his review on All Things Ransome. See the Literary Pages Reviews section, or the Ransome Readers Recommend section.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43222 - 01/21/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Cringe-worthy Alex, isn't it? He'd used them to attach the jib-sheets, and the flogging sail made them work loose while he was on the fore-deck when the accident happened.
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43221 - 01/21/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: OED
While I enjoy improving my word power and learning more words I can weave into my life, I wonder what is a reasonable minimum number of English words one needs to get by.
posted via 184.151.61.104 user rlcossar.
message 43220 - 01/21/17
From: Hotted up (was: Review of SA&C), subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
We had this discussion only a few months ago.
posted via 2.31.117.176 user eclrh.
message 43219 - 01/21/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
For those wishing to emulate John and Dick, below is a link to an on-line version on the All Things Ransome site.
message 43218 - 01/21/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Mousing the sisterhooks: The answer is, of course, in Sailing (or Small Boat Sailing) by E.F. Knight, that "slim blue volume" that Dick and John are forever referring to.
posted via 81.156.113.224 user Magnus.
message 43217 - 01/21/17
From: Words, subject: OED
How many words are there in the English language?
posted via 50.24.51.118 user Mcneacail.
message 43216 - 01/21/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
SAD - teaches you one thing, a good leader is not a bad thing, a bad egg should be drowned at birth or at least sent down.
posted via 50.24.51.118 user Mcneacail.
message 43215 - 01/21/17
From: Robert, subject: Re: Ramanujan (was Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots')
I have found that most academic people have very little interest outside their immediate office. I do an awful lot of very fine work with accelerometers, and at the moment we have one on a bridge in London, I have spent the last two months getting it to work on a Linux box, using MONO so that we had a more stable platform than WINDOWS and cheaper. I got it running on NUC, which is expensive and I just got it running on an English PI 2. We cannot use the USB driver written for windows so we go through the ethernet. Fair amount of code writing, but fun. Dick would have had a PI 2 or 3 on his summer hols.
posted via 50.24.51.118 user Mcneacail.
message 43214 - 01/21/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
...nearly dragged overboard by one of a pair of sister-hooks caught in the corner of his eye...
EEE! OOO! AH! Please don't talk about that ever again. It curls my toes.
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43213 - 01/21/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
"Hotted up" is unusual? Really? Daily phrase, here.
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43212 - 01/21/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Aw, shucks.
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43211 - 01/21/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
My daughter and I tend to use "hotted up", but that might be because we are S&A readers
posted via 86.129.192.189 user MartinH.
message 43210 - 01/20/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
In his 1869 book Down Channel, R T McMullen recounts how he was nearly dragged overboard by one of a pair of sister-hooks caught in the corner of his eye. That was how he learned he always needed to mouse them....
message 43209 - 01/20/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Oh no, we still hot things up here. (Or else we zap them....)
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43208 - 01/20/17
From: Allan_Lang, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
When I first read Ransome, at age 10-11, I was able to work out from context what most of the strange words meant
posted via 101.178.163.206 user Allan_Lang.
message 43207 - 01/20/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
I always stop reading over the phrase "hotted up". Is that still used? I always Heat things up.
posted via 184.151.61.104 user rlcossar.
message 43206 - 01/20/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
As an American, I cannot judge if certain expressions are still used in the British version of English, but there is one that I feel is possibly becoming a bit out of date (my guess), and that is, "I say>"
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43205 - 01/20/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Sorry, my link takes you to the middle of the discussion!
posted via 2.29.97.179 user MTD.
message 43204 - 01/20/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
This was discussed at some length over the last couple of years (including by myself) on the blog of an Australian author Michelle Cooper
posted via 2.29.97.179 user MTD.
message 43203 - 01/20/17
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
"_Books reflect the period they are written, not a much later era with different values._"
posted via 73.221.221.14 user Pitsligo.
message 43202 - 01/20/17
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
I concur with Mike fully, as I usually do. That's why we're such good mates.
David
posted via 137.147.12.219 user David.
message 43201 - 01/20/17
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
"Books reflect the period they are written, not a much later era with different values."
posted via 124.171.138.86 user mikefield.
message 43200 - 01/19/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Titty did have those somewhat psychological moments. There was her imagination that had her pretending the Man Friday visit in S&A, and the melting in the fire of the GA wax doll that hinted at certain Religious procedures not normally associated with her normal life to the point she was sincerely worried that maybe she had truly harmed the GA. The "let's pretend" play world was creeping into her real world with not really accepting the difference of those two sets of rules. This was different from her "Man Friday" moment which she kept in the "let's pretend" mode in her mind. But that GA doll really bothered her. She was considered by the others, especially Susan, as not to be always believed, that she was apt to let her imagination run away with her, as when she kept insisting she heard the thieves on Cormorant Island bury the treasure. But to give credit when truly earned, she did have the sense to grab the AMAZON and "steal" it to win the "war." And as for her fear of the divining rod trauma, she did have the courage, once she was alone, to pick it up and have another go with it again, and this time to have some serious positive results.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43199 - 01/18/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Ramanujan (was Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots')
Even Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan had problems with lecturers
posted via 2.31.117.176 user eclrh.
message 43198 - 01/18/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
I have just finished reading the book, and my reaction in summary is that it won't get a permanent place on my Ransome bookshelf. The exposition of the plot of each book is good, but I know them already. Far worse is his constant harping on Empire themes. Books reflect the period they are written, not a much later era with different values. They came out when I was young, and the world of British children was as he described, though we all longed to have adventures like the S&As.
As for the analysis of the dowsing, I agree with Peter. It is a most memorable episode, but has never struck me as anything other than a true portrayal of a young girl being distressed by finding she had an unexpected gift outside her control.
I went on a dowsing course a few years ago, totally sceptical. It works. I can't explain it, and it certainly wasn't stressful, but the dowsing rods found what I was looking for, every time.
posted via 141.0.14.73 user awhakim.
message 43197 - 01/18/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Thanks for your comments, and I agree with yours.
posted via 2.29.97.179 user MTD.
message 43196 - 01/18/17
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
I think Mike’s critique of ‘Swallows, Amazons and Coots’ is pretty much spot-on. The author, Julian Lovelock, deserves great credit for writing a book on AR, doing an obvious huge amount of work, and then succeeding in getting it published. I also agree that some of the Amazon comments are harsh. However, John Nichols is right to mention academic reviews, because I feel that Julian Lovelock has fallen prey to the modern ‘contextual’ approach to literary criticism, in which you don’t just analyse the text, but you also consider the historical, political, social and psychological etc. influences on the author concerned. That may be appropriate with regard to some authors, but not Ransome, in my view. AR was an experienced, trained journalist, who wrote down what he saw and what he heard and little else. His approach to children’s fiction was the same – what did they do, what did they see, what did they eat. There was only one very real ‘activity’ which he didn't mention, and we all know what that was. He used his imagination to construct adventures for the children based on reality in a known landscape. OK, there are echoes of ‘Empire’ in Commander Walker’s naval missions but these are very much in the background.
posted via 86.182.41.12 user Peter_H.
message 43195 - 01/18/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
If you wish to see harsh reviews, one only needs to look at academic reviews of dissertations, particularly if the reviewer does not like the supervisor, the student gets it in the head for something that occurred 30 years ago in a class. Even Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan had problems with lecturers. Of course the fact that he could see math most people can only dream about did not help. No one likes a Roger all of the time.
posted via 165.91.13.149 user Mcneacail.
message 43194 - 01/17/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Thanks Adam, You sum up what I felt on my first reading, but it deserved more (but judging by the few reviews on Amazon others felt the same, one was particular harsh.)
posted via 2.29.97.179 user MTD.
message 43193 - 01/17/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
Very interesting review, Mike. I think that you have reflected some of my misgivings about the book. It is not that it is in any way bad, but it could have been better in some ways.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43192 - 01/17/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
To borrow badly and English "bally good", although I would give it the 12 year's meaning not the 60 year old's meaning
posted via 165.91.13.149 user Mcneacail.
message 43191 - 01/17/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Review of 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
I have posted a revised version of my Amazon.co.uk review of Julian Lovelock's book on my blog.
posted via 2.29.97.179 user MTD.
message 43190 - 01/14/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Secret Water New Road
I've posted a photo of the new road name sign in the 'Town'.
posted via 95.149.55.159 user MTD.
message 43189 - 01/12/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Leegal tickling (was Victorious Moments)
Generally tickling or guddling is illegal in public waters. I believe that in private waters it is up to the owner whether or not to permit it.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43188 - 01/12/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Leegal tickling (was Victorious Moments)
I read this in two different places, tickling for fish is illegal in all waters in the UK. I could be wrong, but it appeared to be pretty specific.
posted via 50.24.51.118 user Mcneacail.
message 43187 - 01/11/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Leegal tickling (was Victorious Moments)
I have a friend in Nuuk Greenland and he was tickling trout last summer but wished he had claws like the bears to grab onto the fish better.
posted via 184.151.63.129 user rlcossar.
message 43186 - 01/11/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Leegal tickling (was Victorious Moments)
When did it become illegal, why would anyone say this is illegal -- man against fish -- is there no fun anymore.
posted via 86.129.192.189 user MartinH.
message 43185 - 01/11/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: Leegal tickling (was Victorious Moments)
Oops! Another mis-spelling of "tickling", and one in "legal" in the title as well!
posted via 2.31.117.176 user eclrh.
message 43184 - 01/11/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Leegal tickling (was Victorious Moments)
When did it become illegal, why would anyone say this is illegal -- man against fish -- is there no fun anymore.
posted via 2.31.117.176 user eclrh.
message 43183 - 01/10/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Passenger & Spelling?
Like Robinson Crusoe and the SFR, the stranded guy is a mechanical engineer, so he has some skills, but not the "correct and complete skill set." He finally decides after a year alone to "wake up a girl." Adds to the plot, think 39 Steps girl added.
posted via 128.194.94.53 user Mcneacail.
message 43182 - 01/10/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Passenger & Spelling?
My apologies, yes the Movie Passengers. My computer is crashing a bit at the moment so I will keep these brief.
posted via 128.194.94.53 user Mcneacail.
message 43181 - 01/10/17
From: Tom Napier, subject: Re: Passenger & Spelling?
I assumed that "Passenger" was an allusion to the recent movie, "Passengers" about finding oneself the only person awake on a interstellar ship.
posted via 108.16.161.209 user Didymus.
message 43180 - 01/10/17
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Passenger & Spelling?
Thank you for this, Adam. I thought it was just me who was totally baffled.
Anything to do with the "Spelling" thread?
"Tickling" is all very well, but cries out for context too.
posted via 90.255.41.69 user PeterC.
message 43179 - 01/10/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Cinema trips
Cinema trips are crazy prices these days. I advise all UK patrons to pay for Cineworld tickets using Tesco tokens (I build up the points for free) and then to buy popcorn, sweets and drinks from the supermarket before you go. No-one has ever raised an eyebrow at me lugging a rucksack along with me.
Little boy: "No, we've bought our own."
Parent: [Burns with shame]
Employee: [Whispers] "Good idea. I would!"
posted via 81.156.113.154 user Magnus.
message 43178 - 01/10/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Passenger
Thank you for this, Adam. I thought it was just me who was totally baffled.
posted via 92.18.216.117 user Mike_Jones.
message 43177 - 01/10/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Passenger
John,
I have no idea what you are posting about. Could you please explain.
