Arthur Mitchell Ransome

THE FILM

My name is Tom and I recently bought the DVD of Swallows and Amazons--------it's for the grandchildren,of course when they come to the boat---wadya mean,it's worn out??
 
I didn't read them when I was a kid, though I do remember a TV series way back (not the 80s version). To me it was nothing like real life - the nearest I got to their holidays was rowing round the local pond - but it was a dream. A world where parents and adults didn't interfere (much).

I actually read the books for the first time quite recently and enjoyed them just because they were pure escapism. Mind you I read Adlard Coles and Maurice Griffiths for much the same reason. If I want to read about high berth costs and overcrowded moorings I'll just come on here.

Edit: We didn't mean to go to sea, and Secret Water were my favourite.
 
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I didn't read Enid or AR as a kid, thought they were wet. But looking back found I was doing similar sailing stuff at the age. The targeting re. social class was quite normal in comics. "I flew with Braddock" The hero would have been upt from the ranks into the Officer class, unless he had seriously pi++ed off the authorities, which was not apparent. Apart from the odd discussion.

S&A, Quite enjoyed the film, but I might have been tired and switched off my critical facilaties.It was a period piece
A
 
michael_w said:
From a literary point of view, the sainted Mr Ransome is rubbish. The utter lack of character progression being his primary fault, followed by his plodding plots.
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Considering that these books have never been out of print since their first appearance in 1930, and have been very widely translated, it would seem that your opinion is not universally shared.
 
aquaplane said:
They are upper class and spoilt, but that's how folk who went sailing in them days were.
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Upper class? Their father was a naval commander and their mother was the daughter of a Australian farmer. Solidly middle class, no more.

And spoilt? How? By being allowed to borrow a small dinghy and go camping for a week? I think that's another accusation that needs textual justification.
 
well Dylan,have you read any books where the central characters are children sailing and messing about on the water,that you have enjoyed?if so which ?
I would have thought that you in particular would have enjoyed Coot Club with the putting it across the Mobos
 
For an alternative view on childhood sailing experiences, try 'The Shoestring Sailors' which is se in 1950s New Zealand. Much more mature oulook and far funnier than S&A.
 
AR's books were written in the 1930's through to 1947. The people he wrote about (a real family) were middle class. He was himself a University graduate at a time when you paid for your education. It is not surprising that the characters were a bit "top-hole" and removed from working class ideals.

However the stories are engaging adventure tales full of information and interest.
They do take a bit of reading these days as they are very definitely of their time.
The various TV series and films have all suffered from that rigid adherence to the style.
It is time for a modern take on the Swallows and Amazons stories with films made in the modern vernacular.
I'm sure they would be popular.

Yes, I'm a fan. I live in the Lake District and started sailing both as a result of reading and enjoying those books. I work less than half a mile from the house he wrote Swallows and Amazons and Swallowdale. I used to live opposite the museum that housed two Arthur Ransome dinghies and Captain Flint's Houseboat. I can walk out of my home, across a courtyard and into a kitchen where I can sit on Arthur Ransome's carver chair.

In case you think that's weird, I found these things out after the move here, they were not the reason I moved.
And yes........I have sailed to the Secret Harbour

Heronmoored2.jpg
 
aquaplane said:
They are upper class and spoilt, but that's how folk who went sailing in them days were.

I like the fact that they went off on their own and there wasn't a bogey man behind every tree "out to get them" and all adults are surrogate parents, but in Bob World where I come from that's how it should be.
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Pardonnez moi, but upper class is one thing that Arthurs Ransomes literary children most certainly were not. Solidly middle class yes, I mean they went to stay on a farm in their holidays, how utterly gauche is THAT for heavens sake.

Upper class children may have been into boats, but would more likely be sailing near Biarritz, or in the South of France near St Tripe, or the Italian Riviera.

