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Original poster

reading swallows and amazons for the first time...

93 replies

casbie · 17/09/2007 15:47

quality writing and pure childish escapism - fantastic!

OP posts:
Original poster
casbie · 18/09/2007 16:17

i'm a devoted fan of Famous Five, but Swallows and Amazons is written so much better...

It maybe a bit slow paced in comparison, but the characters are so believable and charming!

poor old John, Captain Nancy is so much better at everything than him!

OP posts:
DumbledoresGirl · 18/09/2007 15:12

Ha! I put off reading S&A for ages (my mother kept trying to persuade me but I assumed from the title it was about wildlife in South America!) but when I finally tried it, I was hooked for the whole series.

I wonder how to get my own children on to them?

fleacircus · 18/09/2007 15:11

Went out in a boat on Coniston Water (where it's set) this summer - it was lovely and I decided that Titty is a perfectly reasonable name for our as yet unborn daughter. Sadly DP has vetoed it.

evilreturns · 18/09/2007 15:08

swallos and amazons forever!

UnquietDad · 18/09/2007 15:07

Better Drowned Than Duffers
If Not Duffers Won't Drown

S&A totally pisses on the Famous Five.

evilreturns · 18/09/2007 15:03

oh gosh i am quite startlingly uninterested in all things nautical. i just thought they were great stories as well.

MrsBadger · 18/09/2007 15:00

I read them all when I was quite small
was first introduced to sailing at 13 or so and perplexed the instructor by knowing all the knots, the names of the ropes and how to tack

pony books unaccountably didn't confer the same skills when I first went riding

SoMuchToBits · 18/09/2007 14:57

Also loved Winter Holiday. Suffering from real indecision here.

The strange thing is, I was never particularly interested in sailing (unlike dh, who also read them), but just thought they were great adventure books.

evilreturns · 18/09/2007 14:55

oh i love these books! i like the picts and the martyrs and winter holiday, but like swallows and amazons best..

MrsBadger · 18/09/2007 14:54

oh, and 'we didn't mean to go to sea' is certainly the best, though Pigeon Post gives it a run for its money

SoMuchToBits · 18/09/2007 14:53

Hmmmm..... don't know which is my favourite. Now I'll have to go and read them all with ds, so that I can find out! I remember liking Swallows and Amazons, Swallowdale and Pigeon Post quite a lot though.

MrsBadger · 18/09/2007 14:52

took me a while to come round to Missee Lee but once I did it was excellent.
the 'better marmalade at Oxford, better scholarship at Cambridge' line is frequently used in family arguments.

DumbledoresGirl · 18/09/2007 14:51

Which was your favourite? I loved "We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea" best. I think I was absolutely gripped with the horror of how a small mistake could lead to such an event.

MaryAnnSingleton · 18/09/2007 14:50

mm,I think it's because ds tried to read Swallows and Amazons after watching and loving the film version - it seemed quite hard work, but can understand how it wouldn't matter if you loved the books (doing it that way round) iyswim...my dad read them when young and thought the name Titty was very funny

SoMuchToBits · 18/09/2007 14:49

I preferred the "real" ones too.

SoMuchToBits · 18/09/2007 14:48

That's OK! It took me a while to work out that Vicky and Bridget were the same person, and that Vicky was just a nickname .

DumbledoresGirl · 18/09/2007 14:48

Peter

DumbledoresGirl · 18/09/2007 14:48

Not if you like them MAS. Although I personally did not like the fantasy ones: Pater Duck and Missee Lee I think they were called. I liked "real" adventure as a child.

MaryAnnSingleton · 18/09/2007 14:47

don't you think though it's terribly laboured and sloooow ?

DumbledoresGirl · 18/09/2007 14:47

Vicky/Bridget is definitely the fifth member of the family - not with them on any of their adventures I think.

I was a fan as a child and still have all my copies but have not yet found a willing accomplice in any of my children.

WigWamBam · 18/09/2007 14:46

Ahh ... so tis my memory letting me down.

I'm getting old, you know

SoMuchToBits · 18/09/2007 14:45

No, no there were five of them altogether - John, Susan, Titty, Roger .....and Vicky/Bridget. In the first book, Roger (the youngest of the other four) is 7 years old, and Vicky/Bridget is still a baby.

WigWamBam · 18/09/2007 14:43

I'm sure she was originally Titty.

She was actually called Mavis but her family called her Titty after Tittymouse in a story called Tittymouse and Tattymouse.

Sounds like they have just made it a bit more PC!

SoMuchToBits · 18/09/2007 14:42

Vicy was, as someone already said the baby who is really called Bridget. In the first book she doesn't come into it much, as she is a baby and therefore too young to join the others on their adventures, but in later books she is more prominent, but by then known as Bridget.

I also love the books, and am hoping it won't be long before ds is ready to read them (I still have copies of most of them).

WigWamBam · 18/09/2007 14:38

I don't remember a Vicky when I read it - wasn't the little sister called Titty? Renamed Kitty in one of the films because of the inevitable sniggers (one teacher who read it aloud to us when I was about 7 used to pronounce it Tie-ty)

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