Thanks
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43176 - 01/09/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Special Branch
Coleman also contends that Special Branch of equivalent have been tapping his phone for years. He seems to dislike the EU and the Inland Revenue ( a lot).
posted via 50.24.51.118 user Mcneacail.
message 43175 - 01/09/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Spelling
Tickling
posted via 50.24.51.118 user Mcneacail.
message 43174 - 01/09/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Victorious Moments
AR has lots of interesting knowledge tucked into his books.
posted via 50.24.51.118 user Mcneacail.
message 43173 - 01/09/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Re: Passenger - spelling
contend
posted via 50.24.51.118 user Mcneacail.
message 43172 - 01/09/17
From: John Nichols, subject: Passenger
I content that Passenger is just a poor man's WDMTGTS with less excitement and adventure.
posted via 50.24.51.118 user Mcneacail.
message 43171 - 01/09/17
From: Ethics, subject: Re: AR and Ethics
Dear Dave:
I took them all to see Rogue One (only 3) and it was 40.
posted via 50.24.51.118 user Mcneacail.
message 43169 - 01/08/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: AR and Ethics
Certainly there is nothing wrong with it! I paid my daughter in sherbet lemons to read S&A and then she liked it, and read two others. Hurrah!
posted via 81.156.113.154 user Magnus.
message 43168 - 01/08/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: Victorious Moments
Last evening I read the chapter The Race from Swallowdale to my wife. It has so much sailing knowledge tucked into the pages and I know learned as a young kid reading this very chapter.
posted via 184.151.63.129 user rlcossar.
message 43167 - 01/08/17
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Victorious Moments
When you are watching a sporting event and the team you are pulling for scores, you feel like jumping up thrusting both arms up in the air and shouting, a very vivid display of emotion.
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43164 - 01/08/17
From: Dave, subject: Re: AR and Ethics
When is a bribe a reward? When are either an agreed payment for say mowing the lawn, which might or might not be a regular task? Is it strictly according to whether the activity is fun? And what if it is perceived as fun the the "briber" but not fun by the "bribee"?
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43163 - 01/08/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Cost of movies was Re: AR and Ethics
Ah, of course. I'd forgotten the snacks.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43160 - 01/08/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Cost of movies was Re: AR and Ethics
Don't forget the cost of overpriced drinks and popcorn by the bucket, which is what my children wanted.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43159 - 01/07/17
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: AR and Ethics
John, does it really cost $50 to take an adult and a child to a movie where you are in Texas? Or are you including other family members?
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43158 - 01/06/17
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: AR and Ethics
If you want a serious answer then no its not, the fact you saved money by not taking her to see a film is of no relevance. Its interesting that she rejected going to see the film in favour of reading the book, or was she unaware of the chance to see a film?
posted via 2.28.82.117 user MTD.
message 43157 - 01/06/17
From: Ross, subject: Re: AR and Ethics
I'm not seeing anything unethical about this (though I would hope we don't need to pay people to do fun things). Some people get paid to watch movies. At work I get paid to read certain documents.
posted via 184.151.63.129 user rlcossar.
message 43156 - 01/06/17
From: John Nichols, subject: AR and Ethics
Dear Gurus:
posted via 50.24.51.118 user Mcneacail.
message 43155 - 01/05/17
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
I can certainly confirm Alan’s thoughts on the summer school term dates. Many school terms ended on the penultimate Tuesday or Thursday in July. Public schools usually took external exams set by Oxford or Cambridge boards. In the 1920/30s these took place from late June until the 3rd weeks in July.
Between 1919 and 1951, these exams were for School Certificate at age 16 and Higher School Certificate at age 18. To matriculate meaning to be entered on a University’s register, meant passing 6 subjects simultaneously at SC level including English, Mathematics and Science. This entry requirement could vary but generally required a minimum of 5 subjects including any credits or distinctions.
These summer term end dates continued up until the 1980’s when external exam dates changed. After 1951, matriculation effectively disappeared and exams were replaced by O levels (later GCSE’s) and A levels.
Summer holidays ended after 8 weeks, although State schools only had 6 weeks. The difference was attributed to Public Schools working/playing sports on Saturdays.
posted via 87.113.133.203 user OwenRoberts.
message 43154 - 01/05/17
From: Allan_Lang, subject: Re: Character ages
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
In the 1940s (and therefore probably the 1930s; not much changed in this area during the war) the summer term at public schools ended about the third week of July, and the autumn term started about September 20th. i.e after 8 weeks holiday.
State schools broke up a little later, but restarted much earlier in September.
"R 10, T 12, S 14, J 15, D 13, D 12, N 15, P 14" Roger assumes the first 'D' is Dorothea.
posted via 101.178.163.14 user Allan_Lang.
message 43153 - 01/05/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Character ages
Roger Wardale quotes a list of ages made by AR for his own reference when writing PM, which is set in "first fortnight of summer hols 1933". Chronologically it is 3 years after SA.
"R 10, T 12, S 14, J 15, D 13, D 12, N 15, P 14" Roger assumes the first 'D' is Dorothea.
posted via 141.0.14.145 user awhakim.
message 43152 - 01/05/17
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
In the 1940s (and therefore probably the 1930s; not much changed in this area during the war) the summer term at public schools ended about the third week of July, and the autumn term started about September 20th. i.e after 8 weeks holiday.
State schools broke up a little later, but restarted much earlier in September.
posted via 141.0.14.145 user awhakim.
message 43151 - 01/05/17
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: S & A 2016 Film (Again!)
Having said on the earlier thread that my grandson and I had enjoyed it in the cinema as an adventure film for children, I watched it with him again on DVD at Christmas.
posted via 88.110.73.12 user Mike_Jones.
message 43150 - 01/05/17
From: Peter Matthews, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
Robert says that "Schools have been covered a fair number of times"
Sorry if I am covering old ground but I am curious as to what the normal dates for the end of term at the start of the summer holidays and the start back at school at the end, for boarding schools in the early 1930's
posted via 212.42.177.213 user Electronpusher.
message 43149 - 01/04/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Character ages (was: schools)
Regarding 'hoofs' I think all bets are off. My teenage daughters are size 6 and there's a lad in their class with size 12s already. Feet don't always have to tally with height or age, and during childhood they can grow at a rate that seems utterly independent of all other factors.
posted via 81.156.113.154 user Magnus.
message 43148 - 01/04/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Donald Campbell anniversary
Today, 4 Jan, is the 50th anniversary of the death of Donald Campbell while attempting the world water speed record on Coniston in Bluebird. At the suggestion of a listener, Radio 3 marked the occasion by playing Stanford's The Blue Bird (at the time of the start of his first run).
posted via 2.31.117.176 user eclrh.
message 43147 - 01/04/17
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Some thoughts on schools)
I think that during the 1930s schools had much more freedom in the subjects they did, or did not, teach.
The regulations between the wars meant that the entrance exam could only be taken once, between the ages of 13 years 4 months and 13 years 8 months."
The age on entry is not given, though I suspect successful applicants started the next term. (Dartmouth operated a term system until May 1937) This would probably have John entering Dartmouth as a Cadet for the summer term before PP, though conceivably it might be the September entry.
posted via 86.129.192.189 user MartinH.
message 43146 - 01/03/17
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Some thoughts on schools)
Even in the 1930’s some public schools had an entry age of eleven. The school I attended did so and someone else kindly confirmed that Shrewsbury did so in the 1930’s.
Not so sure about Chemistry, I did start at prep school at 9 years old. Also my father ran his own chemical laboratory at a major utility so I had plenty of background. When I first read WH, at age of 10, I did not think that chemical analysis was unusual. However my public school had brand new chemical laboratories, replacing those demolished by a V1 in WW2, and may well have been enthusiastic about everyone having a good grounding in Science. However many schools left Science until later.
This does raise the age old question – where did they go to school? We know that Titty and Roger had a long railway journey that day according to Dorothea. As the D’s lived in London this could mean beyond London. It is quite possible that Titty and Roger went to a co-educational preparatory school in the south maybe near one of the main naval bases of Chatham or Portsmouth (Plymouth would probably be too far for a day’s travel, as the journey would be about 5 hours to Paddington) and then to travel through London to catch a train at Euston. It is probable that they would have been booked on a through train from Euston to Rio (Windermere) so that they would not have to change during the journey, possibly the “Lakes Express” which started to split into portions at Strickland Junction (Oxenholme).
We know John and Susan’s schools were not so far and they had been together on the previous train when they released the first pigeon. This could indicate that they had met on the way to Strickland Junction perhaps at Rugby or Crewe. They may also have changed at Strickland Junction as there were not many through trains to Rio.
Possibly Susan went to the Royal Naval School for the daughters of officers at Haslemere in Surrey. This school still exists as the Royal School with the Princess Royal as its President.
The only school were can be sure that John did not attend was Rugby (AR’s old school) otherwise he would have surely recognised Jim Brading in WD – who was educated there. He was probably not at Dartmouth otherwise is very unlikely that he could be present for all the Swallows adventures. More likely he was at a public school intending to be a “Special Entry” naval cadet at age 18. These special entry cadets formed half the officers in the Royal Navy and were called “Pubs” from their public school or grammar school background whilst those who had come through Dartmouth were named “Darts”.
Most schools, especially boarding schools) were concerned about pupils bringing back contagious diseases. We must remember that there were no antibiotics available in the 1930’s to control infections. Even in the 1950’s, I had to receive smallpox & diphtheria boosters before I was allowed to go to public school. Once at school everyone had to receive Salk polio jabs when these became available.
posted via 87.113.133.203 user OwenRoberts.
message 43145 - 01/03/17
From: Allan_Lang, subject: Re: The Blacketts school (& Dick)
On relative ages John is generally taken as older than Susan; he was based on Taqui the eldest Altounyan child according to Hugh Brogan, as Roger could not be the only boy in S&A. And is Molly Blackett older than Captain Flint? Not stated definitely re John or Molly that I can recall.
posted via 103.232.208.252 user Allan_Lang.
message 43144 - 01/03/17
From: Robert Hill, subject: Character ages (was: schools)
It's in PM, not PP, that we read of Dick joining the train at Crewe. That's a year and a half after WH, so he could easily be old enough to be at public school in PM despite the evidence on his young age in WH.
posted via 2.31.117.176 user eclrh.
message 43143 - 01/03/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: The Blacketts school (& Dick)
When the D’s are "signalling to Mars" (WH3) and initially get no reply, Dick says "Do it again" which Dorothea did: ''In matters like these, though she was the elder of the two, she always felt that Dick knew best.'' Of course, if Dick had been older than her, Dot would not have said "she did not think that Peggy could have been much older than herself" as if Dick was the elder he would have been about the same age as Peggy.
posted via 203.96.143.237 user hugo.
message 43142 - 01/02/17
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: The Blacketts school (& Dick)
I am disappointed I cannot immediately place my finger on the place which tells us that Dot is older than Dick.
