Swallows and Amazons: Classic?

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I think this is the kind of world I yearn for: sailing trips, riverbank frolics and people called Titty. But I've never actually read Arthur Ransome's durable children's classic. I tried when I was younger, but it contained unfamiliar words from a distant age. I think it's set in Norfolk. Has anyone read it? Does it make a suitable Design for Living?

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 09:21 (twenty-three years ago)

All I can remember is being impressed that a 12 year old girl could sail a boat and change her name from Ruth (wimpy) to Nancy (er, ruthless) just because she felt like it. So I guess it a had good feminist message. Also, there were paliasses.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 10:16 (twenty-three years ago)

See what I mean about unfamiliar words?

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 10:19 (twenty-three years ago)

S & A was the first fillum I ever saw. It's also the first fillum I ever fell asleep in.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 10:21 (twenty-three years ago)

also she's not called titty in the film which is a BETRAYAL!

arthur ransome knew trotsky

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 10:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Did he? Do you think he'll appear in this LENIN biography I'm forcing myself to read? I think I might have seen the film too. Is there a lot of splashing about at the beginning? Or perhaps the beginning of the book is so visually strong it makes me think I've seen the film.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 10:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Arthur Ransome lived on a houseboat a la Uncle Jim and HATED children with a passion. Diana Wynne Jones (wickeeed kiddylit author) was sent up to the Lake District during the war and was shouted at by not only Ransome but also Beatrix Potter ("Giddorf moi LAAAAAAAND!"). Hurrah for grumpy old people who create works of genius. I'm not as posh as the Swallows or indeed the Amazons, but I have been known to mess about in boats, so I identify, kind of. Changing Titty's name is rubbest of rub, though. Films of jolly healthy children never work, however: they always appear insufferably annoying. Torment works much better as a mediated thang. Like, duh.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 10:39 (twenty-three years ago)

A while back i remembered reading ALL these books voraciously as a child (9-10ish). WHY GOD? WHY? Nothing ever bloody happens, it's all so sodding sedate and dull. What were we on, etc

― Alan (Alan), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 10:46 (twenty-three years ago)

they meet pirates and nancy gets the mumps so :P to you alan so-called trewartha

and titty makes a voodoo doll out of wax and drops it into the fire by mistake and cries

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 10:50 (twenty-three years ago)

And they have PALIASSES!

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 10:53 (twenty-three years ago)

They meet pirates once in about 15 books. In ISLAND OF THE CANIBLES me and my mate Steve had met them by the end of the FIRST CHAPTER!!

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 10:55 (twenty-three years ago)

You mean there's more than one Swallows and Amazons book?

Alan, that's what I find so appealing about it/them as a Design for Living. So the mumps and pirates are causing me to have serious misgivings.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 11:07 (twenty-three years ago)

There's loads including Swallowdale, Pigeon Post and Picts and Martyrs. I think some are set in Norfolk and some in the Lake District.

Mumps can be part of a well-rounded Design for Living, surely? Never did me any harm.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 11:15 (twenty-three years ago)

But 9-10 year olds should be reading about planets exploding and discovering dinosaurs, not finding an old man who explains how to burn charcoal slowly by placing turf over it, and then sliding down a hill making a bit of a mess of their lovely clean trowsers.

― Alan (Alan), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 11:18 (twenty-three years ago)

One of the books is about MAPMAKING!

― RickyT (RickyT), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 11:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Are the two sets distinct (Lake District / Norfolk)? I remember the cast of Coot Club, We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea, and the more famous Broads one whose name I can't remember (featuring the Hullaballoos, common people in a motor cruiser) being different from the Swallows & Amazon books...

― alext (alext), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 11:31 (twenty-three years ago)

'Scomplicated. In the Lake District there were Swallows, Amazons and sometimes Dick and Dorothea. In We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea and the one about the Mapmaking based around Walton on the Naze there were just Swallows. The ones in the broads (Coot Club and the other one) were D+D plus local people.

― RickyT (RickyT), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 12:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Katrina Adams said she was tolling on me, but wouldn't say what for. She said she wouldn't do it if I could read Swallows and Amazons in ten seconds. I flicked through it while she counted and got to the end in time, but then she asked me what it was about. I got in trouble. Never found out what for, never picked up the book again. Perhaps I'll read it soon, because I did like Coot Club.

― Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 12:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually, much more complicated than that

― RickyT (RickyT), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 12:05 (twenty-three years ago)

The farmhouse on which the lakes one is set is on Coniston Water. Stayed there this summer - converted to holiday lets - and it was great. You can hire boats and kayak up the Mouth of the Amazon!

― jon (jon), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 12:29 (twenty-three years ago)

In S & A they make "buttered eggs" - does that mean scrambled?

I read them all, as was sadly true for most of 100's of books in the childrens section in the Bedford Public Library.

― Mooro (Mooro), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 13:10 (twenty-three years ago)

buttered eggs:" boil, cut in half longways, spread on the butter

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 14:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Sounds like a job for Goose Fat...

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 14:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Amajor rites of passage for me, devouring the lot of them in about two weeks in the wettest summer known to mankind (1982?) lying on a camp bed under the sleeping bag I was conceived in in the shed as it teamed down with rain.

Magical.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 14:24 (twenty-three years ago)

(Why didn't you read them in your bedroom Pete you masochistic fule?)

― Emma, Wednesday, 20 November 2002 14:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Pete was conceived on a camping trip? Yikes. Well, they certainly did make their own entertainment in those days.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 14:37 (twenty-three years ago)

I have a cousin called Titti and my friend's brother's girlfriend is called Titti. Does it not count if they're Italian?

― Mark C (Mark C), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 17:04 (twenty-three years ago)

(Liz - in a flat above a chip shop in in Barnet after a CHristmas party).

Emma, it was the closest I got to the excitement of the books.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 17:14 (twenty-three years ago)

I have a dim memory of being told I was conceived in a barn in the Lake District. I suspect I've made it up though, so I can say 'yes I was born in a barn actually, well, conceived' when I leave doors open.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 20 November 2002 17:17 (twenty-three years ago)

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