to think uncle quentin is an abusive prick?

[gymboywalton]

And that aunt fanny should have left him years ago?

I also think that Julian, dick and Anne's parents are crap too, send the kids to boarding school and then send to someone else for every bloody holiday.

I loved the books but yes he was an awful character.

I loved the one where the boys had a tutor who turned out to be involved in smuggling.

Much preferred them to the secret seven despite the sensible parents in the latter...

I thought Anne was a bit of a drip...I wanted to be George, and to refuse to answer to Georgina. I did try that, my name shortens to a boy's name, but my mother quashed that plan pretty smartish.

For some reason I did think we'd be much more likely to get a dog if I were a boy.

Uncle Quentin is vile. It's so clear that poor George has issues.

I think the subtext is that Julian, Dick and Anne's parents send them to stay with Quentin and Fanny partly as a way of giving money to Fanny (they pay her to look after J, D and A). Mind you, why they don't give Fanny the money, take George themselves and take the children on holiday, I don't know.

Swallows and Amazons has a lot of letting the children go be wild. Mind you, I think you have to take it all with a pinch of salt: the unlikeliness of that kind of freedom is part of the appeal for children.

Aunt Fanny gave George the island and then Quentin tried to sell it over the heads of Fanny and George the second he was offered tuppence for it.

My dd has Famous Five books as an audio app on her i-Pad. Whenever Uncle Quentin comes on, I'm seething in minutes.

I loved those books. I started reading one to my nine year old recently.

After a few pages he looked at me and said "I hate these children already."

Cross Uncle Quentin was a dedicated scientist working to save the country from invasion! Pity the kids were such nasty little snobs though. Do you think that George had learnt from her parents relationship that being female was a crappy deal, or is this an early manifestation of gender disphoria in juvenile literature?
Have been reading FF to dd(7) and editing the more offensive bits. Also Swallows and Amazons. Anything's better than fairy bloody ballerinas or endless tracy beaker on cbbc.