Close behind her came the four whom Dorothea put down in her mind as the elders, though she did not think that Peggy could be very much older than she was herself. She could not help hearing what they were talking about.
posted via 81.156.113.154 user Magnus.
message 43141 - 01/02/17
From: Allan_Lang, subject: Re: The Blacketts school (& Dick)
Re Dick: In Coot Club (a year later than WH) Dorothea says that both of them can swim and Dick got ''first prize at school for men under twelve''
posted via 101.178.163.14 user Allan_Lang.
message 43140 - 01/02/17
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: The Blacketts school (& Dick)
Re Dick: In Coot Club (a year later than WH) Dorothea says that both of them can swim and Dick got ''first prize at school for men under twelve''; Dick says ''Boys'', but everyone had understood (CC9). Dot recalls in Winter Holiday “the day when Dick succeeded in making sulphuretted hudrogen, and unluckily stumbled by the door and sent his whole apparatus flying into the spare room where Mr Jenkyns was to sleep”.
posted via 203.96.143.237 user hugo.
message 43139 - 01/01/17
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
We know that Dick and Dorothea were the children of academics, and I think that it is reasonable to assume that they would have picked up a fair bit of elementary science just from conversations at home. They could scarcely avoid it. My father was toolmaker, and I picked up a lot of engineering lore quite casually. From my mother I inherited a pretty fair artistic ability, but that was more genetic than environmental.
posted via 120.144.9.178 user David.
message 43138 - 01/01/17
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
If Dick was only ten or eleven in Winter holiday, as I think I have seen it written somewhere, then he would not be at a public school for another one or two years after the summer of Pigeon Post. Boys used to go to public schools aged about thirteen at least. He could have been at a boarding prep school associated with a public school or just in reasonable proximity to one.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43137 - 12/31/16
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
Schools have been discussed a fair number of times. Do we have some new members in this discussion? If so, welcome.
posted via 2.31.187.161 user eclrh.
message 43136 - 12/31/16
From: Jon, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
But wouldn't day schools be equally anxious not to have "whole lot of people bursting out with spots all over, or faces like pumpkins, or turning red like lobsters or green and yellow with any kind of plague."?
posted via 69.140.32.156 user Jon.
message 43135 - 12/31/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
I had assumed from the three schools' quarantine rules in WH that they all went to boarding school.
posted via 88.110.86.134 user Mike_Jones.
message 43134 - 12/31/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
I had assumed from the three schools' quarantine rules in WH that they all went to boarding school.
posted via 88.110.86.134 user Mike_Jones.
message 43133 - 12/31/16
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
I can't remember anything specific, but have always considered they boarded at a comparatively local school; say in Westmoreland, Cumberland or Lancashire. For some reason I have the possibility in mind that they may have been weekly boarders.
posted via 86.179.135.235 user MartinH.
message 43132 - 12/30/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: The Blacketts school
Good question, the Swallows went to boarding schools judging by the odd reference in the books, and the Ds near to their father's university.
posted via 2.29.89.70 user MTD.
message 43131 - 12/30/16
From: Ross, subject: The Blacketts school
Where did the Amazons got school. I always thought it was local but in Swallowdale Nancy suggests that the GA is leaving and that they might not even see her next year if she arrives in term time,
posted via 184.151.61.2 user rlcossar.
message 43130 - 12/30/16
From: Ross, subject: Re: S & A 2016 Film (Again!)
Well one day I'll get to give it a chance and maybe I'll be disappointed too, but until then I'm going to believe that it can't be all bad.
posted via 184.151.61.2 user rlcossar.
message 43129 - 12/30/16
From: Paul Crisp, subject: Flying Down to Rio
Researching something to do with post-Great War British aeroplanes, I came across the Gnosspelius Gull registered G-BGN on 29th May 1923 and withdrawn the following year;. A second was built but unregistered; it crashed in1926, killing its pilot.
Oscar Gnosspelius designed the Gull whilst working in the test department of the Rochester based Short Brothers, later famous for their Empire and Sunderland type flying boats; a Lake District link is that Shorts had a war-time shadow factory on Lake Windermere. Before the Great War, in 1911 he had designed the Lakes Water Hen, a seaplane operating on Windermere.
Given the introduction of a seaplane in the recent film, who knows, perhaps a future production of Pigeon Post could have Squashy Hat using an aeroplane to reconnoitre the fells; perhaps the hawk that threatens the Pigeon Postal service could become a Gull or a Water Hen? At least such an inclusion would be an extra tribute to the actual, pre-copper prospecting, career of Squashy Hat, as well as a chance to include the title music from the 1933 film!
No doubt lots of readers know far more about SH’s aviation background, but I cannot recall it appearing on Tarboard before, and thought it might be of some interest for research over New Year’s day.
posted via 86.130.98.143 user Paul_Crisp.
message 43128 - 12/30/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: S & A 2016 Film (Again!)
According to the reviews on Amazon.co.uk a lot of it was filmed in Yorkshire and the Secret Harbour is a very poorly reconstructed one, not the actual place!
posted via 2.29.89.70 user MTD.
message 43127 - 12/30/16
From: Ross, subject: Re: S & A 2016 Film (Again!)
Maybe you could put it in a generic case and then one day watch it as just a story set in the Lakes without associating our much loved AR title to it.
posted via 184.151.61.2 user rlcossar.
message 43126 - 12/29/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: S & A 2016 Film (Again!)
There's a thought! Firstly, because of who gave it to me and secondly I will get around to watching one day. But that my not be for a long time!
posted via 2.29.89.70 user MTD.
message 43125 - 12/29/16
From: Ross, subject: Re: S & A 2016 Film (Again!)
You can regift it to me
posted via 184.151.37.216 user rlcossar.
message 43124 - 12/28/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: S & A 2016 Film (Again!)
Link got lost!
posted via 95.150.76.98 user MTD.
message 43123 - 12/28/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: S & A 2016 Film (Again!)
As I predicted I received a copy of the new film as a Christmas present, I've commented about it on a blog I started a couple of years ago but never post much to before.
posted via 95.150.76.98 user MTD.
message 43122 - 12/28/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
What a great way to start a new year, Andy. I would start with S&A, not just because it is the first. Each of the 12 can stand alone, of course. But, if your wife loves it, there's the warming thought of 11 more to enjoy. Plus, there's that wonderful feeling the next time you read S&A of entering that world again,and the anticipation of all the ones to follow. It's a feeling that never goes.
posted via 86.161.52.232 user Tiss_Flower.
message 43121 - 12/27/16
From: Andy, subject: Re: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
A brief update: my stocking contained NO films this Christmas. :)
posted via 88.111.192.54 user Andy.
message 43120 - 12/24/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Re 'Ransome Theme Park' (was Secret Water Road Naming)
Aha, it's Gollum again - a merry Christmas to you. Actually, I wish we could find deeper in Capt Flint's trunk his lost chapter describing the incompetent fish-frying - that would be a gem.
posted via 86.152.150.108 user JG.
message 43119 - 12/24/16
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Re 'Ransome Theme Park' (was Secret Water Road Naming)
What about "Spot the accurate bits in the new S&A film". (This one demands concentration.)
posted via 81.132.173.164 user Peter_H.
message 43118 - 12/24/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Re 'Ransome Theme Park' (was Secret Water Road Naming)
'The Highland Stalk' - can you evade the ghillies? 'Catch the buoy' or drift out to sea... Panning for gold, of course. Signalling to Mars. Santa's Igloo at Christmas. Dragon Festival.
We could be on to something.......
posted via 86.152.150.108 user JG.
message 43117 - 12/23/16
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Re: Re 'Ransome Theme Park' (was Secret Water Road Naming)
There is always the popular “Sailing blindfold in Rio Bay” (Summer Saturdays only).
Or the seasonal “Swim to the Fram under ice”
Maybe the authentic Great Aunt experience “ Be hunted by hounds in the woods”
posted via 84.92.128.73 user OwenRoberts.
message 43116 - 12/23/16
From: Ross, subject: Re: Re 'Ransome Theme Park' (was Secret Water Road Naming)
or the Dodging Pike Rock Challenge
posted via 184.151.61.60 user rlcossar.
message 43115 - 12/23/16
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Re 'Ransome Theme Park' (was Secret Water Road Naming)
Let's not forget the Captain Flint Plank Walk and the Lighthouse Tree Climbing Adventure.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43114 - 12/23/16
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Re 'Ransome Theme Park' (was Secret Water Road Naming)
The ever-popular rescue of a crag-bound sheep.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43113 - 12/23/16
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re 'Ransome Theme Park' (was Secret Water Road Naming)
But there's fun to be had with this concept! Any offers? 'Roger's scary abseiling' and so on?
posted via 86.179.135.235 user MartinH.
message 43112 - 12/22/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Secret Water Road Naming
Yes, I've seen signs for that! At least TDC's decision is in proper recognition of AR. There's been no news on naming the roads on the housing estate that is being built to named with reference to SW.
posted via 95.150.197.189 user MTD.
message 43111 - 12/22/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Secret Water Road Naming
Many years ago a friend who knew of my interest in AR told me confidently that she'd driven past the 'Ransome Theme Park' near Ipswich. Turns out that she had seen a sign to the Ransomes Europark industrial estate (named after the lawnmower-maker, to whom AR was distantly related) on the A14. I had to break it gently to her that there were no S&A experiences on offer there.
But there's fun to be had with this concept! Any offers? 'Roger's scary abseiling' and so on?
posted via 86.152.150.108 user JG.
message 43110 - 12/22/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Secret Water Road Naming
This week the road name sign has been erected in the new development in Walton on the Naze at the site of the old Martello Caravan Park (off the B1034 Kirby Road) - the entry road is now 'Arthur Ransome Way'.
posted via 95.150.197.189 user MTD.
message 43109 - 12/17/16
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Old Peter's Russian Tales
For those who might wish to get back to the genuine world of Arthur Ransome there is now available a new and revised paperback edition of AR’s book ‘Old Peter’s Russian Tales’ (first published in 1916), and this also includes ‘The Battle of the Birds and the Beasts’ (published in 1984). Both of these are collections of Russian folk stories, as noted down and translated by AR in his first visits to Russia. The stories give a wonderful insight into folk memories of ‘old Russia’ set among the vast forests, alive with animals. This is the real Russia that Ransome loved (nothing to do with cardboard ‘spies’).
posted via 5.81.1.46 user Peter_H.
message 43108 - 12/16/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
I am not concerned with film-maker’s profits.
However, if we want to see films of the books, then we have to take into account the only thing that makes their production possible- the film producers' profits. And wanting the films is also a perfectly reasonable position to take.
We're getting both, so I reckon we're doing all right.
posted via 90.255.41.69 user PeterC.
message 43107 - 12/15/16
From: Ross, subject: Re: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
I'm still keen to see it. I have no plans to travel to Britain in the next year though so I guess I'll wait a while:(
posted via 184.151.63.148 user rlcossar.
message 43106 - 12/15/16
From: JG, subject: Re: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
A festive toast to you, Magnus, for your generous and fair-minded enjoyment of the pleasure of those thousands of other people of all ages and backgrounds. There are many other films for children these days which will do them less good in their lives.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 43105 - 12/15/16
From: Ed Kiser, subject: Re: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
"messing about in boats"
leant forward for his stroke. `Believe me, my young friend,
there is nothing -- absolute nothing -- half so much worth doing
as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,' he went on
dreamily: `messing -- about -- in -- boats; messing -- -- '
posted via 76.177.72.133 user Kisered.
message 43104 - 12/15/16
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
A good book lets the reader use their imagination. Once it is on screen you tend to think of the appearance of the actor rather than the character. Very good casting avoids this to a degree, but ever since seeing the 1974 film I see Sophie Neville instead of my vision of Titty.
A very merry festive season to you all. Here's to a great 2017 full of people sailing, fishing, camping, exploring, playing, pretending, and maybe finding treasure...
posted via 81.140.174.136 user MartinH.
message 43103 - 12/15/16
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
... and I should have added, I am in heated agreement with your September comments --
posted via 124.171.84.85 user mikefield.
message 43102 - 12/15/16
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
Well, thanks for your last bit, Peter. But I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it, nevertheless. You're certainly right in that I was one who declared early on my intentions to not see it, however -- I just couldn't see how train chases and spies and aeroplanes could possibly play any part in S&A.
posted via 124.171.84.85 user mikefield.
message 43101 - 12/15/16
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Availablilty of the books
Old news now, but I found the full set in an antiquarian bookshop in Adelaide while I was holidaying there about ten years ago -- bought them on the spot and had them mailed directly home.
posted via 124.171.84.85 user mikefield.
message 43100 - 12/15/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
A few people thought I was weird when I said I was deliberately avoiding the new film, as I did with the musical a few years ago. I just know it won't bring me any pleasure.
posted via 81.156.113.154 user Magnus.
message 43099 - 12/14/16
From: Andy, subject: Re: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
...I am somewhat in fear I will be getting a DVD of this film all wrapped up by well-meaning gift-givers this Christmas. I can't say I want to see it, ever. :(
posted via 88.111.196.113 user Andy.
message 43098 - 12/14/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
Interesting view Peter.
posted via 95.150.197.253 user MTD.
message 43097 - 12/14/16
From: Peter Hyland, subject: 2016 S&A Film - a late reaction
The new Swallows & Amazons film is now available on DVD. I watched it yesterday, for the first time. Sorry, but I hated every minute of it. The one advantage of watching on DVD is that I could fast-forward through the more unpleasant bits. If I had my time again, I would not have watched this film - it has left a deeply unpleasant taste in my mouth. It was far worse than I thought it would be. I think it was Mike Field who said he wasn't going to watch it at all. Good decision, Mike.
posted via 5.81.1.46 user Peter_H.
message 43096 - 12/01/16
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Registration, was Re: Sailing boats must have names
Actually, Mike, you made many good suggestions for future iterations. Anyone building a Fliptail would do well to read your ideas on it.
posted via 204.194.168.209 user Pitsligo.
message 43095 - 11/30/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Accommodation on the Broads yachts (was:Sailing boats must have names)
The smallest crew member got to choose where to sleep – on the floor of the main cabin or in the sail locker (which on the "Hustlers is quite spacious) forward of the mast. The sail locker was the favourite, except when sailing at the end of March/beginning of April when it was terribly cold.
posted via 90.255.41.69 user PeterC.
message 43094 - 11/29/16
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Registration, was Re: Sailing boats must have names
Alex' last comment is not entirely true -- all I came up with was reams of praise for his build.... :)
message 43093 - 11/28/16
From: Jock, subject: "Britain's lost waterlands..." (was: Sailing boats must have names)
Hmm... Thank you JG for the prod.
posted via 178.43.197.245 user Jock.
message 43092 - 11/28/16
From: Jock, subject: Accommodation on the Broads yachts (was:Sailing boats must have names)
An interesting question! When my parents hired "Summer Breeze" she was billed as 3-berth, and from what I remember, the third berth was NEXT to the toilet. We actually had four crew members on board – the fourth sleeping on an extra mattress on the floor between the two main berths.
posted via 178.43.197.245 user Jock.
message 43091 - 11/28/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Russians....
