Saturday 1 January 2011

Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransome

Winter Holiday is the fourth in the Swallows and Amazon series by Arthur Ransome and was first published in 1933. The four Swallows and two Amazons are back and in addition Dick and Dorothea Cullum appear for the first time.

This time instead of the main focus being on sailing as it was in the first three, the novel is about (as the title cunningly suggests) a winter holiday in the lake district. Ransome cleverly sends the Swallows' mother away (to Malta with their youngest sister to visit their Naval officer father). Nancy and Peggy are living at home with their mother as usual. Dick and Dorothea are having a holiday at the home of their mother's former nurse (Mrs Dixon) while their parents are in Egypt on an archaelogical dig.

With the grownups conveniently gone, the children are free to have adventures in the snow and ice around Windemere: instead of being sailors and pirates they are artic explorers and their project is to trek to the "north pole".

When I read these novels as a child, this was my favourite. Dick and Dorothea wonder at the skills of the other, older, children but they also have skills that the Swallows and Amazons envy. All children share a fantastically vivid imagination and they remind me of myself in some respects.

What has struck me about this series is just how much freedom the children had back then. This would probably frighten the skin of modern parents but for someone who grew up in the 70s in small-town England it is something to be envied. Back when I was a girl it was common for my mum to pack me up some sandwiches, a drink and some snacks and wave goodbye as I rode off for the day with my friend on our bikes. We'd be out until it was nearly dark, roaming all around Windsor Great Park. Even that much freedom seems to scare modern people - but we didn't make fires, camp out overnight or sail around a huge lake in small sailing boats.

1 comment:

Sho said...

Having finished the novel I can say that it's no wonder this was my favourite because while I have never really sailed (once, I think, and I didn't much like it) I have skated and sledged and wandered around in the snow. As you do when you live in Northern Europe.

Again, the thing that struck me with the novel is that there are peripheral grown-ups who really don't meddle at all in the activities of the children. In fact, Dixon the farmer, although a bit of a cariacature of the 'taciturn northern farmer' takes a liking to Dick and helps him greatly with their project to trek to the 'North Pole'.

The only adult who features at all heavily in this novel, as in the others is Captain Flint, aka Peggy and Nancy's Uncle Jim.

Unfortunately we're now in the big thaw so I couldn't get the Gruesome Twosome to come on a trek to our 'North Pole' even if I had the ability to persuade them out of the house for anything other than shopping.