I unashamedly enjoyed Arthur Ransomes books, and was quite happy to take them at face value at age 10-12. I don't go with the modern fashion of debunking everything that no longer fits the current orthodoxy. I think thats cowardly to say the least. Enid Blyton may be 'bad writing' but she got kids reading books with her naive stories, and how they read them. Anything that gets kids reading is a 'Good Thing' . Arthur Ransome also taught me a bit about natural history, the broads, charcoal burning as an industry and lots more, and got me into the habit of reading a book a week when I was at school..from the Three Musketeers, to Ice Station Zebra, anything P.G.Wodehouse to wartime chronicles such as 'Service Most Silent' The story of the mine defusing men of HMS Vernon, their triumphs and tragedies. I simply read everything I could lay my hands on. I don't read as much as I used to them, I regret to say.

Hands Off Arthur Ransome or my Butler will come round and give you a good thrashing you won't forget, you boundah! :D:D:D

Tim
 
Rogue

KenMcCulloch said:
Oh Dylan you rogue! I prefer to remember him as the first western journalist to interview Lenin after the revolution for the Manchester Guardian:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/05.htm
- and I'm stupidly proud of the illustration in my doctoral thesis reproduced 'by kind permission of the literary estate of the late AR'.
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Rogue....Moi?

- heaven forefend

but I sincerely beleive that Ransome (son of commander father and landowner mother) was a toff writing about toff children being toffs

D
 
dylanwinter said:
Rogue....Moi?

- heaven forefend

but I sincerely beleive that Ransome (son of commander father and landowner mother) was a toff writing about toff children being toffs

D
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So you'd say the same about P.G. Wodehouse then, who wrote about nothing but Toffs, or Oscar Wilde who wrote almost entirely about the ruling classes, or Saki, whose domain was the interface between upstairs and downstairs in a class ridden society he loathed. Poor old Arthur Ransome is pretty lightweight stuff to get het up about on the grounds of his birthright. I reiterate that the children in his stories are not toffs at all, that is a misperception. You wouldn't catch toffs camping for love nor money, except in the Officers Training Corps maybe.

Tim
 
Doug_Stormforce said:
And most TV series are?
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You were quoting me out of context. I said that the TV series was nothing like real life ... but it was a dream.

Incidentally a dream that I am now able to live - fooling around in open boats and getting muddy.

I think it is a bit pointless to debate whether Ransome and the kids he wrote about were middle or upper class. They were obviously quite "posh", but so was Christopher Robin, Alice Liddell, the Railway Children and so on.
 
FWIW I used to love AR books as a child, and although we weren't upper middle class, my twin brother and I did spend every day and all day of every summer holiday exploring alone under sail/oar/outboard from about 8 'till we discovered fanny. We didn't ever camp out but we did camp in the boat park sometimes. I think it was a wonderful way to spend childhood summers. We learned about responsibility and had endless fun.

If someone else doesn't like AR then that's great, each to their own.
 
More in this than meets the eye?

dylanwinter said:
Rogue....Moi?

- heaven forefend

but I sincerely beleive that Ransome (son of commander father and landowner mother) was a toff writing about toff children being toffs

D
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This is incorrect. Ransome's father was a college lecturer and his mother was the daughter of a former sheep farmer who had lost his land. It was the fictional father of the Walker family who was a naval officer.

It is unusual to criticise a work of fiction because of the social position of its characters. I never heard of "Train Spotting" being criticised for this reason or, at the other extreme, Jane Austen's books. Ransome's books include farm labourers and tradesmen's sons (the Death & Glories). I suppose as a plumber's son I should have identified with the latter but such considerations never occurred to me, I simply enjoyed the stories, and I was more fortunate than some of the contributors to this thread in that my enjoyment wasn't spoiled by class prejudice.

Dylan's use of the word "toff" is instructive. It is a derogatory term applied to persons perceived to be at a higher social level than the writer, much like the word "pleb" which is approximately the opposite. Hopefully both are falling out of use.

I've been enjoying Dylan's u-tube narrative "Keep Turning Left" but at times I thought I detected in his comments and asides something of a political agenda (e.g. Margaret Thatcher more warlike than Boadicea) or at least some ingrained social prejudice. I am probably wrong about this and certainly won't let it spoil my enjoyment. I hope to carry on enjoying Dylan's works and hope they will continue to entertain future generations for as long as Arthur Ransome's have.
 
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