Well, it has taken the British media 90 years to pierce the 'local burglar' cover of our operatives; what else will now emerge?
posted via 81.159.83.70 user JG.
message 43090 - 11/28/16
From: Paul Crisp, subject: Re: Russians....
So, Comrade, the Russians in the film.... What did you want to discuss, or has it been censored by the Politburo?
posted via 86.157.210.253 user Paul_Crisp.
message 43089 - 11/27/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: Film taking fans back to book?
Listening to an unabridged reading of S&A is great, but this reader has misinterpreted fundamentally the first crucial plot line. He reads the famous telegram as "Better drowned than duffers. If not, duffers won't drown". I know the best interpreter of AR's books is Gabriel Woolf, but his readings are abtidged and, while I think he's done it so well, you hardly notice anything left out, I am a bit of a stickler for unabridged versions of books. Any thoughts on who would be as good an AR interpreter? Alex Jennings, who has done some brilliant Dickens' readings, has done his version of S&A but, sadly, the library's only copy has been withdrawn due to a missing CD. I think Martin Jarvis would be fantastic. His Just William readings are pure joy.
posted via 86.152.151.170 user Tiss_Flower.
message 43088 - 11/26/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
Have you seen the programme about AR on BBC 4 this evening? Exploring Lake District, Broads, and Pin Mill area. In the Broads part, there's a shot of sailing-boats for hire and I saw a 'Hustler'; then we see the commentator in his hired boat, and it's 'Wood Rose', marked as from Ludham. Same one, even?
posted via 81.159.83.70 user JG.
message 43087 - 11/25/16
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Registration, was Re: Sailing boats must have names
Thank you for the compliments all around! That's a "Fliptail 7" dinghy that I just built this past summer.
message 43086 - 11/25/16
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Registration, was Re: Sailing boats must have names
Thank you for the info. It sounds as varied there as it is here.
posted via 204.194.168.209 user Pitsligo.
message 43085 - 11/25/16
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: Registration, was Re: Sailing boats must have names
I was interested to note, Alex, that your very fine sloop is attended by a neat Berthon-style folding dinghy, which the good Mr. Ransome was quite keen on. By 'Berthon-style' I intend to indicate that folding dinghies of this design were manufactured in commercial quantities in the 1930s by the Berthon Boat Building Company on the Isle of Wight.
posted via 137.147.29.177 user David.
message 43084 - 11/25/16
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Registration, was Re: Sailing boats must have names
I don't know the situation in the 1930s, but currently vessels kept in the Norfolk Broads area for more than 28 days must be registered with the Broads Authority. Registered vessels should display the registration number where it can be easily read. See http://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/boating/owning-a-boat/tolls for details.
posted via 109.150.85.222 user MartinH.
message 43083 - 11/25/16
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Registration, was Re: Sailing boats must have names
"All the craft proudly displayed their names, none had their registration numbers marked on the hull."
message 43082 - 11/25/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
Jock, I am sure I hired "Summer Breeze" out of Horning too! But that was 1998. My wife was horrified by what was probably the same toilet bowl you saw in 1964, which flushed with river water.
posted via 81.156.113.154 user Magnus.
message 43081 - 11/24/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: Film taking fans back to book?
After waiting patiently in line for my library copy of S&A on audiobook (unabridged), I have finally got it, but can't renew it because there is stll a queue after me. When the DVD comes out, hopefully the queue will lengthen again.
posted via 86.152.151.170 user Tiss_Flower.
message 43080 - 11/23/16
From: Jock, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
In 1964 (my first Broads holiday) my parents hired "Summer Breeze" a Bermudan sloop from a boatyard in Horning. In subsequent years, I had the good fortune to sail in various gaff-rigged boats from the magnificent Hunter fleet: "Wood Rose", "Wood Anemone", and two different "Hustlers". All the craft proudly displayed their names, none had their registration numbers marked on the hull.
message 43079 - 11/23/16
From: Patrick Fox, subject: Re: "As old as my tongue...
Mmm. How odd, I definitely associate it with Ransome in my mind. Its not said in the (1974) film is it? I'll keep thinking - irritating when you can't quite place something!!
Patrick
posted via 185.58.164.43 user PJF.
message 43078 - 11/23/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: "As old as my tongue...
The quote about tongue and teeth is definitely not mentioned in any of the S&A books; I've confirmed with a computer search of the ebooks.
Young Billy gave a last pat or two to the smoking mound, and came to them. He was another old man, but not quite so old as the first.
“Dad been showing you round?” he said to the Swallows.
“Is he your son?” Roger asked the first old man.
“He is that, and got sons and grandsons of his own, too. You wouldn’t think I was as old as all that. But I’m Old Billy and he’s Young Billy.”
“He doesn’t look like a son,” said Roger.
Young Billy laughed. “Let’s have the box, dad,” he said, and Old Billy gave him the cigar-box.
posted via 81.156.113.154 user Magnus.
message 43077 - 11/22/16
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
"Elver, Fry, Grig is nicely alphabetical..."
posted via 204.194.168.209 user Pitsligo.
message 43076 - 11/22/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: "As old as my tongue...
I don't think mine would have, either.
posted via 92.18.211.69 user Mike_Jones.
message 43075 - 11/22/16
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: "As old as my tongue...
It was also a favourite saying of my grandmother (b. 1878). She was not a well-educted person and probably wouldn't have read it in Swift.
posted via 2.31.187.161 user eclrh.
message 43074 - 11/22/16
From: Mike Jones , subject: Re: "As old as my tongue...
I'm sure I haven't come across it in AR, but it was a favourite saying of my grandmother (b. 1891).
posted via 82.132.234.114 user Mike_Jones.
message 43073 - 11/22/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
Huh? Monosyllabic?? Must have been at the gin. Apologies.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 43072 - 11/22/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
Lovely try-out of my eel-tender names, Alex! I agree that 'glass' isn't ideal; a quick trawl (ha) of collective nouns for eels produces swarm, fry, bed, congress, wisp, draft, array, seething. 'Fry' is an East Asian collective term for glass eels; Elver, Fry, Grig is nicely alphabetical and monosyllabic.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 43071 - 11/22/16
From: Patrick Fox, subject: "As old as my tongue...
"As old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth" is, I was sure, said by one of the Billies in either S&A or Swallowdale. However, I happened to mention it to someone recently, to be told it was a Jonathan Swift quote, which google seems to confirm. And now I come to look for it in the AR books, I actually can't find it at all. Am I making up the Ransome connection? Does anyone else recall this saying cropping up in any of the books?
Patrick
posted via 185.58.164.43 user PJF.
message 43070 - 11/21/16
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
No 100 points for me; I had to search them out. Clever references, though!
"Elver", Titty read the departing transom of the first dinghy. And then, puzzled, "Glut."
"Grig," added John, watching the third, confident Swallow would have pointed just as well and wishing she could have the opportunity to try.
"Puddingheads," Roger confirmed his judgement.
posted via 204.194.168.209 user Pitsligo.
message 43069 - 11/21/16
From: Jon, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
So, the BS connection? "Chimbley" was the last connection I made; "Warmints" was easy, and triggered "Bangate".
posted via 69.140.32.156 user Jon.
message 43068 - 11/21/16
From: Jon, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
So, the BS connection? "Chimbley" was the last connection I made; "Warmints" was easy, and triggered "Bangate".
posted via 69.140.32.156 user Jon.
message 43067 - 11/21/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
Elver, Grig and Glass
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 43066 - 11/21/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
You have half-convinced me, Alex, but not fully. There could have been a brief list of names right at the start of the voyage, and then they could have been ignored thereafter.
posted via 81.156.113.154 user Magnus.
message 43065 - 11/20/16
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Beckfoot ownership, was Sammy's fears
Usually nowadays, a long lease can be inherited or is bought and sold on the open market and the value paid is not affected by being leasehold rather than freehold. If the lease was for a short period, then the price could be affected as it is possible that the landowner would not want to renew the lease rendering your purchase effectively valueless.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43064 - 11/20/16
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
As a writer, I suspect AR made a very conscious choice to *not* name those dinghies: AR was managing *a lot* of characters in those scenes, which is very tricky (he does it well, too), and adding three more names for the reader to keep track of would have made for more difficult reading. Wizard and Firefly could be used to refer to their crews collectively, thus can simplify a scene for a reader, but adding Moray, Conger, and Electric to the personae dramatis would only clutter it up.
posted via 204.194.168.209 user Pitsligo.
message 43063 - 11/20/16
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Beckfoot ownership, was Sammy's fears
Right. Got it. Sorry to wander off on my own. Thanks for clarification.
posted via 204.194.168.209 user Pitsligo.
message 43062 - 11/19/16
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
Perhaps they were all marked
"Tender to Lapwing"
At one time and maybe still today, if a yacht had to pay licence or mooring fees, tenders would be included in the fee. If tenders had separate names then they would be liable for a separate fee.
Further north most Broads boats had letters & numbers without a need for names.
Perhaps someone could update this please, as it is a while since I was in East Anglia.
posted via 87.112.48.195 user OwenRoberts.
message 43061 - 11/19/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Sailing boats must have names
Perhaps they were called Dum, Dee and Daisy.
posted via 88.110.67.65 user Mike_Jones.
message 43060 - 11/19/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Sailing boats must have names
I've just flicked through Secret Water to check my memory hadn't failed me. I cannot find any reference to the names of the three dinghies which the Eels sail.
posted via 81.156.113.154 user Magnus.
message 43059 - 11/19/16
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Beckfoot ownership, was Sammy's fears
...would have been paid...
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43058 - 11/19/16
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Beckfoot ownership, was Sammy's fears
You misunderstand me. I am not suggesting it was leased from James Turner, but I am suggesting that the whole house and grounds could have been leased from Lord Mucky-Muck's estate, perhaps by the Turner grandparents. This would allow them to act as "owners" in terms of decorating etc. and also treat it as a family home. The original lessors would have paid a lump sum for the lease equivalent to the value of the house at that time discounted depending on the length of the lease left. They might have to pay a ground rent of a peppercorn a year to the estate, but the lease could be held for many generations. I once "owned" a house in Lancaster which I bought with 997 years of lease left on it. I never paid the peppercorn rent but they didn't evict me for non-payment.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43057 - 11/19/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Beckfoot ownership, was Sammy's fears
Nancy and Peggy clearly regard Beckfoot as the family home, so the most logical assumption is that it belongs to the Turners. It is unlikely that a maiden great-aunt would have owned it when there was a male Turner to father Molly and Jim. Suggestions that the Turners rented it seem rather unnecessary.
posted via 88.110.67.65 user Mike_Jones.
message 43056 - 11/19/16
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Beckfoot ownership, was Sammy's fears
Maybe it's just a difference in culture, but it strikes me as unlikely that CF's study or bedroom would be left intact on such a long-term lease. When I was a renter, I'd occasionally see houses posted for rent where an outbuilding --shed, barn, garage-- was unavailable to the renter, typically because it was being used as the owner's storage unit, but I never saw some portion of the house itself held aside for the owner.
posted via 204.194.168.209 user Pitsligo.
message 43055 - 11/18/16
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Beckfoot ownership, was Sammy's fears
It could be a long term lease which is different from renting month by month. Many estates lease out houses and cottages for a period of many years (up to 999). This makes the occupier essentially responsible for the maintenance of the building.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43054 - 11/18/16
From: Tom Napier, subject: Re: Beckfoot ownership, was Sammy's fears
As I have suggested elsewhere, it would explain a great deal if Mrs Blackett were renting Beckfoot from the GA.
posted via 108.16.164.82 user Didymus.
message 43053 - 11/17/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Beckfoot ownership, was Sammy's fears
If she rents it, why was she so involved with the decorators in PP? Wouldn't that have been the landlord's responsibility?
posted via 2.28.231.225 user MTD.
message 43052 - 11/17/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Beckfoot ownership, was Sammy's fears
Or maybe Mrs Blackett just rents Beckfoot, like the Collingwoods at Lanehead.
posted via 81.156.113.154 user Magnus.
message 43051 - 11/17/16
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Beckfoot ownership, was Sammy's fears
It struck me as a very practical arrangement. And while I imagine Molly would have had her own inheritance, separate of any bequest from Bob, to have that familiar home to anchor herself and her family would have become even more important, emotionally, with Bob gone. Keeping CF's study and bedroom available could serve as a similarly important emotional support: he's her brother, and while he might be off in South America prospecting for gold, he's still there for her.
posted via 204.194.168.209 user Pitsligo.
message 43050 - 11/16/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
Bob Blackett was probably no pauper in his own right, so the Blackett girls would have been quite a catch.
posted via 88.110.67.65 user Mike_Jones.
message 43049 - 11/15/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
I agree with that.
posted via 2.28.231.225 user MTD.
message 43048 - 11/15/16
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
I reckon that two cents of yours is worth $2, Alex.... That's the most sensible supposition I've heard yet.
posted via 124.171.166.234 user mikefield.
message 43047 - 11/15/16
From: Alex Forbes, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
"Unmarried, disinherited in favour of the married daughter."
posted via 204.194.168.209 user Pitsligo.
message 43046 - 11/13/16
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Warning -- DVD of the new film
It should be noted that TarBoard does not condone illegal copying of DVDs or BluRays. Please do not use our facilities to arrange any such transactions.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43044 - 11/11/16
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: DVD of the new film
Amazon are releasing the DVD in the UK on December 12 at the price of £9.99.
posted via 86.182.41.83 user Peter_H.
message 43043 - 11/11/16
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: DVD of the new film
Unlike books where there are often different publishers in Canada (Commonwealth distribution) and the US, North American DVDs and BluRays are all the same Region 1 or A code and different from the British Region 2 code which means you have to be careful about ordering from UK dealers.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43042 - 11/10/16
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: DVD of the new film
I haven't seen anything but I'm not a film buff and don't follow film information, I'm afraid.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 43041 - 11/10/16
From: Adam Quinan, subject: DVD of the new film
I see that the UK release of the new film on DVD/BluRay is coming on December 12th 2016.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43039 - 11/07/16
From: Martin Honor, subject: Re: Availablilty of the books
Perhaps they sold all the copies of S&A?
posted via 86.189.206.52 user MartinH.
message 43038 - 11/07/16
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Availablilty of the books
I always check when I am in an unfamiliar bookshop to see if they have any of "The Twelve" in stock. Most have SA, and good bookshops often have 3 or 4 of the others. Full sets are rare.
But I was intrigued to find in a Sydney bookshop last week that they had a full set of all the 12 except SA, some in several editions.
This is even odder when you realise that the new film hasn't reached Australia.
posted via 14.2.89.159 user awhakim.
message 43037 - 10/28/16
From: John Wilson, subject: Sammy and the GA
The GA says to Sammy (PM29) "It would be useless to talk to your sergeant, but I regret that I am leaving too soon to have a few words with your mother", and Nancy said earlier (PM21) when the GA described the burglar’s clothes: "Sammy was quite good for a policeman. He asked her if she could be sure of the colours in the moonlight, and she had to explain that she had only seen the colours in the daytime when you (Timothy) were loitering .... suspiciously in the road" . So the GA knew to speak to Sammy’s mother!
posted via 203.96.136.19 user hugo.
message 43036 - 10/28/16
From: Allan_Lang, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
Did he become the black sheep because of the way she brought him up?
posted via 101.178.163.206 user Allan_Lang.
message 43035 - 10/28/16
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
Compare and contrast Ransome's treatment of Sammy as a bit of a figure of fun and an ineffective investigator who is flummoxed by his interview with the children on Wild Cat with his dealing with the much more formidable Constable Tedder in Coot Club and The Big Six.
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 43034 - 10/28/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
I still see Sammy as essentially a comic character.
Formidable women are clearly something AR enjoyed.
message 43033 - 10/27/16
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
Although I agree with the earlier point that the Turners rather than the Blacketts' were probably the influential ancestors, not so sure that Jim Turner (CF) was disinherited.
Perfectly possible that he owns at least part of Beckfoot and his room indicates that he has at least a toehold there. He may live in the Houseboat in an attempt to distance himself from Nancy & Peggy. He certainly retains a great affection for his sister.
posted via 80.189.180.240 user OwenRoberts.
message 43032 - 10/27/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
But who disinherited him, if his parents were both dead when he was so young that the GA had to bring him up? Did he become the black sheep because of the way she brought him up?
posted via 88.110.66.19 user Mike_Jones.
message 43031 - 10/26/16
From: Allan_Lang, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
But Jim was the Black Sheep. Unmarried, disinherited in favour of the married daughter. (WAG)
posted via 101.178.163.14 user Allan_Lang.
message 43030 - 10/26/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
On a point of detail, it seems to me that the influential family was the Turners rather than than the Blacketts. My clear impression is that the GA brought up Molly and Jim at Beckfoot, the family home. Perhaps when Bob Blackett died the widow and daughters moved back there, although it would probably have passed to her brother as the son and heir.
posted via 88.110.66.19 user Mike_Jones.
message 43029 - 10/25/16
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
The Blacketts were people of influence and several people seemed to have worked for them. From Carrotty, the porter at the foot of the lake, who had worked at Beckfoot, to Slater Bob who went with Nancy's grandfather to help with mining in Africa. The Lewthwaite mother who was a nursemaid, Billy who is a part time chauffer and Mrs Braithwaite the full time cook.
Many servants (or workers) at one time all of whom needed accommodation. Some could have slept at Beckfoot either in the house or over the stables (there was probably at least a stable boy/coachman to look after the horses). Not unreasonable to assume that there were tied cottages for others as was usual in country districts when one needed workers close at hand.
Both Mrs Tyson and Mary Swainson will defer to Mrs Blackett are they possibly tenant farmers?
I will agree that it is not directly mentioned that they were landlords, but they certainly had a number of servants who then declined to one full time cook, as happened generally in the 1930’s.
No doubt the Great Aunt was a considerable influence over the surroundings even going to bully the vicar in SD because she had heard that standards were falling.
I have no doubt that the Backetts were the major family in their immediate area with a number of servants at one time. It might be instructive to compare the situation with the owners of Lanehead with the Collingwood’s as tenants.
posted via 80.189.180.240 user OwenRoberts.
message 43028 - 10/24/16
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
I am sorry but I get very impatient with theories about the Blacketts being landlords and everyone else being subservient to them. There is no evidence for this and it is a dull 'political' way of explaining things. Sammy was afraid of his mother no doubt because of the sort of character she was, and I can easily imagine this. My own father was terrified of his mother!
posted via 81.129.95.179 user Peter_H.
message 43027 - 10/23/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
I take it as another example of AR's humour: big, strong policeman terrified of his mother.
posted via 88.110.71.109 user Mike_Jones.
message 43026 - 10/23/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
One of my favourite passages in SA, Sammy getting routed by Nancy as he's picked on an easy target in John, whereas if confronted with a criminal he'd probably run away (he receives similar treatment from the GA in the closing scenes of PM.)
posted via 95.149.55.175 user MTD.
message 43025 - 10/22/16
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Re: Sammy's fears
I think the relationship between the Lewthwaite's & Blackett's was almost servant like and may well have been so in former times.
It could be that the Lewthwaite's lived in a tied cottage owned by the Blackett's. At worst Mrs Lewthwaite and her younger son could have been thrown out (Did Sammy live there also?)of their house.
A bluff by Nancy, but one that would give a cause for thought.
posted via 80.189.180.240 user OwenRoberts.
message 43024 - 10/22/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Sammy's fears
Please can someone explain why Sammy is shaken when Nancy threatens,
“If you don’t go away at once I’ll tell your mother.”
What was Nancy going to tell?! Sammy's only misdemeanour was wrongly accusing John, a typically adult point of view that Sammy's mother would probably have agreed with.
posted via 81.140.188.172 user Magnus.
message 43021 - 10/18/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
Horsey Island as a nature reserve is co-managed by Natural England and the Essex Wildlife Trust but owned by Vicky and Joe Backhouse, who rent the cottage for holiday lets and as I understand control access.
posted via 2.28.231.198 user MTD.
message 43020 - 10/18/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
All I'm aware of is that there is an annual open day when you can cross, and this is always reported locally as if it is the only occasion you can do so without permission.
posted via 2.28.231.198 user MTD.
message 43019 - 10/18/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
To launch a dinghy on the Walton Backwaters...
posted via 81.140.188.172 user Magnus.
message 43018 - 10/18/16
From: RichardG, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
Mike, while the signing indicates that vehicles should not use the new stretch of Island Road on the mainland, it advises that it is, I think, a "permissive (or permitted) footpath", which is one that the landowner allows the public to use without it becoming a right of way. There is what looks as though it might have been a further notice board by the pillbox on the sea wall, but if so the board has vanished. So there is nothing visible on site that advises about requiring permission to cross the Red Sea on foot, or how to go about getting it.
posted via 77.44.122.220 user RichardG.
message 43017 - 10/17/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
You're right Richard, which in a way makes the suggestion even more strange. As SW centres on Kirby-le-Soken rather the Walton (other than getting the rudder repaired) the council are trying to exploit the connection - they attempt to in publicity material but are always vague so avoiding copyright and permissions from the literary executors!
posted via 95.150.15.47 user MTD.
message 43016 - 10/17/16
From: RichardG, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
I assume you mean opposite the church in Walton-on-the-Naze, rather than Kirby-le-Soken (which is, I think, where the Mastodon went for his supplies) ?
I paid my first-ever visit to Secret Water a couple of weeks ago, getting part-way across the Red Sea before I met the incoming tide and beat a retreat, and then walking along the sea wall to Witches Quay. We also had an excellent lunch at the Butt & Oyster. Sadly I was unable to find a way to get afloat on this trip. Does anyone know where the best place to launch a dinghy on the Walton Backwaters would be, and if fees are involved ? Or indeed, rather than towing my own boat across the country, does anyone hire out sailing dinghies on the Backwaters ?
posted via 77.44.122.220 user RichardG.
message 43015 - 10/12/16
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: Who drew the 1970 S&A Puffin paperback maps?
I thought Secret Water was the only book to have maps within the story, rather than just endpapers.
posted via 2.26.130.15 user eclrh.
message 43014 - 10/12/16
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Who drew the 1970 S&A Puffin paperback maps?
Yes, it's in the original WH hardback too. Quite obviously AR's own work.
posted via 141.0.15.34 user awhakim.
message 43013 - 10/11/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: Who drew the 1970 S&A Puffin paperback maps?
Gosh! I did not remember that map at all! I thought Secret Water was the only book to have maps within the story, rather than just endpapers.
posted via 86.191.65.110 user Magnus.
message 43012 - 10/11/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Swallows, Amazons and Coots
Good point, I hadn't thought of that. At last a connection between AR and Hamlet!
posted via 2.29.89.21 user MTD.
message 43011 - 10/11/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Swallows, Amazons and Coots
Some humour can be found in all the books, but to describe it as a major attraction is pushing it a bit. Would Lovelock regard Osric and the Gravediggers as a major attraction of Hamlet?
posted via 88.110.82.98 user Mike_Jones.
message 43010 - 10/11/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Swallows, Amazons and Coots
Julian Lovelock's academic study of AR's canon is a very welcome volume (and much anticipated by myself.) Further to my earlier comment on his chapter on CC it now seems from other chapters he sees every book as having comedy as a major attraction to readers of them.
posted via 2.29.89.21 user MTD.
message 43009 - 10/11/16
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: Who drew the 1970 S&A Puffin paperback maps?
My only Puffin paperback of the series is "Winter Holiday", which has (page 246) a map “Eskimo Settlements in the Sub-Arctic” No indication of artist. There is also a frontispiece two-page map “North Polar Expedition” with a note from Capt. Nancy Blackett. The book is shown as published by Puffin in 1968; reprinted 1972, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982. NB: The author’s blurb on the back cover mentions the Hon. M.A. (Durham) which AR had asked Jonathan Cape not to mention.
posted via 203.96.137.211 user hugo.
message 43008 - 10/11/16
From: Jock, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
Further to Duncan's observation see Magnus Smith's post from last December:
message 43007 - 10/10/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
Thanks for that info, Duncan. It makes more sense that he used the name of boatyard owners for his central characters than an ex-wife who'd made his life pretty miserable!
posted via 86.156.107.0 user Tiss_Flower.
message 43006 - 10/09/16
From: Duncan, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
I suspect the Walker name came from Walkers Boatyard on Windermere (where he might have begun his voyage in Swallow on the day he began writing SA). So what is perhaps more significant is the possibility it didn't occur to him that it was his ex-wife's maiden name.
posted via 87.113.73.15 user Duncan.
message 43005 - 10/09/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Coot Club
I'm not sure about 'melodrama', but there are certainly comic moments in CC, e.g. "Don't catch a lobster!" And the description of William's inner thoughts in chapter 23. I have just read a Lutterworth Press interview with the author, and his reported views there seem very acceptable. But I have yet to tackle the book.
posted via 88.110.90.240 user Mike_Jones.
message 43004 - 10/09/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Coot Club
I've just read the chapter on CC in Julian Lovelock's 'Swallows, Amazons and Coots'
posted via 2.29.89.21 user MTD.
message 43003 - 10/07/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
Wasn't it documented that AR was perfectly happy in the company of children, as long as everyone was doing what he wanted to do?
posted via 86.191.65.110 user Magnus.
message 43002 - 10/05/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
I don't know what lengths AT went to with regard to his daughter. Did he try to form a strong relationship but was rebuffed?
After all, after the victory in the Alfred Douglas libel case, he went to Russia probably less to write "Old Peter's Russian Tales" than to escape Ivy. Of course he finished up staying rather longer than he'd intended and came back with Evgenia. But there seems little doubt that he was much affected by Tabitha taking her mother's 'side'.
posted via 90.255.45.151 user PeterC.
message 43001 - 10/04/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
I've always had the impression that AR was not overly keen on children. This isn't a criticism as I think the best writers of so-called children's books don't have to be - A.A. Milne, Kenneth Grahame, Lewis Carroll. Although these writers are said to have written their stories for specific children, I think they all, like AR, wrote for the child in themselves. Richmal Crompton is perhaps an exception. I believe she was a teacher. Did she have children? Is there a gender difference? Perhaps not as I'm not sure Enid Blyton particularly liked children.
Also I don't know what lengths AT went to with regard to his daughter. Did he try to form a strong relationship but was rebuffed? And is there any significance in his giving the Swallows his first wife's family name?
posted via 86.156.107.0 user Tiss_Flower.
message 43000 - 10/04/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
there is still something about Dorothea.
posted via 90.255.34.74 user PeterC.
message 42999 - 10/02/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
Yes, it does seem that way from all I've read, but there is still something about Dorothea.
posted via 2.29.89.21 user MTD.
message 42998 - 10/02/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
Thanks Peter, interesting. I've heard of The Only Ones. The other band I'm aware of from the Bristol scene is Stackridge, but I suspect they are before the ones your talking about.
posted via 2.29.89.21 user MTD.
message 42997 - 10/02/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
the more I read them there is something about Dorothea that in his writing indicates she has far more depth as a character than is ever revealed to us.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
message 42996 - 10/02/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/mar/28/maria-mccormack-obituary
John is one of those punk musicians who loves cricket and good English. Altogether a splendid chap.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
message 42995 - 10/02/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
Peter, a fascinating post. I agree, the more I read them there is something about Dorothea that in his writing indicates she has far more depth as a character than is ever revealed to us.
posted via 2.29.89.21 user MTD.
message 42994 - 10/02/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
How do others read the series? In bulk? Bite-size chunks?
Fascinating contrast in styles; Powell excessively florid, never use five words when ten will do, AR spare and elegant. But both powerfully evocative with vividly drawn characters. AR's best moment the revealing of the kinship of Nancy and the GA, Powell's characters working their way into real life in an extraordinary way- they really are people you've known and tendrils of that experience follow me throughout my otherwise totally non-mystic life (*). But then of course, I have always been in love with Dorothea. Really.
(*)AR exclusivists please skip this bit- it's about Powell.
The other day I went to Kensal Green crematorium, for the funeral of the partner of my rock'n roll Muso friend, a woman known internationally for her hedonism, who died asking for cognac. Afterwards he emailed me to recall a moment in Powell when the narrator encounters Sunny Farebrother, a "downy bird", on the Bakerloo, on the way back from Kensal Green, where he's been attending the funeral service for another character with a complicated part in the "Dance". They talk reflectively about him, and then the narrator gets off and as the train pulls away he sees, though the window, that Sunny has started to smile again. All fine and typical, but the "Powellite" syndrome manifested itself in our wondering, in emails, where Sunny would have got off the train. Sunny being a wealthy widower, we finally settled on Piccadilly, where he would be living in a set at the Albany. The Bakerloo stops there. A life experience confirmed- my friend and I both "know" Sunny Farebrother.
With AR, the "character" I feel I know best is AR himself.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
message 42993 - 09/29/16
From: Jock, subject: Re: The spirit of Nancy lives on in Swindon!
And according to the newspaper article where I first came across this story, Daisy likes
'raft building, sailing and climbing trees'. As well as the AR link/coincidence(?)
do I detect some subtle Richard Jefferies influence? On the outskirts of Swindon is the
reservoir at Coate where Jefferies's Bevis had his adventures.
posted via 178.43.199.94 user Jock.
message 42992 - 09/29/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: The spirit of Nancy lives on in Swindon!
Quite right! But how interesting that the protester is Daisy.
posted via 2.29.89.21 user MTD.
message 42991 - 09/29/16
From: Jock, subject: The spirit of Nancy lives on in Swindon!
Daisy Edmonds blasts the supermarket for having contrasting slogans on their T-shirts for boys and girls.
message 42990 - 09/27/16
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Re: Who drew the 1970 S&A Puffin paperback maps?
Thanks Alan & Magnus. You are quite right to draw attention to the paperback versions. However when I looked on the shelves of a London bookshop at the beginning of the year, the hardback version still had the Spurrier endpaper.
I was just checking briefly to see if the dust jacket illustration vignettes had changed again. I did not check on how the impression list had changed.
posted via 80.189.180.240 user OwenRoberts.
message 42989 - 09/27/16
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Who drew the 1970 S&A Puffin paperback maps?
The Puffin maps were drawn by Juliet Renny. The full story is in Wayne Hammond's Bibliography. The changes were made by Evgenia, who wanted Penguin (and indeed Cape) to 'expunge from the book all work by Steven Spurrier'. She maintained AR had intended to redraw the maps himself before the Puffin edition, but was prevented by illness. He had done a sketch for a Wild Cat Island map in SD, and Renny used that as a basis.
Spurrier's map lives on, however, and is familiar to all members of TARS. It is used for the cover of Mixed Moss, their annual journal.
posted via 141.0.14.73 user awhakim.
message 42988 - 09/27/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Who drew the 1970 S&A Puffin paperback maps?
Change of topic: we're now on MAPS.
posted via 86.191.65.110 user Magnus.
message 42987 - 09/27/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
AR wrote to Helene Carter several times, commenting favourably on her illustrations. It sounded very genuine. I wonder if there was ever any talk of using her US illustrations for the UK books?
posted via 86.191.65.110 user Magnus.
message 42986 - 09/26/16
From: Owen Roberts, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
I first read the S&A series from a new top floor flat (we didn't have penthouses in those days) between Clapham & Streatham. Viewed from the terrace there was an interesting view of bombed out buildings to the rear.
The terrace was surrounded by a very low parapet wall about 18 inches high with no handrails. I could take a deck chair out there to read. However I used to become alarmed when our tabby cat (a grown up Sinbad) used to patrol the parapet wall.
In those days, books I had not been given were sourced from the Clapham Public Library.
I have reread the books many times over the years, gradually collecting more varieties. I have realised that the illustrations do affect the atmosphere of the books. I wonder if I would have read them all, if they had been illustrated by Stephen Spurrier or Clifford Webb.
Spurrier had a more “Water Babies” approach to the illustrations whilst Webb seemed to draw vertically rather than horizontally and lost the serenity and space of the AR drawings.
Helene Carter who illustrated most of the early US books in the AR series, for Lippincott the publishers, seemed to capture the spirit of the books well. Her endpapers, usually included in the dust jackets were very good and in my view excelled those of AR. Stephen Spurrier’s endpapers still adorn S&A – I wonder why they were never replaced?
posted via 80.189.180.240 user OwenRoberts.
message 42985 - 09/26/16
From: Patrick Fox, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
Used to read them as "comfort reading" whenever the mood took me. More recently I've enjoyed having the excuse of reading them aloud to my own children. As to where, we've managed those readings in reasonably appropriate settings from time to time. Last year I timed it so we were reading Coot Club while, as a family, camping on two open boats on the Broads. I read them Great Northern one summer sailing trip in the Hebrides. And we've managed several of the Lakes books while holidaying in the Lakes. And I remember reading We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea while anchored, not on the east coast, but at least in Salcombe one summer. There is a special something about reading the books in the same sort of setting as they're describing.
Patrick
posted via 185.58.164.43 user PJF.
message 42984 - 09/24/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
This is where I get slightly obsessive, I've got copies of them all in hardback (nearly all of them in various editions) and all the Puffin and original Red Fox paperbacks, and I've got reading copies in paperback.
posted via 2.28.82.29 user MTD.
message 42983 - 09/24/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
That's impressive, Mike. I read them in sequence though I don't really know why as they can all stand alone. Like you, I read WH round Christmas, and I try to read the others at the time of year they're set. Although it's not my favourite, there's always a special sense of anticipation when I start SA and read that familiar opening: "Roger, aged seven, and no longer the youngest of the family. . ." What a feeling to know you've got all 12 books ahead of you. And it has to be the Jonathan Cape hardbacks. too.
posted via 31.51.188.150 user Tiss_Flower.
message 42982 - 09/24/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: where to enjoy AR
I read nearly all of them at least once in a year, and WH near to Christmas - still my favourite.
posted via 2.28.82.29 user MTD.
message 42981 - 09/23/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: where to enjoy AR
Spent yesterday morning sitting in some public gardens in Lewes, listening to Gabriel Woolf's brilliant reading of GN. What a way to see out summer! Same next week if the weather agrees. Can't think of a better way to while away the time.
How do others read the series? In bulk? Bite-size chunks? As a reward or on a regular basis? Just curious.
posted via 31.51.188.150 user Tiss_Flower.
message 42980 - 09/20/16
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
And in fact every one of Ransome's major characters (SA&D) get an opportunity to demonstrate leadership, frequently despite obstacles, and do.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 42979 - 09/20/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Dot is a wonderful character, isn't she? Perhaps the most "girly" of AR's girls, but that doesn't mean she's not of equal standing. Her imagination might baffle the others at times, but she's the one the others look to in BS for leadership in the investigation.
posted via 31.51.188.150 user Tiss_Flower.
message 42978 - 09/20/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Nancy is a fine character, but what interests me most is how he gets Roger so right; interested in steam ships as well as sail, so viewed askance by the others in SA, but the real Roger Altounyan later becomes a pilot instructor with the RAF, and a researcher who pioneers Intal and the spinhaler.
The other really interesting character(s) are Dick and Dot. I think that, between them, they are AR. Like every proper person, I am of course in love with Dot, but she (satirically, gently) represents AR and all authors, and Dick is the obsessive and scientific side. I also suspect that Mrs Barrable is his mum, although none of this is direct, one-for-one. He's an author, and the only place they really exist is in his head, but the coloration is there.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
message 42977 - 09/19/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
what is also so subtle about AR's depiction of Nancy is her somewhat rough and ready "sensitive" side. In PP, shw doesn't push Titty when she's distresssd about the dowsing but tries to do it herself and, despite calling Peggy a galoot with every second breath, she reassures her in thunderstorms. All done in her inimitable way. She's forceful but no bully.
posted via 31.51.188.150 user Tiss_Flower.
message 42976 - 09/18/16
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Nancy has the confidence of being on 'Home Turf' in the Lakes books, but is less certain of her position in SW. It is part of AR's artistry to convey that hesitancy without actually writing it in.
David
posted via 137.147.155.48 user David.
message 42975 - 09/18/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
I find Nancy least appealing in SW, but she is marvellous in PM.
posted via 88.105.80.185 user Mike_Jones.
message 42974 - 09/18/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Mr. Thewlis, your bicycle-tracks have been noted in the vicinity. Be very afraid.......
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42973 - 09/18/16
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Very hot green paint.
posted via 47.208.67.174 user dthewlis.
message 42972 - 09/18/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
And remember in GN 'Somehow, with the return of Nancy the gloom that had settled on the Sea Bear had lifted'.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42971 - 09/18/16
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
"one of the great female characters of ALL literature" I agree with Tiss on this, but you have to admit that if we include all adult literature as well, that makes the competition much stiffer. Nancy is up against the likes of Anna Karenina and Anne of Green Gables, to name but two. The point about Nancy surely is that she is not just a loud-voiced tomboy, but has a sort of 'spiritual' existence which pervades all the AR books, even those in which she does not actually appear. The beauty of AR's writing is that he never painstakingly describes Nancy - instead he just tells us what she does and what she says. Titty's exclamation at the start of Pigeon Post: "It's Nancy . . .she's beginning something already" is one of the most instantly thrilling sentences I have ever read at the start of a book.
posted via 86.182.41.233 user Peter_H.
message 42970 - 09/18/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
I will explain it all to you behind the bikeshed at some point. Bring green paint.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42969 - 09/18/16
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
I just love the description "this JG person" and that name's going to stick. I was only moderately offended by the 'Gollum' tag, but what worries me far more is TJGP's apparent suggestion that AR's characters can be mucked about with to suit whatever fashion is current. I should add here that TJGP is very much an "AR specialist" herself, having lectured and written about AR in expert style for many years. What's going on? I ask myself. And what on earth is all this "Gotcha - one to me" business all about? Is it one of Nancy's ciphered messages?
posted via 86.182.41.233 user Peter_H.
message 42968 - 09/18/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Mike Field - Peter H and I are very old friends and have been affectionately trading insults for decades. Apologies to outsiders! And yah boo to Peter as always.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42967 - 09/18/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
A fine analysis of Nancy, Peter. My only quibble? She's surely one of the great female characters of ALL literature. A role model for every generation and for boys as well as girls.
posted via 31.51.188.150 user Tiss_Flower.
message 42966 - 09/17/16
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Thank you Peter. Again you saved me writing that myself.
posted via 124.171.144.133 user mikefield.
message 42965 - 09/17/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Once again, I agree Peter. The older I get with each reading I admire Nancy more and more as a character. Once of my favourite scenes is when she sorts out Sammy for being 'rude' to John in SA (there has to be quite a back story for AR to write such a wonderful verbal demolishing of an adult by a 'child'!)
posted via 2.28.84.54 user MTD.
message 42964 - 09/17/16
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Film in North America was Re: Review on IMDb
All I can find for a release date in North America is "2016".
posted via 99.227.224.192 user Adam.
message 42963 - 09/17/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Gotcha! 1 to me.
We all look forward with enthusiasm to your response when you've seen the film.
It's true that in the film Nancy is the only child significantly changed - but the filmgoing children all rave almost solely about her. Agree that that may be irrelevant to you and other AR specialists.
Re D of E, Mike Dennis is totally right that it's more organised and not at all the only or even desired answer, but as a lonely adolescent (my sister had discovered boys) I could only play around in the fields imagining stories; spurred and aided by the D of E Award, I researched and carried out a 2-week youth-hostelling trip (recruiting a friend eventually), which gave me the chance of making decisions, sorting out food, exploring etc rather than just going home at the end of the day.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42962 - 09/17/16
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
I agree that the D of E Award Scheme is admirable, but we're getting off the point. I don't think that it is Gollum-ish to believe that Nancy Blackett's character should not be distorted for filmic purposes (if in fact it has been distorted - I have yet to see the film). If Nancy has been portrayed as 'sulky', then that is the exact opposite of the Nancy created by AR - the true Nancy is breezy, optimistic, impetuous, resilient, and she would make short work of anyone near her who was sulking. She is a finely calibrated character, and is AR's major creation. She stands in British children's literature as a classic powerful creation, along with figures such as Long John Silver or Just William, and of course she is also female. To 'adapt' Nancy into a whining teenager is to dismantle the whole of the Swallows & Amazons stories - they just won't work. To justify this on the basis that it might get a few children camping is just not on. (By the way, TARS is irrelevant here.)
posted via 86.182.41.233 user Peter_H.
message 42961 - 09/17/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Oh No, No!
posted via 2.28.84.54 user MTD.
message 42960 - 09/16/16
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Ditto.
posted via 124.171.144.133 user mikefield.
message 42959 - 09/16/16
From: Ross, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Adam, Do we need to fly over to Britain to see this film? Will it only arrive here in some Amazon pirated DVD?
posted via 184.151.36.6 user rlcossar.
message 42958 - 09/16/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Well, it was a combination of Swallows & Amazons and D of E Award (I got to Silver) that did it for me. But we're talking the l960s, and the alternative was boredom and whingeing to parents rather than probing deep into the unsuitable internet.
From the TARS website, 'The Society exists to celebrate his life and to promote his interests in exploring, camping, sailing, navigation, leadership, literature and much more.' But there are AR enthusiasts who aren't TARS, and I think vice versa.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42957 - 09/16/16
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
it's to do with getting children out and camping and trying things for themselves
posted via 86.182.41.233 user Peter_H.
message 42956 - 09/16/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Hello Gollum -
My thought is that it's to do with getting children out and camping and trying things for themselves, and seeing magical stuff beyond a screen - in fact the film should be prescribed on the NHS; if film-makers make a profit - well, so do I (sometimes) with my work.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42955 - 09/16/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Very well put Peter, my feelings entirely.
posted via 95.145.229.223 user MTD.
message 42954 - 09/16/16
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
“New Nancy Interpretation”
posted via 86.182.41.233 user Peter_H.
message 42953 - 09/16/16
From: Magnus Smith, subject: New Disney movie gets it right
It seems they've picked Hawaii and decided to focus on SAILING! Hurrah!
message 42952 - 09/16/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Film taking fans back to book?
It occurs to me that the film could be considered as similar to Peter Duck in that it might have been a tale made up by the Swallows and Amazons and Captain Flint in later years, in a wherry or round the camp-fire, using the real(ish) children but adding more drama to please Roger. The Russians are modern Black Jakes. So a fiction within a fiction....
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42951 - 09/15/16
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Of the (currently) eighteen reviews on that site, ten are broadly in favour of the film and eight not. I haven't bothered to analyse any of the reviews in detail, but a 5:4 split in favour sounds as though people consider the film a success, but only just.
posted via 124.171.144.133 user mikefield.
message 42950 - 09/15/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Had a look at these reviews too, and again I was very struck by the love-or-hate divide: of the twelve, nine gave 5 out of 5, three gave 2 out of 5.
The reviewer that you cite hasn't clocked that the new Nancy interpretation is what appeals to children, not to the (evidently adult) reviewer.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42949 - 09/15/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
Thanks for this link. Interesting split between ecstatic reviews (usually from people taking children) and negative. I notice that the one young reviewer, hollyscott, picks out the Amazons rather than the Swallows: yep, just as I said in an earlier post - adults love the Walkers, children love the Amazons - very thoughtful casting.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42948 - 09/15/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Review on IMDb
There are reviews of the film on the amazon.co.uk listing for the forthcoming DVD release (12 at the time of writing) one is particularly scathing and includes the following -
posted via 95.149.130.98 user MTD.
message 42947 - 09/15/16
From: Adam Quinan, subject: Review on IMDb
I found this somewhat encouraging review of the film on on IMDb, I have posted the link you have to scroll down to the one by Sara.
message 42946 - 09/11/16
From: Mik, subject: Re: The 'My Word' stories - was 'Secret Water' News
Sorry, the link's not working. But you can see it here --
posted via 124.171.144.133 user mikefield.
message 42945 - 09/11/16
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: The 'My Word' stories - was 'Secret Water' News
This particular volume does indeed have an Introduction and it is to this omnibus volume itself, not just to the first book ('Kayak') of the four that it contains. (None of the individual books has its own introduction, at least not in this volume -- each just dives straight into the stories.)
This volume is a final medley of the squeaks produced by the pips being thus squeezed.
posted via 124.171.144.133 user mikefield.
message 42944 - 09/11/16
From: Jon, subject: Re: The 'My Word' stories - was 'Secret Water' News
That sounds like the one I was thinking of; page count's about right, too. Most of my paper books are still in storage. I believe one of the various volumes included, as part of the forward, an explanation of how the stories got started (although that one may have been "Dead. Dead. And never called me 'Mother'!")
posted via 69.140.32.156 user Jon.
message 42943 - 09/11/16
From: Ross, subject: Re: Film taking fans back to book?
No one really expects films to completely mimic the original books, Maybe the newly interested will like the books just as much on their own
posted via 184.151.36.6 user rlcossar.
message 42942 - 09/11/16
From: Alan Hakim, subject: Re: Film taking fans back to book?
The same is true of Hampshire libraries. All the books are on loan or reserved, but the DVD of the 1974 film has been missing from Lymington branch for over a year. That's Sophie's local library!
posted via 141.0.14.146 user awhakim.
message 42941 - 09/11/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Film taking fans back to book?
Why is Mrs Walker Australian?
Why is Captain Flint fat?
Where are the Amazon's masks?
Who is Titty?
posted via 95.150.15.238 user MTD.
message 42940 - 09/10/16
From: Mike Field, subject: The 'My Word' stories - was 'Secret Water' News
A bit of research from my end reveals that in fact the title of the book I have (a hard-cover) is The Complete And Utter "My Word" Collection, published by Methuen in 1983.
Upon My Word -- 1974
Take My Word For It -- 1978
Oh, My Word -- 1980
posted via 124.171.144.133 user mikefield.
message 42939 - 09/10/16
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: Film taking fans back to book?
I'm afraid there are going to be a lot of disappointed readers --
Where are the guns?
Where's the train?
Where's that sea-plane?
posted via 124.171.144.133 user mikefield.
message 42938 - 09/10/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Film taking fans back to book?
Just checked my county library availability of S&A. All copies in every format out on loan, overdue or ordered. Fantastic.
posted via 86.161.51.249 user Tiss_Flower.
message 42937 - 09/09/16
From: Jon, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
There are actually several. If I remember correctly, the most complete one is The Utterly Complete "My Word" Stories, but even that one omits some. So don't grab the first "Complete My Word Stories" you see - check the page counts (all I've seen have one story per page, so a page count will give you a good idea of the degree of completeness).
posted via 69.140.32.156 user Jon.
message 42936 - 09/08/16
From: Ross, subject: Re: Graeme Kendall solo yachtsman
Yes we consider the Artic Islands as a part of Canada. Global warming and the loss of artic ice is opening it all up and who has the resources to police it all.
posted via 184.151.36.6 user rlcossar.
message 42935 - 09/08/16
From: David Bamford, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
Thanks for the tip Mike; I didn't know that there was a book of the 'My Word' stories. I'll have to go and look for it.
posted via 121.214.155.96 user David.
message 42934 - 09/08/16
From: Mike Field, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
Yes, one of Frank Muir's 'My Word' stories was certainly about leaving no tern unstoned. (At this distance in time I don't remember the Tintern Abbey bit, but he was certainly capable of it and I'm sure you're right.)
posted via 124.171.144.133 user mikefield.
message 42933 - 09/08/16
From: Peter Hyland, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
'Swallows and Amazons' as a shorthand phrase for good parenting and bringing-up of children
posted via 86.182.41.104 user Peter_H.
message 42932 - 09/07/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
Thanks Tiss, sums up my view entirely.
posted via 95.146.63.143 user MTD.
message 42931 - 09/07/16
From: Claire, subject: Tern book
I have not seen my copy of that book in years, but I remember that my favorite illustrations were Slattern and Tern catholic. Anyone who likes clever puns should try to find a copy of "A Book of Terns".
posted via 68.117.20.247 user Claire_Morgan.
message 42930 - 09/07/16
From: Jon, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
I believe it was Frank Muir who did a wonderful riff on the subject as one of his My Word stories, even working in Tintern Abbey.
posted via 69.140.32.156 user Jon.
message 42929 - 09/07/16
From: Alan Hakim, subject: S&A is hip?
I was in the Soho Hotel (London) today, which gives the impression of being new and trendy. I was delighted to find that the lift is decorated with several display frames of Puffin Book covers. TWO frames contain the cover of SA.
In the Gents, the display was of the new ironic Ladybird "The Hipster" book.
Meanwhile, Random House have issued a new paperback of SA with a cover derived from the film poster.
posted via 141.0.14.218 user awhakim.
message 42928 - 09/07/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
:-) [smiley icon]. Of course you'll hate part of the film, but I do guarantee that you'll feel warm all over about some of the enchanting sequences of the old-fashioned children sailing and camping; lovely casting, especially the two youngest.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42927 - 09/07/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
Now I can accuse myself of being unclear. I'll watch the film when it comes to TV as, yes, pretty much anything that keeps AR in the public eye is worthwhile - but I won't go to see the film. Even that's disingenuous as I don't go to any films! Also hypocritical as I'll be doing what I've more or less condemned a TV reviewer for! Can I get much worse?
My only excuse is that my love and respect for AR means that I bridle if I think people play fast and loose with his work, especially if it's dismissed as old fashioned children's stories. I'm glad If I'm proved wrong by the film and an AR-friendly journalist.
posted via 86.161.51.249 user Tiss_Flower.
message 42926 - 09/07/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
Yes, I do agree that it's an unclear sentence, perhaps written in haste, and the reviewer has certainly risked the ironic point not being taken by her readers. I did want to absolve her, though, of any ignorant attribution of speeding cars and grandmothers' doorsteps to the S&A canon. As another commentator has said, at least we can take pleasure in the fact that this reviewer among many other writers uses 'Swallows and Amazons' as a shorthand phrase for good parenting and bringing-up of children.
In the new film, incidentally (which I know you're not going to see), there are some lovely exchanges, e.g. between Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Jackson, on wholesome hands-off parenting. And in the film there is some arguing among the Swallows! Most realistic.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42925 - 09/07/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
Perhaps it's the construction of the quoted sentence since it seemed to me as if the reviewer thinks the children in S&A are dumped on their grandmother's doorstep. That's what I was reacting to. Perhaps I shouldn't, not having read the review.
posted via 86.161.51.249 user Tiss_Flower.
message 42924 - 09/07/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
A most likely explanation Peter, the new film has maybe caused some to re-think their view of AR's work (rather than just assuming!)
posted via 95.146.63.205 user MTD.
message 42923 - 09/07/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
Tiss - the reviewer's sentence about grandmothers and S&A is IRONIC. What she is saying is that the mother claims to be trying to bring up her children as she was, i.e. in a good S&A style, but that in Motherland we can see that in practice she is INSTEAD yelling at them and dumping them on their grandmother's doorstep. The reviewer is assuming that Sunday Times readers, like the reviewer herself, know what the S&A reference invokes and so will mentally insert '(NOT)' after 'just like they do'. She is being ironic!! and is contrasting the S&A way of life with the speeding car/ grandmother/ doorstep scenario enacted by the mother.
I do hope that this clarifies the sentence for you. No way is she suggesting that grandmother's doorsteps come into S&A - she is saying precisely the opposite, correctly using S&A as an example of good upbringing in CONTRAST to the Motherland approach.
End of literary-criticism piece!
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42922 - 09/07/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
It would be great if the reviewer decided to check that her S&A reference was correct, went back to the source, then read all twelve (instead of watching TV?!).
posted via 86.161.51.249 user Tiss_Flower.
message 42921 - 09/07/16
From: Mike Jones, subject: Re: Should be - Grandparents
Active grandparents in the Walker/Blackett/Callum families might have been expected to play a role, given that only two of the six parents are available during the school holidays (one dead, one at sea, two digging), but available grandparents cosseting their grandchildren would have got in the way of the plot. Mrs. W's parents would be in Australia, anyway, and perhaps Asian Flu carried off the others along with Bob Blackett.
posted via 88.110.95.28 user Mike_Jones.
message 42920 - 09/06/16
From: John Wilson, subject: Graeme Kendall solo yachtsman
Solo yachtsman Graeme Kendall from Christchurch, New Zealand has just published a book on his solo yachting “To the Ice and Beyond”. He sailed the Northwest Passage in 2010 (after failing in 2005) so was the 140th vessel since Roald Amundsen did it in 1903-06. He was the first to do it solo and non-stop, in a record 12 days. Unlike 2005, it was mostly ice-free in 2010. His book has advice on planning a serious (solo) sailing expedition: Rules No 1 to 10 are “Don’t fall overboard”. So he always peed into a chemical toilet, not off the back of the yacht (Too dangerous). And describing an Atlantic cyclone: Plan A: weather it out; Plan B: run away to Plan F: abandon ship .. because that’s the point when your’e f......”
message 42919 - 09/06/16
From: John Wilson, subject: The Duke of Westminster on "Swallows ans Amazons"
Swallows and Amazons: Gerald Grosvenor the 6th Duke of Westminster (died August 9) was bought up in Ulster, living on the only inhabited island in Lough Erne. He was closest to a keeper, not his “somewhat distant” parents and reflected that “My childhood was the nearest thing to Swallows and Amazons one could possibly imagine .... There wasn’t one unhappy moment. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life there.” But at 15 his father inherited the title and they moved to Eaton Hall in Cheshire (quoted in the Times obituary; reprnted in the Dominion Post, Wellington NZ which is owned by Fairfax Media, so uses overseas obituaries from the Times, the Telegraph Group or the Washington Post).
posted via 202.49.156.36 user hugo.
message 42918 - 09/06/16
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
The illustrations are all of the phrases of course. So you can just imagine "left tern", "right tern", and "comintern" all dressed appropriately. "Tern of the Century" is of course on the cover of Time magazine. And "no tern left unstoned" is what you might expect. IMO the author and illustrator did justice to the opportunity.
posted via 24.156.62.154 user dthewlis.
message 42917 - 09/06/16
From: John Wilson, subject: Re: Should be - Grandparents
When Roger asks Old Billy about Young Billy "Is he your son?" Old Billy says that he’s "got sons and grandsons of his own": (SA13). Slater Bob says "My father was a miner before me, and his father before him" (PP3). And as mentioned the Turner grandparents: Maria Turner writes to Mary (Molly) Blackett of "the tact that was characteristic of your grandfather" (PM30).
posted via 202.49.156.36 user hugo.
message 42916 - 09/06/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
"No Right Tern" -- are you familiar with "The Book of Terns"? Every page a similar pun with wonderful illustrations. But I digress.
But with the rich tapestry of English homonyms, it seems pretty inevitable.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
message 42915 - 09/06/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
I wonder if the reviewer is riding on the publicity due to the film, thinking of the wrong book, misremembering S&A, or not very good at research. Or does a grandmother pop up in the film? All in all, not very reassuring.
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
message 42914 - 09/06/16
From: Robert Hill, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
Nancy's and Peggy's great-grandfather is mentioned by the GA in her letter to Mrs Blackett at the end of PM.
posted via 95.145.225.158 user eclrh.
message 42913 - 09/06/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
Tiss - a quick google shows that the review is of Motherland on BBC2; the reference to S&A is a passing one re the book (not film), referring it seems to the mother in Motherland's desire to bring up her children nannyless as she was, which the reviewer compares (yelled at in speeding car/ dumped on doorstep) with what perhaps a mother might dream of doing with her children (S&A). Nothing to do with the film!
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42912 - 09/06/16
From: JG, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
Good point about missing grandparents. On that front generally, I always feel how poignant it is that the Amazons' father is dead. How lucky they are to have a first-class certificated uncle, even if one largely absent. The new film shows touchingly the tenderness between grumpy Uncle Jim and the girls.
PS Did you know that 'first-class certificated' appears in Jude the Obscure (p123 in my edition)?
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
message 42911 - 09/06/16
From: Tiss Flower, subject: Re: Should be - Strange Comment
I wonder if the reviewer is riding on the publicity due to the film, thinking of the wrong book, misremembering S&A, or not very good at research. Or does a grandmother pop up in the film? All in all, not very reassuring.
posted via 86.161.51.249 user Tiss_Flower.
message 42910 - 09/06/16
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
"No Right Tern" -- are you familiar with "The Book of Terns"? Every page a similar pun with wonderful illustrations. But I digress.
posted via 24.156.62.154 user dthewlis.
message 42909 - 09/06/16
From: Mike Dennis, subject: Should be - Strange Comment
Sorry everyone, filled in the boxes the wrong way!
posted via 95.149.130.12 user MTD.
message 42908 - 09/06/16
From: Strange Comment!, subject: Mike Dennis
A new comedy starts on BBC2 TV tonight at 10.00pm called 'Motherland'.
posted via 95.149.130.12 user MTD.
message 42907 - 09/05/16
From: Peter Ceresole, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
Lapwing Lane?
posted via 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
message 42906 - 09/05/16
From: Dave Thewlis, subject: Re: 'Secret Water' News
I rather fancy "Mastodon Mansions" - good serve.
posted via 24.156.62.154 user dthewlis.
message 42905 - 09/05/16
From: JG, subject: Re: 2016 Film Score
There's a detailed review of the new film score on http://swallowsandamazons.info/2016/09/04/swallows-and-amazons-soundtrack-review-movie-music-uk/.
What/who, BTW, is swallowsandamazons.info? No clue on the website. Very mysterious.
posted via 84.92.123.32 user JG.
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